Welcome to veganforum.com!

First of all, a message to new members: It may take circa a couple of days to get your account approved. If you post before the membership is approved, your posts will need a manual approval from a moderator before it shows up (because new accounts per default are 'moderated'), so there will be a delay before they become visible.

Please check the User Control Panel>Group Memberships for more info about simple access to so called 'private' areas / member 'zones'. In short, you need to join a so called 'User Group' to get access to some of our subforums.

If you are not a vegan yet, you will get posting abilities in the Not A Vegan-sections only.

The number of members that have broken our simple rules is very, very low - even if most forum members probably never read board guidelines. Please don't think of them as a list of dos and don'ts, but as a description of what kind of site this is. If our guidelines make sense to you, you'll probably never need to think about them again!

1) The Vegan Forum is a site for vegans. Vegans are against killing, harming and exploiting animals (and humans, of course!). Vegans are against using meat, fur, leather, eggs, milk and honey, and also avoid using other animal products as much as possible and practical.

2) Non-vegans who want to go vegan and have questions or need support are also welcome, and will get ('moderated') posting abilities in the Not A Vegan-area (only). When (if) they become vegans, they will get full access to the rest of the forum simply by sending us a message.

3) No trolling please - and please don't respond to trolls! This forum is about two-way communication, and we expect people to participate and respond, not only to promote companies, sites, themselves or their ideologies.

4) Do not reveal information about any of our members - here, or anywhere else. Avoid posting private information about anyone but yourself. Please respect that the owner of any account here should decide which information about themselves and their identity that should be posted about them, and which should not.

5) The Vegan Forum is not a public discussion forum 'for everyone'. Consider this forum a friendly dinner party where peaceful and polite people who are into veganism are invited :-)

6) Please treat each other (including members that in your opinion don't follow our guidelines) with respect, and if you disagree with someone, focus on viewpoints, not on persons. Even if you are verbally attacked by others, please offer others the same understanding and kindness you would like to receive instead of fighting back (by insulting others/accusing others for being rude, idiots, sick etc). This also applies to discussing people outside the forum: please don't use the site to post people-hating posts or personal info about others. In other words, no personal attacks on celebrities, ex-wives or anyone else that can be identified, please!

7) Do not post anything - in messages, avatars, signatures, user profile etc. - that might be interpreted as encouraging, supporting, being involved in, defending, justifying or glorifying anything illegal - including breaking laws for any reason, violence against people or property, use of illegal drugs etc. Also, do not promote sites that support illegal activities of any kind - or contain links to sites that do.

8) When starting a new thread, try to use a descriptive title - and try to post your thread in a relevant subforum.

9) Links to relevant sites are welcome. Please post only one link, and do it in 'Links, news, articles', or in 'Projects, products & companies'. Do not promote links to URLs that pr. default are invisble to the public, and no product/opinion/company/organization/spam or preaching please. The normal way to 'sneak promote' a product, site or company on a forum is to make up an excuse for having it mentioned a lot of times - or to use the signature/avatar to promote it. Please don't...

10) Full members may use the User Control Panel to add a signature, avatar, user photo, user title and so on. We encourage you to use your photo (portrait) as an avatar. If you use the User Photo option (in addition to/instead of the avatar option), please use it only for a picture of yourself! :) If you misuse signatures, avatars etc., you may loose these options.

11) Please don't discuss specific members of other forums. Also, please don't discuss specific members of this forum on other sites. The vegan movement doesn't need a 'war ' between various vegan sites. To be critical to the way others inform about ie. veganism or nutrition is of course accepted, but no name calling please. We will remove links to sites that are involved in 'site wars', and reserve the right to ban members who are involved in such activities.

12) We are concerned with keeping the original (and by far, the most common) meaning (see below) of the word 'vegan' intact. Veganism is not only about diet. Please don't use our forum to try to change veganism to something else than it is.

13) You need to be 13 years old or above to be a member here.

14) This site is reserved for people who basically respect and support how the site is run. If you seem to come here to provoke, stir up trouble or if you generally spread negativity, you have come to the wrong forum! On the other hand - if you have ideas re. how we can improve the site, constructive suggestions are always welcome. The likelihood that we can improve the site increases dramatically if you post constructive critique/suggestions to us instead of to your aunt or anyone else... :)

15) Becoming a member here does not imply a guarantee that you will remain a member here. Also, we reserve the right to delete/moderate accounts and posts - for any reason - without further explanation.

16) Please be honest, make sense, and don't 'play games' with the rules.

17) Please try to avoid taking threads too far off topic or using public threads for private messages, and please search for existing threads before you start new ones.

18) Don't forget the initiation ritual for newcomers. To participate, you need a stick of celery, a small scooter and a large elderly gentleman.

Finally, a little hint about readability: If what you write refer to the last post in the thread, and if that post isn't very long, you don't need to use quotes. If you need to refer to an earlier post, please quote only the sentence you want to comment, and not the whole post.

The board rules may be adjusted/changed at any time, but will always be based on the same basic prinicples that we always have had.

It is impossible for us to review all messages. All messages express the views of the author. Neither the owners or admin/moderators of The Vegan Forum, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd. (developers of vBulletin) or server owners will be held responsible for the content of any public or private message.

Have you posted a message, but can't find it? This may be due to one of the following reasons...

In order to get access to all the areas you are interested in, you need to go here and join so called 'user groups': http://www.veganforum.com/forums/profile.php?do=editusergroups

Your post may have been moved to a different subforum (example: all posts from non-vegans are moved to the Not A Vegan-section).

Before an account is fully approved, you need to confirm that you used a real email address when you registered. ('Spammers' often register using fake email addresses...)

Your account also needs to be manually approved by a moderator, which may take up to 12-48 hours.

Messages from not-yet-approved accounts are moderated, so if you post something before your account is activated, there will be a delay before your message(s) become visible.

Members who are not vegans yet, will get a 'Not A Vegan Yet'-account. This is also a 'moderated' account type.

Almost all other accounts are non-moderated. If you have any questions, click on 'Contact Us' at the bottom of the main page, and send us your question.

Certain sections of our web site deal with health and nutrition. If you want to start a thread about a personal health issue you have, please do it in the subforum called 'Personal Health Issues' in the Member section.

Even if there are a lots of reports about improved health from people who eat vegan, the vegan diet isn't a magical cure that will ensure that you'll never get sick. Don't be shocked if you get eg. a flu, headache or gain/loose weight as a vegan. Please don't use the information on our site as anything else than what it is: general info. Personal, professional diagnosis and treatment from someone you trust is often necessary - and strongly adviced - if you have a severe health problem. Both vegans and non-vegans should ensure that they get the nutrients the need. People on different diets need to pay attention to nutrients, and while there may be no reason to believe that vegans should be generally more nutrient-deficient than non-vegans, there's no reason whatsoever to falsely believe that once we go vegan, we can blindly trust that whatever we eat, we'll always have a good balance of all the nutrients we need. Vegan or not - if you consume anything known to block absorption of certain nutrients, 'eating varied' may not be enough: people may miss or be low in certain nutrients. A little info about nutrition is useful for everybody - including people who live on a varied, vegan diet.

No trolling please!

Here are some definitions of the word 'troll':

'Internet troll, a person who is deliberately inflammatory on the Internet in order to provoke a vehement response from other users.'

'An Internet "troll" is a person who delights in sowing discord on the Internet. He (and it is usually he) tries to start arguments and upset people.'

'As a verb, the practice of trying to lure other Internet users into sending responses to carefully-designed incorrect statements or similar "bait."'

'An "Internet troll" or "Forum Troll" is a person who posts outrageous message to bait people to answer. Forum Troll delights in sowing discord on the forums. A troll is someone who inspires flaming rhetoric, someone who is purposely provoking and pulling people into flaming discussion. Flaming discussions usually end with name calling and a flame war.'

Some people have small invisible trolls living inside them without noticing it... :)

Q: Why can't I register?

A: Registering is sometimes disabled, but will be re-enabled again after a few days.

Q: Why didn't I get an activation mail?

A: Are you using AOL? If yes, you may need to try with another email account. Please send us an email using the Contact Us-link of the main forum page.

Q: I can't find my thread!

A: If we move or merge threads, we try to always add redirects, or send PMs to the posters. Please try the search-function.

Q: Why doesn't the search function always work?

A: It has a silly limit, and ignores words that have only three characters or less. In those cases, try Google, and as an example, if you search for the word 'art', type: site:veganforum.com art

Q What do I do if I forget my password?

A: Send us an email using the Contact Us-link, or click on the link you'll see if you try to enter a wrong password.

Q: I'm new, and I can't post anything yet!

A: You both need to confirm your email address and wait for membership approval before your posting abilities are fully enabled.

Q: But I need to post... NOW!

A: Try the Quick Questions-subforum...

Q: Why can I post only in the Not A Vegan-area?

A: This happens if you click on the option that says that you are not a vegan when you register.

Q: I have posted my first messages, but can't see them!

A: You may actually write a post before your membership is approved, but (except for the Quick Questions-subforum) the post won't be visible before they are approved.

Q: Why can't I access all threads or areas (anymore)?

A: Please look at your Group Membership settings in the User CP. You may need to join one or more so called 'User Groups' to get access to the threads/subforums you are interested in. This may be the case even if you have had access to these areas earlier.

Q: Why was my post first visible, and now gone?

A:Please read our FAQ/Guidelines. This normally happens only if you have posting anything that's in conflict with the board rules.

Q: Can I change my username?

A: Yes.

In very rare cases, we ban members.

We don't want to - or enjoy - banning members. We use that option in cases where members are not willing to follow our simple rules.

It's important for a forum like this to have a clear profile. Part of our profile is that we expect people to treat each other with respect, and to avoid personal attacks and insults. Another important part of our profile is that we don't want this site to become a forum for discussions about any kind of criminal activity - including various kinds of civil disobedience. You won't see threads about when it is right and when it is wrong to throw a firebomb or to burn down a test lab here, and the site is reserved for people who are OK with this policy.

Having this policy means that we occasionally have to remove posts from animal rights activists who don't like our rules, are not aware of them, or refuse to follow them. A few of these people seem to want our forum - and all other message boards, actually - to be run according to their own guidelines, which includes allowing such discussions.

Why don't we even allow discussions about mild forms of criminality or civil disobedience'? We tried that in the early days, but these threads were used by others as a reference for discussing more serious law-breaking: 'Why can't I write about ***** when ***** can write about ******????'

What about evaluating each case individually, and allow some threads about criminal activities, but remove others? This forum isn't run by a lawyer company, we can't look at individual cases and discuss these (or that we occasionally remove some posts) with people who don't accept our rules. Plus, if we did, the reference would be OUR interpretation of right/wrong, or our interpretation of certain laws, which easily would end up in a major power trip.

Allowing posts that encourage/support breaking laws may cause problems for the site as such, for the admin, and also for the members who post these messages. On several occasions, allowing such content has resulted in legal trouble for the admins and/or the server host company.

We don't expect banned members to send us flowers or to log into other boards and tell them how great we are. We have seen several cases of banned people who start to attack us elsewhere, and who make up stories like 'I was banned for no reason at all' etc.. We have to live both with being unpopular with members who are banned - and with their buddies, who have not heard our version of why this person is banned.

The only way you can help a banned friend is to look at the rules, and help him or her understand that like everyone else - and like the 99% of our members that are not banned - he or she has to respect and follow these rules. It won't help to back this person up with attacks, sarcasm or negativity, and unfortunately we can't discuss each case of moderation with everybody who wants us to.

All forums pretty much have the same rules. The bigger a forum is, the more it will have of everything: messages, helpful people and useful information, but also more troublemakers. This forum has 10 times as much of almost everything compared when we only had 10% of the members we have now - we are very happy that we don't have 10 times as many conflicts or 10 times as many cases of banning.

Nobody wants to get banned or moderated, and we can see that moderation/banning may look like a power trip from the outside, a control thing. It isn't. To force or expect someone to administrate this site according to their own rules and visions instead of following the intentions and premises the site is built upon would be more of a 'control thing' than banning people (or send them a warning/'infraction') for breaking rules they claimed that they agreed in when they registered.

Instead of banning people whenever they seem to stir up conflict or break rules, it's normal at most reasonable forums to give warnings (or 'infractions)' - or put members on so called 'Moderated Posts' first. 'Moderated posts' work as a kind of warning, but also ensures that people who are in the middle of a conflict don't go bananas in public and attack other members or continue to break the rules on purpose.

We don't like the word 'moderated', because we actually don't moderate posts or members. We call it 'Delayed Posts' instead of 'Moderated Posts', because we don't change these posts in any ways. We just approve them (or delete them, if the member continues to break the forum rules).

We don't put 'banned' next to the name of a banned member. This person may have revealed her identity here, and may have friends or relatives visiting the site. It wouldn't make sense to tell everybody that he or she has been banned - we believe that most people who in any way are being punished (or similar) for their behavior don't want a lot of attention around their conflict with laws or rules.

This forum has a 'profile', like any other forum, and we'll stick to that. We are fully aware that we can't please everybody. We don't even run this site to please anyone, but if we should choose one group to 'please', it would be the group of people who generally like the site, and not those who create trouble or would like the site to be something very different from what it is.

We have on several occasions unbanned people who agree that they have been breaking the rules - members who want to be unbanned, and tell us that they won't break them again. If you ever should get banned, and want the ban lifted, here are three useful things to consider:

1) If you can't see that you have broken the rules, you'll probably break them again. It won't make sense to unban members who don't understand the rules or that they have broken them.

2) The rule about treating each other with respect includes admins and moderators too! Insulting and attacking us won't help you having the ban lifted.

3) We understand that it is frustrating to become banned, but ask yourself if it actually makes sense to present explanations about why you are banned that almost nobody will believe in, like 'I just asked a question', 'I disagreed with the admin' or 'I was just giving someone useful advice'...

If you are a newly banned member and want us to lift the ban... please take a deep breath and read the FAQ/guidelines again before you do anything else. We are only humans, and it's easy to say or write stupid things when/if we are being rejected. Wait a day or two, and contact us if you want us to look at the situation again.

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