Eating Disorders Foundation of Victoria (EDV) Online Services
Terms and Conditions of Use - Last reviewed and updated Dec 2009
The Eating Disorders online services, and the purposes for which they are intended, are currently as follows
Recovery Chatroom and Messageboard
• The Eating Disorders Victoria (EDV) Recovery Chatroom and Messageboard are designed to give people living with an eating disorder the opportunity to communicate with people who are on the same journey.
• These forums aim to foster an environment of peer support where users have opportunities to connect with each other, and give and receive support that helps them along their road to recovery.
Care and Share Chatroom and Messageboard
• The Care and Share Chatroom and Messageboard are designed to help families, friends, partners and other carers of people with an eating disorder to communicate with each other.
• These forums aim to foster an environment of peer support where users have opportunities to share experiences, give and receive support that helps them cope with caring for a loved one with an eating disorder.
1. You must be 16 years of age or over to use the EDV Online Services.
2. You agree to use the EDV Online Services only for the purposes for which they are intended, as described above.
3. You are specifically prohibited from using EDV Online Services to promote or advertise any goods or services, including specific treatment options and treatment services for eating disorders; and from using the forums to solicit money, housing, shelter, transportation, or similar activities.
4. Every user is allowed to register only one email address and one username. You must register using only your own email address or an email address that you have legal access to. Please note that setting up multiple accounts/and or usernames is misleading and is construed as an abuse of trust. If you need to change your username for any reason, please seek assistance from a Helpline team member (edfv@eatingdisorders.org.au).
5. You must not impersonate another community member, administrator, moderator or person.
6. You must not use EDV Online Services to attempt to deliver professional advice, diagnosis, and/or treatment.
7. While using EDV Online Services, you must not disclose or request any contact details, personal information, or information that could identify you or any other person. Personal information includes your full name; identifying information about your home, work or school; email addresses, other online forum details such as msn, facebook, myspace, twitter, other social networking sites, blogs,etc. The EDV Online Services are designed to be anonymous. Developing relationships with other users or moderators outside of the EDV Online Services is not recommended by EDV.
8. The primary role of EDV moderators is to facilitate peer support between users and to ensure the EDV Guidelines are upheld. One-to-one relationships between moderators and users are not allowed. This includes sending personal messages to individual moderators on the Messageboard (with the exception of a Helpline team member), and having personal or professional relationships outside of EDV.
9. On occasion it may happen that an EDV user and an EDV moderator discover that they know each other personally or professionally. If this happens, you must notify a Helpline team member (edfv@eatingdisorders.org.au) immediately. You must notify a Helpline team member immediately if you believe a moderator is not acting as expected by these Terms and Conditions of Use or the Guidelines.
10. You must not post any material which you know is false, inaccurate, misleading, defamatory, libellous, offensive, harassing, obscene, pornographic, profane, threatening, abusive, invasive of a person's privacy, or otherwise in violation of any law.
11. The conversations and posts in EDV Online Services are confidential. You agree not to repeat or copy the conversation or posts for other people. This prohibition includes copying and pasting conversations or posts to other online forums (e.g. myspace). The conversations and posts in EDV Online Services are for registered EDV users only.
12. You must not post links to any website or document that contains negative and triggering content. EDV does not allow links to sites that encourage others to participate in eating disorder behaviours, that brag about having an eating disorder, that consider having an eating disorder is an achievement or lifestyle, and/or that contain highly triggering content.
13. You must not instigate fights or disharmony, or make any attempt to use the EDV Online Services or information gathered here to cause harm to others.
14. You must not use the EDV Online Services while under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
15. EDV does not tolerate racism, sexism, negative commentary against sexual orientation, comments that discriminate on the basis of religion, or any other form of discrimination. While using EDV Online Services, you agree to conduct yourself similarly.
16. You acknowledge that the content of the EDV Online Services is not medical, counselling or professional advice and should not be construed as or relied upon as medical, counselling, or professional advice.
17. You agree that the opinions, statements, ideas, and individualities of others will be respected, even if you are not in agreement with said opinions, statements, ideas or individualities of others.
18. Lurking, harassment, verbal abuse of another user, flooding and flaming will not be tolerated for any reason.
19. Spamming, use of programs such as IRC clients, worms, bots scripts, or Trojan horses will not be tolerated for any reason. Initiation or participation in any such activity will cause you to be banned from using EDV Online Services, and may be cause to report the behaviour to your ISP for termination of account. Be aware that we record the ISP of all visitors and users of the Chat Room.
20. At the sole discretion of the Online Services Coordinator, a person who appears to have a Chat Room Addiction may be banned for an indefinite time from using the Chat Room. Chat Room Addiction is when a person:
21. - is showing excessive signs of co-dependency when chatting with others.
- is chatting more than a few hours a day.
- is chatting instead of taking care of themselves physically or emotionally.
- is avoiding relationships with others by chatting online.
22. You must not transmit or upload any information, software or other material which violates or infringes upon rights of others, including material which is an invasion of privacy or publicity rights or which is protected by copyright, trademark or other proprietary right, or derivative works with respect thereto, without first obtaining permission from the owner or right holder.
23. You must not transmit any information, software or other material which contains viruses, time bombs, and Trojan horses; cancel bots, worms or other harmful or deleterious components or devices.
24. Users of EDV Online Services should be aware that EDV records the ISP of all visitors and users entering this community.
25. EDV agrees to keep your email address and password confidential. EDV will not sell or in any way pass on your login information and personal details to a third party.
26. EDV may collect, store and use any personal information provided by you through the registration and use of EDV Online Services for the purpose of assisting you to use the services and to provide you with information relevant to EDV.
27. EDV may collect transcripts of online chat sessions and messageboard forums for the purposes of evaluation, research, training and quality assurance. Users will remain anonymous with any subsequent reports not including any identifying information connecting individual users to the transcripts.
28. While considerable care has been taken by EDV in creating and moderating EDV Online Services, all information given by users on the forums should be regarded as opinion only and never as fact. EDV makes no claims regarding the accuracy of material posted - neither static material (information pages) nor dynamic material (posted by community members/users).
To the extent permitted by law: (a) the information contained in EDV Online Services is provided "as is" without any express or implied warranty regarding its accuracy and EDV accepts no responsibility for errors or omissions associated with EDV Online Services (whether negligent or otherwise); and (b) EDV disclaims any duty of care and excludes any liability for any loss or damage arising directly or indirectly as a result of you or any other person using or relying on the information contained in EDV Online Services for whatever purpose or whatever manner.
29. EDV has the right to remove from the EDV Online Services any materials that breach these Terms and Conditions of Use and/ or the Guidelines and/or any other material it considers inappropriate.
30. Any user who is found to be in violation of any of the stated rules will be banned. A ban may be temporary or permanent, depending on the circumstances. A banned user may appeal their banning to the Online Services Coordinator. A decision on whether the ban remains in place will be made by the Online Services Coordinator after consideration of all the circumstances involved.
Please tick the box to indicate your consent as follows:
I am 16 years old or over; I have read and understand the purpose of the EDV Online Services; and I have read and agree to abide by these Terms and Conditions of Use. I also agree to read the Guidelines for use of the EDV Online Services.
Reviewed and updated Dec 2009 |
Eating Disorders Message board > Registration Form