Astrologers' Community Forum Rules (last update on October 15, 2019)
Help Support Astrologers' Community:
This forum is dedicated to astrology, bringing together beginners and advanced practitioners of this ancient art.
This is a Public Forum
This is a public forum and everyone must take responsibility for restricting what they share to their own comfort level. We can't control people's sense of boundaries or lack thereof. This forum is NOT appropriate for confidential sharing and we strongly warn everyone that this is NOT an appropriate place to expect confidentiality. We are NOT responsible for members' posting decisions and cleaning up their posts if they overshare.
Registration
Registering and using multiple account IDs is not permitted. Any such duplicate account IDs will be banned by moderators. For Moderation and Administration purposes, no User IDs are deleted or changed at the AW forum. You can delete any of your own posts at any time or stop posting to the Forum if you want to leave the Forum. You can restart posting any time you want if you decide to come back.
Ethical rules to observe
Your participation on this forum is allowed and welcomed as long as you warrant that you will not post any messages that are obscene, vulgar, sexually explicit, harmful to young people, hateful, racist, deliberately offensive, homophobic, threatening, defamatory, damaging, or otherwise violative of any laws. Respect of other members is expected at all times. No talking down to, being rude, dismissing of people, trying to shut someone down if they don't agree, or passive aggressively drawing people out to respond negatively.
Flaming, spamming, or trolling is basis for immediate banning from the forum. Please do not post angry messages (flaming), post the same message over and over across the forum or post non-astrological advertising (spamming), and do not post messages for the sole purpose of angering other people in the forum (trolling).
Underaged members are advised to ask parental permission to discuss sexual matters in this Forum but this site cannot be held responsible if permission is not obtained.
Astrological data are highly sensitive. We therefore ask you to take the protection of personal data of third persons very seriously. If you wish to post the chart of a person known to you, you must have their permission to do so or anonymize the name and all birth / personal data. If this is not the case, please refrain from posting this chart.
Please know that you should take your own risks if you decide to trust someone else with their astrological services, as this forum does not undertake any responsibility for any astrological services, especially those offered against a fee, via this forum in any form: through public forums or chat, private messages or emails.
Also remember that this is a public forum, indexed by search engines (Google, for instance), so basically everything you post here is not only viewable by any other person, but it also can be retrieved by a simple internet search.
Forum moderation
The forum is moderated by a team of moderators. Their list is available on this page: Forum Leaders.
Although the administrator and moderators of Astrologers' Community will make all reasonable efforts to keep all objectionable messages off this forum, it is impossible for us to review all messages. All messages express the views of the author, and neither the administrator or moderators of Astrologers' Community will be held responsible for the content of any message.
The administrator and moderators of Astrologers' Community reserve the right to remove, edit, move or close any thread or post which fails to abide the forum rules. Moderators' means to get users to comply with these common sense rules include friendly communication, warnings, and eventually banning in case of repeated or extreme unwanted behavior. Banning from the forum is only done for some violation of the forum rules. The moderators' decisions are final. You just have to trust the moderators that they're doing the best job they can.
Threads and posts
New threads should be started in the appropriate board, in order to keep the forum organized. Non-astrological threads belong to the “Anything else…” section. Threads started in the wrong board will be moved by moderators to the appropriate board.
Posting the same topic on more than one forum, or making multiple posts on the exact same subject is not permitted.
Off-topic and personal messages are permitted as long as they are limited and do not turn the attention from the astrological topic discussed.
Personal attacks are not permitted, nor is attacking others to defend your position nor fighting back from such attacks; such situations have only lead in the past to flame wars, stirring turbulent emotions within the community. Personal issues are to be solved through private communication. When in doubt, focus on the PROBLEM not on the PERSON. Whenever personal attacks appear on the forum, notify the moderators at once so they can take measures.
As a newcomer to the forum, please post as soon as possible to the ‘Introduce yourself’ section. Describe what sparked your interest in astrology or your background of knowledge, or write anything you like about yourself.
Take enough time getting to know the existing threads in the forum and sub-forums to be able to best determine where to post your new thread(s). Before asking a question use the search tool in the forum menu to locate any previous threads that might have already answered your question.
Giving your own astrological ideas in your astrological posts shows a willingness to learn and helps create an exchange of ideas where the experienced and less experienced can learn from each other. Members on this Forum are at different levels of study. Please keep that in mind when given or giving advice: we can not and do not guarantee the accuracy of any advice given in the Astrologers' Community.
If you are new to astrology
If you intend to learn about astrology, you will need to begin with a natal chart, preferably your own, in an effort to better understand your own life journey, and purpose. It is important to note that the time of your birth is the most important information you can have. It is no use guessing the time as this will yield incorrect interpretations. Please try to get a verified birth time. We have also have an Education forum for those who would like to begin with their astrological studies, and a listing of websites that give you an astrological report on your chart.
Medical Astrology advice should not replace advice of a medical professional.
Professional astrologers
Professional astrologers may provide a description of the off-forum services they provide and the off-forum fees they charge on the ‘Advertising’ board. They also may answer any questions people have about those services or fees on that board.
Outside the 'Advertising' board, professional astrologers may post a link to their own website in their signature line so that prospective clients can locate them. Astrological consultations for a fee are not permitted on this forum or through any of the forum tools (e.g., PMs, chatting, etc.). Forum members are fully responsible for any interactions they have with professional astrologers and this forum provides no guarantees or promises of any kind for any astrological services provided.
Promotion of non-professional astrological services (phone psychics, etc.) or non-astrological products (by signature links or otherwise) is not permitted.
Fundraising and Other Financial Transactions
Asking for money or offering money is not allowed in any way, shape, or form. Members may not make posts or send private messages to market products or services (except posts in the Advertising forum to advertise astrological services), solicit donations to fundraising campaigns, create gambling pools, or for any other purpose that would involve money changing hands. If you want to hire a professional astrologer from this site, please contact them off the forum (their contact info will be in their Advertising post or signature) and use off forum contact methods to discuss fees for their service.
Private messages
The private messages are by definition private. Nobody (nor even the forum admin) has the possibility to read them, so everybody can write everything. Anybody however can use the Ignore List block receiving and seeing messages from a specific user.
Verbal aggression or sexual advancements made via PM by other members are not permitted, therefore do not hesitate to notify the moderators, so that corrective actions might be taken.
We also expect from the forum users in respect to any messages they receive privately from other forum members or moderators. Publishing a private message is considered a violation of forum rules, unless the sender agrees to it.
Customizing Your Forum Experience
To personalize your preferences (e.g., create your own personal avatar and signature etc.) in the forum go to Account Details. All the settings are made in the "Setting" area on the left of the page.
Reporting bad posts to the Moderator Team
Users are kindly asked to participate to the moderating effort by reporting what they consider as bad posts. To do this, please click the 'Report Bad Post' link found at the top right of the offending post (
). This link is an all-purpose method of getting the Moderators' attention - once you click it, it opens a form where you can submit details of what you think is wrong with the post. It doesn't have to be a long description, it can be a few words. When you submit this form, it automatically emails all the Moderators with the URL of the thread (you don't have to copy and paste the URL into the form), and your additional comments. Your identity will not be revealed to anyone else at any time - only the Mods will know who is reporting a post. The reports are kept confidential, the poster will not know you reported their post.
Reporting is not just for severely bad posts, it's for any breaches of the rules or forum philosophy which you think we might need to be aware of and act on, small or large. We may or may not act on them depending on the severity and the courses of action open to us, but as the forums grow you guys really need to use this method to let us know of breaches as we cannot physically read every new post to detect violations or annoyances ourselves. Remember that the moderators here are unpaid volunteers who give up their time to help maintain forum quality.
You may also contact moderators by private messages, for any forum-related subject.
Underaged members
The moderators would respectfully suggest that you obtain permission from your parents or at least let them know that you are visiting this site, since certain discussion boards may have mature content that you or your parents find inappropriate. While we try to keep the subject matter on astrology, we cannot always guarantee that other subjects will not be discussed.
The moderators are also very concerned with your well-being and safety, so if you feel that you are receiving unwanted or uncomfortable attention from other forum members via PM or on the threads, or if you are uncomfortable with some of the material being discussed, please do not hesitate to contact any of us via PM immediately. We are here to help you in your astrology studies and to support you in whatever way we can.
Copyright
This forum shall not be a place facilitating copyright infringement, since that obviously goes against our main objective, which is to promote astrology. Indeed, we cannot promote astrology, if we undermine the mechanism intended to ensure that authors publishing on astrology benefit from their hard work, which puts at risk the publications of new books on astrology. Such undermining of the rights of these authors will not be tolerated on the forum, and members are asked to assist the moderators in this by reporting any posts that break this rule.
In order to respect copyright laws, members must not paste in their posts texts copied from other websites or other publications that are over 100 words long each. A maximum of 3 quotes of texts copied from other websites or other publications is accepted per post and each quote must be from a separate website or other publication. Each quote will be indicated in some way, such as placed between quotation marks, between the tags [quote]copyrighted text[/quote] or in some other way indicating that this is copied text. The source should be properly mentioned: book or magazine author and title, name of magazine, ideally also additional publication data. If the text is publicly available online, a link to the source should be given.
Plagiarism, defined as copying one's work and passing it off as one's own, is not accepted. Material in the public domain (that either was never copyrighted, either the copyright has expired) has to be appropriately cited also.
The administrator and the moderators reserve the right to change or modify these rules at any time without prior notice.
This is a Public Forum
This is a public forum and everyone must take responsibility for restricting what they share to their own comfort level. We can't control people's sense of boundaries or lack thereof. This forum is NOT appropriate for confidential sharing and we strongly warn everyone that this is NOT an appropriate place to expect confidentiality. We are NOT responsible for members' posting decisions and cleaning up their posts if they overshare.
Registration
Registering and using multiple account IDs is not permitted. Any such duplicate account IDs will be banned by moderators. For Moderation and Administration purposes, no User IDs are deleted or changed at the AW forum. You can delete any of your own posts at any time or stop posting to the Forum if you want to leave the Forum. You can restart posting any time you want if you decide to come back.
Ethical rules to observe
Your participation on this forum is allowed and welcomed as long as you warrant that you will not post any messages that are obscene, vulgar, sexually explicit, harmful to young people, hateful, racist, deliberately offensive, homophobic, threatening, defamatory, damaging, or otherwise violative of any laws. Respect of other members is expected at all times. No talking down to, being rude, dismissing of people, trying to shut someone down if they don't agree, or passive aggressively drawing people out to respond negatively.
Flaming, spamming, or trolling is basis for immediate banning from the forum. Please do not post angry messages (flaming), post the same message over and over across the forum or post non-astrological advertising (spamming), and do not post messages for the sole purpose of angering other people in the forum (trolling).
Underaged members are advised to ask parental permission to discuss sexual matters in this Forum but this site cannot be held responsible if permission is not obtained.
Astrological data are highly sensitive. We therefore ask you to take the protection of personal data of third persons very seriously. If you wish to post the chart of a person known to you, you must have their permission to do so or anonymize the name and all birth / personal data. If this is not the case, please refrain from posting this chart.
Please know that you should take your own risks if you decide to trust someone else with their astrological services, as this forum does not undertake any responsibility for any astrological services, especially those offered against a fee, via this forum in any form: through public forums or chat, private messages or emails.
Also remember that this is a public forum, indexed by search engines (Google, for instance), so basically everything you post here is not only viewable by any other person, but it also can be retrieved by a simple internet search.
Forum moderation
The forum is moderated by a team of moderators. Their list is available on this page: Forum Leaders.
Although the administrator and moderators of Astrologers' Community will make all reasonable efforts to keep all objectionable messages off this forum, it is impossible for us to review all messages. All messages express the views of the author, and neither the administrator or moderators of Astrologers' Community will be held responsible for the content of any message.
The administrator and moderators of Astrologers' Community reserve the right to remove, edit, move or close any thread or post which fails to abide the forum rules. Moderators' means to get users to comply with these common sense rules include friendly communication, warnings, and eventually banning in case of repeated or extreme unwanted behavior. Banning from the forum is only done for some violation of the forum rules. The moderators' decisions are final. You just have to trust the moderators that they're doing the best job they can.
Threads and posts
New threads should be started in the appropriate board, in order to keep the forum organized. Non-astrological threads belong to the “Anything else…” section. Threads started in the wrong board will be moved by moderators to the appropriate board.
Posting the same topic on more than one forum, or making multiple posts on the exact same subject is not permitted.
Off-topic and personal messages are permitted as long as they are limited and do not turn the attention from the astrological topic discussed.
Personal attacks are not permitted, nor is attacking others to defend your position nor fighting back from such attacks; such situations have only lead in the past to flame wars, stirring turbulent emotions within the community. Personal issues are to be solved through private communication. When in doubt, focus on the PROBLEM not on the PERSON. Whenever personal attacks appear on the forum, notify the moderators at once so they can take measures.
As a newcomer to the forum, please post as soon as possible to the ‘Introduce yourself’ section. Describe what sparked your interest in astrology or your background of knowledge, or write anything you like about yourself.
Take enough time getting to know the existing threads in the forum and sub-forums to be able to best determine where to post your new thread(s). Before asking a question use the search tool in the forum menu to locate any previous threads that might have already answered your question.
Giving your own astrological ideas in your astrological posts shows a willingness to learn and helps create an exchange of ideas where the experienced and less experienced can learn from each other. Members on this Forum are at different levels of study. Please keep that in mind when given or giving advice: we can not and do not guarantee the accuracy of any advice given in the Astrologers' Community.
If you are new to astrology
If you intend to learn about astrology, you will need to begin with a natal chart, preferably your own, in an effort to better understand your own life journey, and purpose. It is important to note that the time of your birth is the most important information you can have. It is no use guessing the time as this will yield incorrect interpretations. Please try to get a verified birth time. We have also have an Education forum for those who would like to begin with their astrological studies, and a listing of websites that give you an astrological report on your chart.
Medical Astrology advice should not replace advice of a medical professional.
Professional astrologers
Professional astrologers may provide a description of the off-forum services they provide and the off-forum fees they charge on the ‘Advertising’ board. They also may answer any questions people have about those services or fees on that board.
Outside the 'Advertising' board, professional astrologers may post a link to their own website in their signature line so that prospective clients can locate them. Astrological consultations for a fee are not permitted on this forum or through any of the forum tools (e.g., PMs, chatting, etc.). Forum members are fully responsible for any interactions they have with professional astrologers and this forum provides no guarantees or promises of any kind for any astrological services provided.
Promotion of non-professional astrological services (phone psychics, etc.) or non-astrological products (by signature links or otherwise) is not permitted.
Fundraising and Other Financial Transactions
Asking for money or offering money is not allowed in any way, shape, or form. Members may not make posts or send private messages to market products or services (except posts in the Advertising forum to advertise astrological services), solicit donations to fundraising campaigns, create gambling pools, or for any other purpose that would involve money changing hands. If you want to hire a professional astrologer from this site, please contact them off the forum (their contact info will be in their Advertising post or signature) and use off forum contact methods to discuss fees for their service.
Private messages
The private messages are by definition private. Nobody (nor even the forum admin) has the possibility to read them, so everybody can write everything. Anybody however can use the Ignore List block receiving and seeing messages from a specific user.
Verbal aggression or sexual advancements made via PM by other members are not permitted, therefore do not hesitate to notify the moderators, so that corrective actions might be taken.
We also expect from the forum users in respect to any messages they receive privately from other forum members or moderators. Publishing a private message is considered a violation of forum rules, unless the sender agrees to it.
Customizing Your Forum Experience
To personalize your preferences (e.g., create your own personal avatar and signature etc.) in the forum go to Account Details. All the settings are made in the "Setting" area on the left of the page.
Reporting bad posts to the Moderator Team
Users are kindly asked to participate to the moderating effort by reporting what they consider as bad posts. To do this, please click the 'Report Bad Post' link found at the top right of the offending post (
). This link is an all-purpose method of getting the Moderators' attention - once you click it, it opens a form where you can submit details of what you think is wrong with the post. It doesn't have to be a long description, it can be a few words. When you submit this form, it automatically emails all the Moderators with the URL of the thread (you don't have to copy and paste the URL into the form), and your additional comments. Your identity will not be revealed to anyone else at any time - only the Mods will know who is reporting a post. The reports are kept confidential, the poster will not know you reported their post.Reporting is not just for severely bad posts, it's for any breaches of the rules or forum philosophy which you think we might need to be aware of and act on, small or large. We may or may not act on them depending on the severity and the courses of action open to us, but as the forums grow you guys really need to use this method to let us know of breaches as we cannot physically read every new post to detect violations or annoyances ourselves. Remember that the moderators here are unpaid volunteers who give up their time to help maintain forum quality.
You may also contact moderators by private messages, for any forum-related subject.
Underaged members
The moderators would respectfully suggest that you obtain permission from your parents or at least let them know that you are visiting this site, since certain discussion boards may have mature content that you or your parents find inappropriate. While we try to keep the subject matter on astrology, we cannot always guarantee that other subjects will not be discussed.
The moderators are also very concerned with your well-being and safety, so if you feel that you are receiving unwanted or uncomfortable attention from other forum members via PM or on the threads, or if you are uncomfortable with some of the material being discussed, please do not hesitate to contact any of us via PM immediately. We are here to help you in your astrology studies and to support you in whatever way we can.
Copyright
This forum shall not be a place facilitating copyright infringement, since that obviously goes against our main objective, which is to promote astrology. Indeed, we cannot promote astrology, if we undermine the mechanism intended to ensure that authors publishing on astrology benefit from their hard work, which puts at risk the publications of new books on astrology. Such undermining of the rights of these authors will not be tolerated on the forum, and members are asked to assist the moderators in this by reporting any posts that break this rule.
In order to respect copyright laws, members must not paste in their posts texts copied from other websites or other publications that are over 100 words long each. A maximum of 3 quotes of texts copied from other websites or other publications is accepted per post and each quote must be from a separate website or other publication. Each quote will be indicated in some way, such as placed between quotation marks, between the tags [quote]copyrighted text[/quote] or in some other way indicating that this is copied text. The source should be properly mentioned: book or magazine author and title, name of magazine, ideally also additional publication data. If the text is publicly available online, a link to the source should be given.
Plagiarism, defined as copying one's work and passing it off as one's own, is not accepted. Material in the public domain (that either was never copyrighted, either the copyright has expired) has to be appropriately cited also.
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The administrator and the moderators reserve the right to change or modify these rules at any time without prior notice.