On Bullying

[Vashta]

Here at OccultForum.org, we do our best to make this a safe, friendly environment where people can freely discuss the esoteric without fear of being met with the kind of prejudices we can encounter out there in the world. This forum is intended as a place where diverse esotericists can come together and discuss, share knowledge and experience, and help each other develop along our individual paths.

Unfortunately, in aiming for an egalitarian ideal, there are always some cases where an individual does not mesh with the community, where an individual is either rubbing everyone the wrong way, or getting rubbed the wrong way by just about everything everyone says. In cases like this, it's sometimes best to part ways, and the moderation team are here to bring it to attention of the individuals involved, and help people integrate with the community if they sincerely wish to do so, or to facilitate their exit from the community in an expedited manner (I.E. with the banhammer) if not.

The behaviour we're addressing here specifically is bullying; we will not tolerate attempts to intimidate, manipulate, humiliate, or otherwise put down any member of the forum, regardless of how passionately you disagree with them. It is not necessary to belittle others to make your point, and in many cases, it actually undermines your point to do so. Members found bullying other members will be given an official warning, any subsequent incident will result in an outright ban. Depending on the severity of the bullying, offending members may be reported to the police.

If you are being bullied, or if someone has said something hurtful to you, please talk to the moderators about it, your report will be kept private and will be fully investigated, we will take steps to ensure it does not happen again. We want people from all walks of life on board here, but not if they spend the majority of their time bullying other members of the forum. You can either send a PM or email to any of the moderators, or click the "Report post" button which should be on every post on the forum.

Clicking "Report post" is a good way to report bullying (or any violation of the terms of service), if you do so, moderators will see the reported post immediately on logging in, and this enables us to maintain a record of complaints.

We want this forum to be a safe, friendly place for all of our members, and consequently we can not abide bullying in any form. Please be good to each other.

Signed

The Staff

PM:
Vashta
Clockwork_Ghost

[Clockwork Ghost]

Just to reiterate, so everyone is fully aware of this: If you come across an instance of bullying, abuse, hate speech, excessive profanity, or anything else you feel doesn't belong here on the forum, then please report it. It will then be dealt with by a staff member.

Thank you [thumbup]