Participate with the Forum’s Aim in Mind

When engaging in this forum, it’s valuable to keep in mind the purpose of the forum, whose aim is “to further peace-on-earth via enabling sincere discussion of and experiential engagement with actualism for the purpose of bringing about the spread of virtual freedom and actual freedom” (Terms of Service).

(For an introduction to actualism and actual freedom, try the introduction on the Actual Freedom Trust site.)

As such, the forum serves as a space where individuals can explore the process of employing the actualism method (the consistent enjoyment and appreciation of being alive) and becoming virtually free and actually free from the human condition. Your participation will be most beneficial when aligned with this fundamental aim. When posting, consider how your content might assist yourself and others in their own journey along the wide and wondrous path towards an increasingly happy and harmless life.

Actualism is Experiential

Whether it be a discussion board, mailing list, or a real-time chats, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that actualism is experiential.

Although understanding is invaluable, at the end of the day the direct rewards of actualism of an increasingly happy and harmless life, are only attainable by actually putting what you read about and discuss into practice.

The maximum benefit of your participation is ultimately the improvement of the quality of your own life - yours in particular, you who is reading this now. Thus it is helpful to keep this in mind when participating lest discussions become simply philosophical or abstract in nature.

This is a Civilized Place for Public Discussion

Please treat this discussion forum with the same consideration you would a public park. We, too, are a shared resource — a place to share experiences, skills and knowledge through ongoing conversation.

These are not hard and fast rules. They are guidelines to keep this a sincere, friendly place for civilized public discourse.

Your Participation Counts

The conversations we have here set the tone for every new arrival. Help us influence the future of this forum by choosing to engage in discussions that make this forum an interesting place to be — and avoiding those that do not.

Discourse provides tools that enable the forum participants to collectively identify the best (and worst) contributions: bookmarks, likes, flags, replies, edits, watching, muting and so forth. Use these tools to improve your own experience, and everyone else’s, too.

Let’s leave the forum better than we found it.

Improve the Discussion

Help us make this a great place for discussion by always adding something beneficial to the discussion, however small. If you are not sure your post adds to the conversation, think over what you want to say and try again later.

One way to improve the discussion is by discovering ones that are already happening. Spending time browsing the topics here is a good way to instigate your own thinking and contemplative processes, which will be what lead you to post the most productive types of posts!

Be considerate of the topics and the people discussing them, even if you disagree with some of what is being said.

Be Agreeable, Even When You Disagree

You may wish to respond by disagreeing. That’s fine. But remember to criticize ideas, not people. Please avoid:

  • Name-calling
  • Ad hominem attacks
  • Responding to a post’s tone instead of its actual content
  • Knee-jerk contradiction

Instead, provide thoughtful insights that improve the conversation.

Always Be Civil

Nothing sabotages a healthy conversation like rudeness:

  • Be civil. Don’t post anything that a reasonable person would consider offensive, abusive, or hate speech.
  • Keep it clean. Don’t post anything obscene or sexually explicit.
  • Be considerate of each other. Don’t harass or grief anyone, impersonate people, malign them, or expose their private information.
  • Be considerate of the forum. Don’t post spam or otherwise vandalize the forum.

These are not concrete terms with precise definitions — avoid even the appearance of any of these things. If you’re unsure, ask yourself how you would feel if your post was featured on the front page of a major news site.

This is a public forum, and search engines index these discussions. Keep the language, links, and images safe for family and friends.

Keep It Tidy

Make the effort to put things in the right place, so that we can spend more time discussing and less cleaning up. So:

  • Don’t start a topic in the wrong category; please read the category definitions.
  • Don’t cross-post the same thing in multiple topics.
  • Don’t post no-content replies.
  • Don’t divert a topic by changing it midstream.
  • Don’t sign your posts — every post has your profile information attached to it.

Rather than posting “+1” or “Agreed”, use the Like button. Rather than taking an existing topic in a radically different direction, use Reply as a Linked Topic.

Post Only Your Own Stuff

You may not post anything digital that belongs to someone else without permission. You may not post descriptions of, links to, or methods for stealing someone’s intellectual property (software, video, audio, images), or for breaking any other law.

Editing & Deleting Posts

To preserve the historical integrity of the discussions here, the forum is structured more as a historical record: once a post is made, it is set in stone forever, and cannot be modified or deleted. Rather than editing something away that was later regretted, we think it better to preserve people’s thoughts and reactions at the time, and people can always post corrections as follow-ups. Moderators can also add “staff notices” above posts if, for example, someone wants to warn others not to follow what they wrote about in the past.

To that end, posts can be edited for a short time-window afterwards (on the order of hours) to allow for typos and grammatical fixes, and they cannot be deleted.

Of course, if something must be removed due to privacy concerns or legal reasons, reach out to one of the @moderators and we can assist you in doing so.

Moderation

We aim for the moderation to be a light touch that guides the forum to be a place where the guidelines herein are naturally followed. To that end, a simple and rough set of moderation guidelines are:

  • Any patently obvious trolls will be suspended immediately. For these obvious cases, a mod can take action on their own.

  • The human condition is gnarly and a lot of intense reactions can come about when someone’s beliefs are questioned. With that in mind we aim to be largely tolerant of disputes and disagreements, even if they get heated, as it is generally better to let these things play out and be addressed thoroughly and properly rather than stymie discussion. See this post for a discussion on this aspect of moderation.

  • However, if somebody is simply intent on “disproving” actualism and/or has no interest of applying it to their own life and/or is just stirring up trouble, to the detriment of the other forum-goers, we will eventually suggest they spend their time elsewhere and possibly take further action if they refuse. For these less-obvious cases, the mods will decide what to do on a case-by-case basis. In case of a permanent ban ideally at least half of the mods should explicitly agree with none opposed. See this post for an example of what leads to a permanent ban.

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Terms of Service

Yes, legalese is boring, but we must protect ourselves – and by extension, you and your data – against unfriendly folks. We have a Terms of Service describing your (and our) behavior and rights related to content, privacy, and laws. To use this service, you must agree to abide by our TOS.