Message Board and Chat Guidelines
Homeschool Christian message boards are here for your support, fellowship, networking, ideas, information, and encouragement. This is a Christian site to aid families in giving their children a superior home education. All respectful participants are welcome, whether Catholic, Protestant, or non-Christian.. Please be mindful that while we may not agree on many subjects, we come together on this board in a spirit of Christian love, looking for what we have in common rather than our differences.
Guidelines for Posting
General Advice
Please use your own first name or a first name you've always liked, as it makes the boards seem more personal. Posting your e-mail address is optional on all boards except the Teen board, where it is prohibited. No links are permitted on the Teen board, unless posted by an adult monitor.
Use the alert feature if you post something you want deleted and forgot to make a password or if there are posts that violate the guidelines.
NEVER post when you are upset, emotional, or feeling offended. Wait until you calm down to post. Please refer to Matthew 18:15 to decide if this is an occasion to e-mail privately.
Posts on our message boards do not necessarily imply agreement of Homeschool Christian.com. Posts of a political nature are strictly the opinion of the poster.
Your first post should be an introduction.
Advertising
You may include a link to your personal, non-commercial (not even with Google Ads) web site in your postings on our message boards. No commercial postings without permission. Please check our Advertising page for supporting HomeschoolChristian.com through advertising. Spam is not tolerated and will be deleted immediately. A commercial web site is one that makes money through selling, advertising, or affiliate links. Please respect our paying advertisers who faithfully support our site.
Deletion of Posts
Feel free to write e-mail to encourage any poster who is publicly attacked, and know that ignoring the offensive poster is an effective discipline. If you are offended, please pray over Matthew 18:15 (NIV) "If you brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over." If mediation is necessary, please contact the board moderator.
Posts that will be deleted are as follows:
- Posts by non-homeschoolers looking for other kinds of information.
- First posts on our boards that include a link to any site.
- Posts made to gain information for research projects, term papers, surveys, books, newsletters, etc.
- Personal attacks, name calling, rude posts, slander, misrepresentation, and libel, regarding individuals, companies, or organizations.
- Chain letters, letters asking for money, no matter how well intentioned.
- Copyrighted material posted without permission.
- Message board posts copied and pasted from other Web sites.
- Scoldings or harsh public correction. Matthew 18:15 (NIV) "If you brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over."
- "Hit and Run" posts, which are usually short, hurting the other person's feelings, and serve no productive purpose.
- Accidental embarrassing posts intended for e-mail, including phone numbers and addresses.
- Obscenity, crude profanity, and pornography. Obsenity with asterisks replacing letters counts as obscenity and will be deleted as well at the discretion of the board hostess.
- "Shouting" notes that are in all capital letters at the discretion of the board hostess.
- False virus warnings and sympathy hoaxes.
- Suicide notes. Our moderators and visitors are not equipped to handle such cases. Please contact your crisis hotline for assistance.
- Anonymous posts are subject to deletion at the discretion of our devoted volunteer moderators and HomeschoolChristian.com. Anonymous posts are NOT truly anonymous. Your name is visible to our monitors.
- "Unloading posts." We are not the place to bash husbands, children, or churches. We are here for encouragement. While the Bible tells us we should bear one another's burdens, an Internet message board is not the proper venue when counseling with your pastor is a better choice.
- Questionable topics: Although they are not supposed to, we do have teens who wander over to the parent boards. Do not post anything you would not want your children (or mine) to see!
Quoting
If you are quoting something that has been published online, please put a link. If you want to quote just a few sentences (3 or fewer), you can do so and add the source info. If you are quoting something that has NOT been published online, you can quote several paragraphs as long as you put the proper citation giving credit, what book, what page, etc. If you want to quote more than a couple of paragraphs, you begin to get into uncertain territory and you run the risk of deletion. Remember, "brevity is the soul of wit!"
Privacy
Homeschool Christian adds to the content of the web site with static pages on a regular basis. Sometimes the content may be from posts made by our guests. If you post on our site, you are agreeing that your posts may be gathered and used on a permanent web page elsewhere on this site. Consider it a compliment! Your posts are not private. IP addresses are viewable by our monitors.
Children
Homeschool Christian encourages parents to be with their children when they use this site, and especially when following links to sites linked here. One can never be sure of the safety of sites outside of Homeschool Christian, and we are unable to thoroughly check out all outside links posted on this site. Children should not use our message boards without the consent of their parent or guardian. No children under 13 may post at all. No information is collected (other than birthdays for celebrating!) from our Teen boards, although our server logs the IP address of all users on all message boards.
Cookies
"Cookies" are used on all of our message boards. The cookies are used for the benefit of our guests, and do not collect any sort of personal information. These cookies are what enable our message boards to tell you which messages are new since your last visit and to fill in the form boxes with your name and e-mail address automatically. If you set your computer not to accept cookies, you will still be able to use our boards, but you will not enjoy the time-saving benefits that are intended with the use of cookies.
Donations
If you enjoy Homeschool Christian, please consider making a donation! This Web site takes a considerable amount of time to maintain and enlarge--at least 40-60 hours per week. (May 2006=4699 visitors per day, 1,084,669 page views for the month). Homeschool Christian is owned by the Robinson family and supported through donations, advertising, and Affiliate sales. To make a donation, visit our Donation page.
Guidelines for Buying and Selling on Our Boards
Please see our Used Curriculum Dealer program. Guidelines for buying and selling are at the top of each board. You are encouraged to read them carefully, and ALWAYS ask about insurance or delivery confirmation.
Thank you for supporting HomeschoolChristian.com, the best Christian homeschooling site on the web!
