Military Significant Other Support
Forum Guidelines and Etiquette
As an open, friendly, and diverse community, it is important that each member conduct them self in accordance with the guidelines and standards we have developed to maintain an environment where everyone feels comfortable visiting and contributing to our site.
You may click on any of the following guidelines to view further detailed information
About Us and Our Objective
MilitarySOS.com is a support resource connecting military significant others of all branches, around the world. Our primary goal at MilitarySOS is to provide you with the ultimate resource for support, but to also give you a place to connect with friends and be yourself!
- You must be 18 years of age or older to register and post within our community.
OPSEC
OPSEC is taken very seriously on our forums. Any violations of OPSEC
will be promptly edited/removed and any future occurrences of breaking
OPSEC may result in an automatic ban, with possible reports to the
proper chain of command.
Things you are NEVER allowed to post under any circumstances:
- SHIP / TROOP MOVEMENT - this includes locations,
arrival and departure dates, upcoming port visits and any other
specifics pertaining to the present or future location or movement
- Personal Information - addresses, phone numbers, last names, etc.
- Countdown Tickers - please do not post tickers for any type of military related countdown, but feel
free to post countup tickers that count the number of days that your
loved one has been gone
If you feel comfortable with exchanging personal information (address,
phone number and last name) for get togethers and group exchanges, you
may do so at your discretion through private messaging, with members
you trust. Please be cautious with whom you trust and give personal
information to.
Make sure you have some sort of established relationship with a member
who you decide to share your information with. If a new member who you
don't know sends you a message asking for any type of personal
information, please make sure this person has a legit reason for asking
before you give them any type of information.
Remember, even when the news is talking about homecoming dates, they
usually do not have accurate information, they are merely counting up
by 6 months or however long the deployment is supposed to last. So,
it's usually not a good idea to post specific homecoming dates, even if
you feel like they are public knowledge.
OPSEC guidelines are serious business here, not because we like to edit
posts and signatures or want to be mean, but because we all sincerely
care about our troops' safety. With message boards becoming more
popular and easily accessible by anyone, it's so easy for people with
bad intentions to get ahold of sensitive information, piece it all
together, and put together plans that could seriously jeopardize not
only our troops but our country, as well.
So, please think twice before posting information that you feel could
be sensitive. When in doubt, ask any member of staff before posting. "When in doubt, just leave it out". If you don't
know for sure if you can post it, please don't.
Civility and Consideration
It is inevitable that you will have personality conflicts and disagreements at some point during your time on this site. We ask that you keep things respectful and avoid harassment, personal character attacks and individual or group berating of other members.
Due to the nature of this forum, it is essential that we maintain an overall positive environment and atmosphere. Members with "troll" like behavior, and whose attitude is disruptive of the general atmosphere, may have access to the site temporarily or permanently revoked.
- Do not, under any circumstances, threaten harm or wish death on another member.
Mature Language and Censorship
Mature language is allowed but please:
- Do not use it in thread titles
We do not use a word filter, but please keep in mind that not everyone cusses like a sailor even if they are married to one. So, use it sparingly and with discretion.
NO NUDITY. Any picture containing nudity or partial nudity may be removed at staff's discretion. This includes pictures and graphics that include genitalia, fully exposed breasts or nipples.
Participation and Inclusion
Discussions occurring on the public forum should be inclusive of all community members. If you wish to discuss something of private nature with another member or group of members, please take advantage of our private messaging system.
Links and Advertising
During the course of a discussion, relevant, noncommercial, external links are permitted as long as they do not conflict with the best interest of MilitarySOS.com or it's sister site, theWomanHood.com.
You may include your personal homepage in the "homepage" field of your profile; however the other fields of your personal profile, including your signature, may not link to or contain a commercial web site, regardless of whether or not you are the owner. Advertising by means of private messaging, using the member email feature or making a post for the sole purpose of advertisement is strictly prohibited.
Links to a personal home business may be approved on a case by case basis. Please PM an Admin for approval, prior to adding a link to your business.
Signatures
Signatures are enabled for all members but please be sensible and follow the signature guidelines. Keeping signature sizes to a minimum keeps our forums easy to read and loading quickly for all members.
The following signature guidelines are in place and will be very strictly enforced:
- Signatures for standard members must be 600x250 (600 pixels in width by 250 pixels in height) or less. Signatures for Jewels must be 600x500 (600 pixels in width by 500 pixels in height) or less. That means ALL text, graphics and pictures must fit within that area. For more information and examples of what is acceptable, please see our signature guidelines in the Help Desk section.
- Links in signatures must follow the guidelines outlined in the Advertisements and Linking section.
- Tickers must count up (how long your loved one has been gone) not down (how long until they return). Dates of return are considered OPSEC violations.
If your signature does not fall within guidelines, it will be edited by a staff member without prior warning to you.
Privacy and Anonymity
Please use extreme caution when posting personally identifiable information on our site, including private messages.
- Personal information such as last name, phone number, address and social security number are not permitted on the public forums.
- Posting any personal information such as last name, address or phone number of another member is not allowed under any circumstances
You may exchange your own personal information (such as address and/or last name) through private message only, for group games, exchanges, meet ups, etc. You are doing so at your own risk and are advised to be extremely cautious.
Generally speaking, once a post has been made, it will be considered a permanent addition to our site. For this reason, we ask that you put careful thought into a post before hitting that submit button.
We take your privacy very seriously and believe that you should, as well. When choosing a username, we advise you to use something generic instead of unique. Searching for your username via search engine will pull up your information and posts from our site if your username is very unique and identifiable. Something such as “Jessica” or even “JessicaL” will be much less identifiable than “JessicaL1981”.
Members on our forums are entitled to a certain level of privacy and respect as far as their personal lives offline go. No member should ever taken it upon themselves to "investigate" another member's life outside of our forums and post information they have found through other means. This especially includes contacting friends or family members outside of MSOS in an attempt to gather information to disprove another member's stories/posts. If posts of this nature are made, they will be removed immediately, and a formal warning will be issued.
When you are in doubt about a specific member's post(s), please contact a member of staff and we will take appropriate action.
Forum Specific Rules
Secret Garden:
Members with more than 1,500 posts and 6 months membership will have access to our Secret Garden forum, where members may discuss personal issues in a more private environment. Members may not discuss or repost Secret Garden posts outside of The Secret Garden forum. No member shall ever vent, flame or talk about another member in the Secret Garden.
Courses of Action
Generally speaking, members will receive 3 formal,documented warnings before a ban is made on their account. However, our moderation team does reserve the right to bypass formal warnings, dependent upon circumstances of individual situations.
Warnings will be done privately and will not be made public business.
Other Warnable Offenses
Although MSOS does not endorse buying or selling on this website, having a pattern of not following through in cases where money is exchanged is considered to be trolling and is a warnable offense and a violation of the site's TOS.
Our forum guidelines work in conjunction with and do not supercede or override our Terms of Service. These guidelines may be edited at any time to reflect changes in our policies, with or without notice to you. For more information about our terms and policies , please see our privacy policy and terms of service.
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