Lutherans Connect is committed to providing a forum for open-minded discussion and exploration. It is a place where individuals are free to express their own opinions and beliefs. Lutherans Connect is equally committed to providing a welcoming and safe site where such open-minded discussion and exploration can flourish. On Lutherans Connect you may encounter those whose opinions and beliefs differ from your own. We hope that you will approach these encounters in a spirit of tolerance, accepting the rights of others to express their own beliefs, even if they may be beliefs you don't hold yourself. Lutherans Connect encourages discussion, debate and exploration. We will not censor members for expressing an opinion that is respectfully expressed. However, even within an open forum such as this, we feel it important to outline certain guidelines of conduct. We only do so to promote respectful debate, and to discourage content that, for example, could be reasonably interpreted as: personal attacks on other members; hateful towards certain persons, groups or denominations; pornographic in nature; inappropriate in its use of vulgarity. If a member is seen to be violating these Guidelines, the Site Administrators reserve the right to remove the offending content and, in extreme cases, remove the member from the site without notice. If, after reviewing these Guidelines of Conduct, you have any questions about them or about the role of the Site Administrators, contact us at info@LutheransConnect.com.

Rules of Conduct

1. Courtesy and Respect: You agree that you will be courteous to other members of Lutherans Connect, even those who you may not agree with. When debating, express your opinion about a person's ideas, not about them personally. Posts, discussions, and other statements should not be made that intentionally criticize or ridicule other members personally.
2. Violence and Hate Speech: Hateful language that cold be seen as meaning to inflict hatred or violence against others --including racist, sexist and homophobic attacks --will not be tolerated. Posts that include such language may be deleted and the user banned from the site.
3. Disruptive Behaviour: You agree not to disrupt or interfere with discussions, blogs, or other community functions of Lutherans Connect. Disruptive behaviour may include creating a disproportionate number of posts or discussions to disrupt conversation; cross-posting the same post in different discussion threads, creating off-topic posts or intentionally posting them in the wrong discussion category; posting solicitations without permission of Lutherans Connect; making statements that are deliberately inflammatory; or any behaviour that interferes with conversations or inhibits the ability of others to use and enjoy this website for its intended purposes. This guideline is more one of courtesy, but will be enforced if a member repeatedly displays behaviour intended to be disruptive to others on the site.
4. Vulgarity: You agree not to display words, information, or images that are excessively and/or gratuitously vulgar, obscene, graphically violent, graphically sexual, harm minors in any way, exploit images of children, or are otherwise objectionable. You agree not to post URLs of sites where such words, images or information is displayed.
5. User Identity: †Users are allowed to participate anonymously on Lutherans Connect. However, user names, profiles, or pictures must not be offensive in nature. Users may not falsely identify themselves as a Lutherans Connect administrator, figure or employee of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada. User names should also not be that of a divine figure of any religion. To help create an environment that encourages discussion and the equality of perspectives, users may want to avoid using titles as part of their user name, such as "Dr.," Rev.," "Fr.," etc.
6. Copyrighted Material: †Users are responsible for not posting copyrighted text or images on Lutherans Connect. When referring to copyrighted material, you may quote a small sample and must credit the source, post a link to the author's original work if possible, and include your own comments in your own words.
7. Your Contact information: †You agree to provide a valid e-mail address when registering for Lutherans Connect. Lutherans Connect administrators must be able to contact you by e-mail if necessary to discuss your account. If the e-mail address in your profile is not valid, your posting privileges may be suspended; should this happen to you, contact info@LutheransConnect.com.
8. Complaints: †The administrators of Lutherans Connect monitor the activity and content on the site on a regular basis. However, due to the real-time nature of the discussion boards and other member-generated content, administrators are not able to review everything which is posted, and are not responsible for the content of any messages or postings made by members. We encourage you, the members of Lutherans Connect, to help our administrators keep our site welcoming and safe for everyone. Any user who feels that a posted message is objectionable is encouraged to contact the administrator using the "Contact Us" link in the left column of the site. Please be sure to include information to help the administrators find the message you would like us to review.

Again, Lutherans Connect has the right, but not the obligation, to remove or move any member-generated content for any reason, without notice. Continued access to this site is at the discretion of the administrators of Lutherans Connect. For further information on user conduct, please see the user agreement/privacy policy in the left-hand column of the site, or contact Lutherans Connect administrators at info@LutheransConnect.com.