Community Guidelines
Welcome to NutritionFacts.org!
On NutritionFacts.org, you’ll find a vibrant community of nutrition enthusiasts, health professionals, and many knowledgeable users seeking to discover the healthiest diet to eat for themselves and their families. As always, our goal is to foster conversations that are insightful, engaging, and most of all, helpful – from the nutrition beginners to the experts in our community.
To do this we need your help, so here are some guidelines to get you started.
The Short List
To help maintain and foster a welcoming atmosphere in our comments, please refrain from rude comments, name-calling, and responding to posts that break the rules (see below for more details). We will remove any posts in violation of our rules when we see it, which will, unfortunately, include any nicer comments that may have been made in response.
Be respectful and help out our staff and volunteer health supporters by actively not replying to comments that are breaking the rules. Instead, please report them by submitting a ticket to our help desk. NutritionFacts.org is made up of an incredible staff and many dedicated volunteers that work hard to ensure that the comments section runs smoothly and we spend a great deal of time reading comments from our community members.
Have a correction or suggestion for video or blog? Please contact us to let us know. Submitting a correction this way will result in a quicker fix than commenting on a thread with a suggestion or correction.
The Full List
Here’s a list of things that will result in your comment being removed, and may even lead to your account being banned. (Please remember that this is not a comprehensive list and our staff members reserve the right to remove or edit anything we deem inappropriate and open an email dialogue and that skirts the boundaries of good taste.)
1. General Guidelines
I. Commenting is Open to Everyone
The intention of the comment section is to allow all members to share their stories, questions, and feedback with others in a welcoming, engaging, and respectful environment. Off-topic questions are permitted, in hopes more experienced users may be able to point them to more relevant videos that may answer their questions. Off-topic comments are not permitted. Vigorous debate is welcome so long as participants can disagree respectfully.
By using NutritionFacts.org, you agree to post information that is true and correct to the best of your knowledge and/or is of your personal experience.
If the information you post is not personal experience, we request you to provide sources (references, links, etc..) whenever it is relevant and possible.
II. Medical Advice
The information on NutritionFacts.org is designed to complement, not replace, the relationship between a patient and his/her own physician and is for informational purposes only. The information is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health providers with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you saw or read on the NutritionFacts.org website.
If a health professional gives medical information as a commenter, their status as a medical professional must be identified.
III. Spam and Advertising
All spam/advertising will be removed. This includes the following:
- Promoting third-party websites on behalf of someone else
- Promoting your own website
- Promoting your YouTube channel
- Pasting entire articles/scans from other sites and/or magazines (Please respect copyright laws)
- Robotic Spam
IV. Personal Attacks
Please do not attack or insult another user for any reason whatsoever. It’s not helpful or necessary, and it doesn’t make NutritionFacts.org a place people will want to return to learn about the latest in nutritional science. Attacking includes referring to other people as trolls, fanboys, sheep, white knights, industry shills, accusations of having an agenda etc.. It also includes any form of dietary shaming and/or making unwarranted assumptions or derogatory comments about a person’s diet, health, lifestyle choices, racism, sexism, or discrimination.
V. Complaining About the Website or Staff
Whether it’s NutritionFacts.org or another website – please do not engage in website bashing or complaining about staff members. It’s disrespectful and unhelpful to building our community. We have a very diverse group of users from all over the world.
If you have suggestions for our website, would like to see something changed, or are experiencing any problems that are making your experience unpleasant, please submit a ticket to our help desk.
VI. Trolling
If you’re posting a deliberately offensive or provocative comment with the aim of upsetting someone or eliciting an angry response from them, your comment will be deleted and you may be banned.
VII. NSFW (Not Safe For Work) Material
NSFW material is prohibited. Even images or links that could be considered borderline are not acceptable.
A good rule of thumb is that anything beyond PG-13 will get you in trouble, but we reserve the right to remove any post we deem offensive. This goes for pornographic material, vile language, and gore.
VIII. Offensive Usernames
If your username contains language or terms that could be construed as offensive, we’ll put a hold on your account and contact you to change your username. If you provide unsuitable replacements, we reserve the right to choose a new username at random in order to get you up and running on a temporary basis until you provide a more permanent option.
IX. Multiple Accounts and Throwaway E-Mails
We do not allow multiple accounts per user; this includes guest posting. Using a disposable email address signals to us that you’re not here for the right reasons. We’ll block those and contact you about using a legitimate email account. You also may not create accounts designed to impersonate another person.
X. Multi-Posting
Do not make duplicate comments across different videos and blogs — it makes it difficult for users to have to reply in multiple places around the site and it fractures the conversation. Our moderator team is notified of all comments, regardless of where on the site they are posted.
XI. Complaining About Coverage
We cover a wide array of health and nutrition topics and many videos are articles are compiled long in advance (and are based on the available research) from when they are actually published to keep up with our deadlines. While we’re not against discussions of our coverage, rude comments about the frequency of videos or articles on a topic or whether something is worthy of coverage at all will be removed, just like other attacks.
If you have suggestions on video or articles topics, please get in touch.
Complaining About Moderation: See “Moderation” below.
XII. “First Post” Rule
The behavior listed above is harmful to the NutritionFacts.org community. If we feel that you made an account on NutritionFacts.org explicitly to post something that breaks these guidelines it tells us that you aren’t here to contribute in any meaningful manner. If your first post breaks any of the rules above, we reserve the right to ban your account without warning.
2. How to Post and Comment
There are two major ways to interact on NutritionFacts.org. Here are the basics, but there’s much more information listed below.
Post a Comment
We love comments, and simply by registering you can comment on any video or blog here on NutritionFacts.org. The comments are threaded, so you’re able to easily reply to the person you’re talking to.
Get in Touch
Have a suggestion? Want to contact one of our staff? Want to tell us about a site bug or video that needs correction? You can do all of that right here.
3. Moderation
About Our Health Support Volunteers and Comment Moderators
Our Health Support Volunteers are medical and health professionals who help answer your questions. This team does their best to respond to as many health-related questions as possible.*
Our Forum Moderators are members of NutritionFacts.org Staff who keep the site free of spam, trolls, or other infringements. If you suspect an infringement of these guidelines, please submit a message here.
*The information on NutritionFacts.org is designed to complement, not replace, the relationship between a patient and his/her own physician and is for informational purposes only. The Information is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health providers with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you saw or read on the NutritionFacts.org website.
Questions About Moderation
We’re happy to have a discussion with you about it — in private. If you have a question about our volunteers or moderators’ activity, contact our helpdesk and we’ll be happy to talk. If there’s a big policy change or something we would like to say publicly about moderation, a staff member will make a post about it and update this page.
Please note that any complaints about moderation or comment removal will also be removed from the comment section in order to keep things on-topic.
4. Comments
Comments are a great way to engage with our community and participate in discussions around the site.
Reply
Use this to reply to the specific comment. Your reply will be threaded to that comment.
In Health,
Dr. Greger
&
The NutritionFacts.org Team
