The Lifestream
Rules & Guidelines
The Lifestream is a subforum that exists for fellow members to discuss serious issues & topics in regards to everyday life. From personal troubles, relationships & hardships to current events & politics, any topic of serious or sensitive context belong here!
Disclaimer
While The Lifestream is a place for sensitive topics, as well as a place of encouragement and positivity, individuals should still be encouraged to seek professional help if the occasion should be serious enough. Staff & members are not trained professionals and are not qualified to be giving out professional advice. Check your country's public resources and hotlines for your specific needs and please get the help you need!
Rules & Guidelines
The Lifestream is a subforum that exists for fellow members to discuss serious issues & topics in regards to everyday life. From personal troubles, relationships & hardships to current events & politics, any topic of serious or sensitive context belong here!
Disclaimer
While The Lifestream is a place for sensitive topics, as well as a place of encouragement and positivity, individuals should still be encouraged to seek professional help if the occasion should be serious enough. Staff & members are not trained professionals and are not qualified to be giving out professional advice. Check your country's public resources and hotlines for your specific needs and please get the help you need!
General Forum Rules
General Forum rules apply. You can read them here.
Serious Vs Debate
When making a thread please use the appropriate prefix tag for your thread. The Lifestream is home to all serious topics, but topics on serious personal matters should be updated with the 'Serious' prefix, while debatable issues or content related to current events should be marked as 'Debate.'
Serious Discussions
While general rules always apply, The Lifestream contains many sensitive topics, and thus any form of threats that can potentially be harmful to our community will absolutely not be tolerated here. Staff will ask you to stop and immediately issue warnings/infractions.
Staff does not allow any form of threats discussed in our community, suicide threads & threats of self-harm included. As stated above, this is a serious issue that should be handled by seeking professional help. Our staff (and our members) are not qualified to handle delicate issues that may potentially have a negative outcome on someone's life or safety. We are not at all discouraging compassion from others, but it would be best to handle this privately or outside the community platform. Please refer to your country's public resources that may be useful for seeking out professional assistance.
With the above in mind, it is expected that participating members remain sensitive toward other members' issues. If the subject is not your cup of tea, rather than post a condescending reply, please leave it be. Simple as that.
Personal Attacks
Attacking/belittling someone for posting their own beliefs and/or opinions, as well as name-calling, is strictly prohibited and is viewed as a form of flaming. This rule applies if you're addressing just one member or an entire group of people as a whole. While debaters are encouraged to discuss, debate & challenge beliefs, referring to a person/group in a derogatory way is not at all tolerated and will be removed.
Sources
In serious debatable topics, upon making factual claims, members should either link to their sources or expect to be asked for them. Without evidence, your claims become nothing but exaggerated or fabricated. Failure to provide sources of evidence will likely result in the undermining of your argument by your opponent.
Examples: "50% of women who abort their children suffer from depression in later life" - This is a factual claim and, when asked, you should be able to provide evidence to this claim.
An exception to this rule is when you post an opinion. Harassing members to provide proof for their opinions is discouraged as, in most debates, there are no right or wrong answers.
Examples: "Personally, I would not abort a child. I find the entire concept appalling" - this is an opinion and it cannot be classed as either right or wrong. No sources of evidence are required, here.
That said, sources are not a compulsory requirement and no thread should be reduced to demanding sources from members to the point where no other issue is being addressed. If a member cannot produce any evidence, then that's the end of the story.
Post Length
While there isn't a rule for exactly how long your post should be, a post containing single remarks such as "I agree!", "This person shares the same opinion as me!", "I think you're right" lacks detail and fail to show any line of thought at all. The Lifestream specifically is a place of encouraged conversation and thought-out discussions and it's encouraged to include more context than the samples provided above.
If you have any more questions, feel free to PM a Gaia Moderator or any other member of staff. We're friendly and are here for you!