Skip navigation Home Accessibility information
Hide this page (shortcut Esc key) - This will take you to the google website
Page Utilities
Change wallpaper
Help
Accessibility

Message boards - house rules

Welcome to the ChildLine community

The message boards are a place to share experiences and get support from other young people. It is not a social networking site. All messages posted on the boards are moderated within at least 24 hours to make sure the house rules on this page are met. If your post is failed, you’ll be sent a message to your locker explaining why. 

After you've read the house rules
If there is still something you're not sure about, you can post a thread on the ChildLine information message board or visit the FAQ page for more information.

If anything happens on the boards that worries you then please contact a member of the counselling team or Charlie-Host immediately.

Making sure your message gets posted…

If your messages or nickname contain any of the information below and do not follow these rules, they will be automatically rejected by moderation and will not go live.

 

 

Keeping your identity private

DON’T

  • Include any personal information about yourself or somebody you know e.g. surnames, school names, numbers, email addresses, BlackBerry pins or links to social networking profiles.
  • Specific locations – You can share a general location like a large city or county, but specific locations like a small town or the name of your local park could put you at risk.
  • Details of an event you are attending like a university open day, music festival or court case or anything specific you attend regularly.
  • Include text that you have already posted on another website or blog.
  • Discuss meeting up or getting in contact outside of the ChildLine message boards.
  • Share your account or password with anybody else. If we think you are - your account may be locked.

 

Respecting each other

AVOID

  • Posting rude or offensive comments
  • Using crude or sexually explicit language and descriptions of sexual acts. It is ok to ask for advice about a sexual issue but please do not ask for tips on how to carry out sexual acts
  • Racially offensive remarks
  • Homophobic remarks
  • Threatening or aggressive comments
  • Swearing
  • Exaggerating or making up things you know are not true
  • Creating different accounts to try and confuse or mislead other young people on the boards

    •  

Topics that could be distressing or triggering for others

AVOID

  • Discussing suicidal intentions
  • Detailed descriptions of self-harm or practical methods and suggestions on how to hide it. While it is ok to talk about how to deal with scars it is not ok to talk about hiding on-going self-harm injuries.
  • Messages that support or encourage harmful behaviours as a way of coping.
  • Information containing weight, BMI, or physical measurements other than height.
  • Details on calorie/food intake or weight loss targets
  • Graphic descriptions of sexual and physical abuse or violence
  • Messages that may cause harm or damage to the reputation of another person will be removed by the moderation team.
  • Any message that encourages or condones illegal activity or criminal behaviour will be removed.

Other things that wouldn’t get posted:

  • Messages from posters over the age of 19 will also be removed by the moderation team. The counselling team will then contact you to make sure that you know about other services that can support you.
  • Messages that contain information that is copied from another website including links, big chunks of text or song lyrics.
  • Surveys or questionnaires of any kind. If you want to know what lots of the community think about a certain issue then post an idea for a survey in ChildLine Information. It’s ok to ask questions but not in survey or questionnaire format.

Closing existing threads

    From time to time, it is necessary to close threads. Possible reasons include:

  • Drifting off topic

    This can happen when the original question has been answered and the thread turns into a conversation between two posters. This can then exclude other people from joining in. It’s important to give new threads a chance to develop and for you to get support from new people every now and again.

  • Developing a personal relationship or dependency

    We want to make sure you don’t rely on only one person for support. The purpose of the message boards is getting help from the whole community not just close friendships. Threads will be closed if they are set up for the purpose of talking to specific people or if they become too personal and others feel like they can't join in.

  • Giving away too much personal information

    Long threads between a few people mean that there is a lot of information about you in one place.  If pieced together this could make it easier to identify who you are off the boards.

  • Repetition

    If there are several similar threads in the ChildLine category on the same subject we may need to close some of them to give new ideas space.

  • Controversial

    Sometimes subjects can cause offense in an unexpected way. If a thread begins to cause an argument we may close it to avoid bad feeling.

  • Old threads

    The message boards have threads going back some time. If we find that several older threads that have been quiet for some time are bumped back to the top of a board we may close them to give newer threads space to develop. Chances are the original issue has been resolved so you don’t need to reply anymore.

Message boards

Have you got something to say, or want to ask a question? Visit the message board to have your say.

Go to the message boards

Top ten tips


Read our tips for using the message boards to help get you started.

Frequently asked questions


Get answers to the most popular questions asked about the message boards.

Message boards - house rules 

Accessibility

Help