Welcome to DCS.

It will help you get the best out of your participation in Divorce Care and Support if you are aware of what we are and how we try to go about things. So here is some information that should help make your visits to Divorce Care and Support a positive and indeed rewarding experience. It might be as well to get the negatives out of the way first.

What We Are Not. (The Don’ts)

Dating Agency. Divorce Care and Support is not designed as a dating site.  If you're looking for that, there are plenty of other places to go on the web for that purpose. 

No Kids. Divorce Care and Support is rated Mature. The topics we discuss are related to divorce and other mature topics.  Need I say more?  It is important that children are blocked from reading this site and they should never view or participate in our Chat room.

No Spam. If you post spam on the message board, that results in an instant ban. No questions asked. We have to. It's in the MSN Code of Conduct.

A Dumping Ground for Uncivil Behaviour. The Message Board is a very valuable and effective means of sharing experiences that help each other through the very act of sharing. However because divorce generates a lot of anger we have to be a pretty tolerant group in our sharing. Members hold many different points of view and that is what makes the site helpful, but occasionally members cross the MSN Code of Conduct* line and become disruptive to the main aims of the group embodied in the title. Sometimes a troublesome message is identified by managers before it spirals, other times members draw attention to it, often on the thread itself, but notifying a manager by e mail is the way such a situation should be handled.

If this happens DCS management policy is

• To place a Stop Sign on the thread to prevent it diverting focus from DCS's main aim stating only that they are acting on a complaint or going from experience where they have spotted a potentail issue themselves.+
• to draw such instances to the member’s attention, on The Board and/or offline, usually with some additional information or perspective that may prove persuasive in changing the member’s mind, and
• ask the member to remove the offensive posting.

( + If  a post was clearly a direct personal attack that would be damaging to leave in public view for any length of time, a manager can use their discretion and take a copy to send to the author and other managers and then remove it immediately, without going through the Stop routine.)

Most times this works, but if persuasion fails the management will remove the offensive post and, depending on circumstances, the member will be asked to cancel their membership or simply banned.

Types of posts that will attract implementation of this policy are:

·         Name calling

·         Racial, ethnic, lifestyle or nationality slurs.

·         Abusive uses of profanity. 

A Word to the Wise. It is really best to count to ten if you see something in another’s  post that triggers your anger, remember it may not be the poster you are angry at but the situation or real life person the post reminds you of. And really you do not want to have to come back a bit later and sheepishly remove it after you have cooled down. You will be welcomed back, but you’ll feel daft. We are at a time in our lives that more than anything asks us to act in a responsible way when feelings threaten to take over reason. Consider this part of the practice of acting responsibly.

Chat Abuse. It is a violation of the MSN Code of Conduct to copy chat content or message board content to another website or internet user and use that to harass or abuse a member of this site.  This would result in a ban when evident. At DCS we have adopted the stance that what is said in chat, stays in chat. No copying and posting to message board!

Stalking or Other Predatory Behaviour. If you are the spouse or Ex spouse or someone who is stalking a member of this site, leave right now.  If your stbx or Ex doesn't know you are here, you're stalking them.  If you are caught you will be reported to MSN and, in some cases, to law enforcement.  Internet stalking is against the law and a major violation of the MSN CoC.  And, of course, you'll be banned.  Do you really want to risk losing all of your access to MSN and your account at your internet service provider because you want to spy on your Ex?  Just leave.

Copyright Stuff

Graphics are allowed in posts on the message board.  However, some graphics require that you have the permission of the designer to use them.  Bandwidth stealing, i.e copying a graphic on site A and pasting to site B (DCS), is absolutely prohibited.

Sharing What You Find. If you want to share information from other websites for the entertainment or knowledge of other members, that is fine.  It is not necessary to copy entire web pages from other sites to the message board.  Provide a web link to the site where you got the info and a few words describing what members will see there. In some cases, you can obtain permission from other websites to reprint their content.  If so, make sure that is included in your post. Please note that while DCS has a liberal sharing policy management does reserve the right at all times to remove any content from DCS messageboards. Members that join with the sole purpose of using our site as a means of advertisement will find their posts deleted and their membership revoked. Links posted to commercial enterprises will not be allowed.

Attribute. If you use quoted material in posts, give credit to the author.

NO Giving Legal/Medical/Psychological Advice: No person (regardless of credentials held in the real world) is allowed to give advice in these areas. The regulations covering malpractice in all of these areas has not been extended to include the internet. If you give advice of this nature you are leaving yourself open to lawsuits. DCS Management, nor its membership, will not be held responsible for any advice taken from this site and applied to your case. All persons giving advice based on thier experience should place a qualifier suggesting each person contact his/her own Lawyer, Medical Doctor, or Psychologist.

What We Are (The Do’s)

A Place for Sharing Our Divorce Experience As it Unfolds. As it says on the site description, we are a community for people going through divorce.  A supportive place to share with other people who are experiencing or have experienced the heartbreak of divorce. The two main avenues for this are:

·         The Message Board  

·         The Chat Room

You will find that participating positively in one or the other or both is a rewarding experience. You are encouraged to read and respond to the content of the site through these avenues.  You should know that this site only works if members choose to participate in sharing. You are not expected to respond to every message and indeed some messages may have to wait for a response, because they, like you, are finding their feet as they make a new life for themselves. But you will find there is always someone out there who cares, even if its only to send a cyber hug.

Do introduce yourself to the group on the message board. It will give the rest of the members an opportunity to welcome you and get to know you. I think you'll find that if you ask for help, you'll find plenty of it at Divorce Care and Support.

Finally there is a facility to communicate only via email but this is not encouraged for two reasons:

• you might get swamped with messages you do not want to read
• you'll get a lot more out of the site if you visit us often.

If you have any questions, comments or concerns about the site, you may email the managers from the Home Page of Divorce Care and Support. (but remember to supply your own e mail address for a reply in the body of your message.)

* Some of the foregoing is necessary in order to comply with MSN’s Code of Conduct which can be found at http://groups.msn.com/Conduct/home.htm  The Terms and Conditions can be found at http://privacy.msn.co.uk/tou/

We all agreed to the MSN Code of Conduct and Terms of Use when we joined MSN. It is our responsibility as members to stay in compliance and it is the responsibility of DCS managers to see that DCS's way of complying is  heeded.