Please read these along with our website terms and conditions and our forum terms and conditions.
What is the forum for?
Our forum is a place where people affected by stroke can share experiences, exchange views and support one another.
Who is it for?
The forum is here for anyone affected by stroke as long as you’re over 18. This means people who have had a stroke, families, friends and carers. All are welcome to join.
Stay safe
The forum is public and everything that is posted here can be found on search engines. People are not necessarily who they say they are on the forum. Keep yourself safe by sticking to the following rules:
- Don’t use your real name or email address as your display name when you set up your community profile.
- Don’t give out your real name or personal contact details, or other people's names and contact details in your forum posts or when messaging others.
- Don’t share your passwords with others.
- Forum members sometimes arrange to meet each other. If you decide to do this, do meet in a public place and use caution. Always make sure someone knows where you are.
Be respectful
- Remember that people on the forum may be having the best or worst day of their lives. Don’t attack or abuse others or inflame situations.
- Disagreement is fine but harassment, intimidation or verbal abuse isn’t. Don’t treat people on the forum with less respect than you would if you were standing in front of them.
- Don’t misrepresent yourself or pretend to be someone else. It breaks trust and hurts the community.
- Don’t be hateful. Respect the gender, religion, ethnicity and race of others. This includes threats, harassment, incitement, abuse, swearing, etc. The Stroke Association has the right to unpublish any content of this nature.
- Don’t use bad language. The forum has a profanity filter set up to remove strongly offensive words. However, if a member is found to be using offensive language during their conversation, the moderators reserve the right to edit the thread, without warning and suspend the member until further notice. While some words will be treated as context-specific, the Stroke Association does not condone swearing or any inappropriate word usage on the forum.
- Give others the benefit of the doubt. If you’re offended by a post, consider whether the person who posted it, meant it to be offensive. People may be tired, stressed out or having a bad day.
Think before you post
- Remember that everyone is entitled to their opinion. Before making a post, consider that people interpret things in different ways and what may be innocent to one person could be offensive or upsetting to another. Similarly, you might disagree with something someone has posted, but that does not mean they’re wrong.
- If you respond to a post you find offensive, read your response before you post it and consider whether it is reasonable or whether it will make things worse. You always have the option of reporting it to the forum moderators. Arguments on the forum upset other users, not just those involved.
DON’T SHOUT
- Use CAPITALS sparingly. Using capital letters in posts is considered to be shouting. They can also be difficult to read. Only use bold, italics and underlining to highlight parts of your post.
Don’t advertise or do research
- While people on the forum may want to share information, advice about products and services that have worked for them, the forum is not intended as a marketplace. We do our best to make sure that you are not bothered by spam. But we ask at the same time that you do not use the forum to sell products and services.
- If you receive personal messages from anyone trying to sell you something or recruit you for a study or media campaign, please contact the Forum team.
- We have a Research team who love to hear about new studies. If you would like to approach the community to get involved in your study, contact them first. You can reach them at research@stroke.org.uk. We also have a dedicated space for stroke research should you want to take part in a study or explore what research is currently being funded.
Do not offer medical advice
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While our forum encourages members to share personal experiences and offer guidance, we cannot verify the medical expertise of our community. Please refrain from providing or accepting medical advice here. For accurate and reliable medical guidance, consult a licensed healthcare professional or your GP.
If you think that you or someone you know is having a stroke, please call 999 immediately.
Keep it relevant
- Be sure to post in the correct section of the forum and, if you must use links, make sure that they are relevant to stroke. Keeping to the correct section means that your post is likely to be read by those who are interested. You’re also likely to get more responses. We sometimes remove links that have nothing to do with stroke.
- Don’t post the same message in more than one section. In most cases, this stops the flow of conversation and can be quite boring for those who are looking through the latest activity. Still, there are times where this might be appropriate.
- If you think this is something that you would like to do but you’re not sure whether it breaks the rules, contact the Forum moderators for advice.
Be legal - read the terms of use
The terms of use of this website set out the legal obligations that you agree to when using this site. Be sure you know what they are. The document is long, but you’ll only have to read it once. Only post content that you have written yourself. If you would like to share the work of another person that may be relevant, be sure to only use a short excerpt of the material and acknowledge the person who wrote it. If you would like to share the entire work, include a link to a place where other members can find it.
We will remove posts that breach copyright immediately. We really don’t have a choice on that.
Moderation
Our team of moderators check the forum regularly to ensure that we are keeping to these guidelines and the terms of use. Where we can, we will try to moderate in a way that doesn’t interrupt the flow of conversation.
When you write to us we will get back to you as quickly as we can, usually within 3 working days. Note that if several people report a post using the ‘Report post’ link, we will only respond to the first person.
How to complain
Forum members sometimes prefer to complain about (or compliment) the charity using the forum. It is valuable to some users to know that others are aware of their complaints. But this isn’t the best way to contact the charity about these issues.
You can address your comments, compliments and complaints by emailing us at our Service desk. If your comments and posts are not specific to the forum we may remove them.
What happens if you do not abide by the rules?
If you do not follow the rules of the forum we will suspend your account or remove you from the forum depending on the nature of the breach or the number of times you have breached the rules.
The following are common reasons that could lead to sanctions such as being silenced or suspended from the forum but the list is not exhaustive.
- Would not listen to staff feedback
- Consumed disproportionate amounts of staff time
- Too combative
- In the wrong place
- No constructive purpose to their actions other than creating dissent within the community.
Keep talking to us
We do our best to moderate the forum according to these guidelines and the terms of use but we sometimes miss things.
We rely on forum users to help us by letting us know. Use the flag on the post to alert us to any concerns you have.