Community guidelines
The What to Expect Community is made up of wonderfully diverse members who we hope will find helpful information, stimulating discussion, support and friendship. In order to facilitate that, you are required to abide by the following Community Guidelines based on the Terms of Use you accepted when you registered with WhatToExpect.com. Because it is impossible to foresee all situations that might arise and address them here, we will exercise our right to remove any material we judge to be detrimental to individual members of the Community and the Community at large.
If you believe a post is in violation of one of these rules, use the Report a Violation link within discussions or email our Community moderators at communityadmin@whattoexpect.com privately and we will address the issue.
Personal attacks are unacceptable
Group posts and photos posted with the intent to insult another member are not allowed. Likewise, personal attacks on other members are prohibited, as well as unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, tortuous, defamatory, libelous or otherwise objectionable messages.
You should not post any message with content that might invade another's rights. Messages threatening another member, insulting another member or exposing another member's real life identity are prohibited.
Any user who breaks this rule will automatically be banned from the What to Expect Community.
Keep it clean
Our members come from various cultural backgrounds and experiences. What is not offensive to you may be considered offensive to others. Vulgarity, profanity and derogatory statements are considered inappropriate including those contained in photos or videos that can be posted to public areas of the site. Posting graphic images is also prohibited.
Debate is okay; fighting is not
A difference in opinion is to be expected in our groups. Because we recognize that everyone can learn from different perspectives, healthy, lively debates are encouraged. However, messages posted with the intent to instigate personal attacks are prohibited.
No slurs or hate speech
Any form of speech that is hateful, derogatory, bigoted, or that contains slurs in reference to race, sex, ethnicity, nationality, age, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, class or mental capacity is prohibited. Posting hate speech will result in an immediate permanent ban.
No ganging up
In any Community there will always be people that you don’t agree with or like. Disagreements will happen, but encouraging other members to gang up on, harass or bully another member or group of members is not permitted.
Don't claim to be someone you aren't
You're encouraged to create a username for yourself during the registration process. However, falsifying who you are or creating a second account to harass, attack, deceive or mislead others is not permitted. Claiming to be a site administrator, moderator or staff member is also prohibited. Impersonation will result in an automatic permanent ban.
No spamming
Do not repeatedly flood the message boards with the same or similar posts. Spamming is an unwelcome way of invading the groups.
Do not spread false, misleading or inaccurate information
Post honest and valuable information. Don't post rumors or negative opinions about any subject that are not supported by facts. Unless the information in your post arises directly from your personal experience, references to and sources of any health-related or medical information must be included in your post. No conspiracy theories whatsoever will be tolerated and are grounds for an immediate ban.
No advertising
All advertising is prohibited. Certain advertising, particularly advertising for financial schemes, is prohibited by various federal and state laws. Also, you should not post an opinion on the message boards about a product with which you are currently affiliated, unless you have volunteered to sample products from official What to Expect sponsors. In that case, you will be asked to post opinions in designated groups that have been created for those sponsors by the What to Expect moderators (and will be labeled as such).
From time to time, What to Expect moderators may post surveys or applications from official What to Expect sponsors in the groups to help those sponsors collect information or recruit volunteers to test products. Clicking on these links will always be completely up to the member at their own discretion.
No solicitations
In order to protect our members, we do not allow requests for donations to be made in our groups.
No minors
For their protection, Community members that are posting in groups, should be at least 18 years of age. Therefore, accounts created by minors will be closed.
Protect your identity
Your username, avatar and posts are accessible by the public. If you wish to maintain anonymity, avoid using personal info. For example, avoid creating posts that include your mailing address and phone number.
If you believe a post to be in violation of these rules, please report it to the moderators by using the Report a Violation link located on the post. If you have questions or concerns please email communityadmin@whattoexpect.com. You do not need to report violations multiple times or encourage other members to report the same issue. Please help us keep our Community safe, friendly, and supportive!
FAQs about What to Expect Community Groups
Q: What are groups?
A: Groups are made up of online forums (message boards) that make it easy for those with similar interest to connect and share information.
Q: What’s the difference between a user-created group and a What to Expect branded group?
A: What to Expect branded groups are created and moderated by admin staff. User-created groups are created by member group owners. Group owners have the ability to moderate and remove some content within the groups they own. The What to Expect moderator staff provides additional support in removing content and banning members from user-created groups as needed.
Q: How do I join a group?
A: To join a group, simply click on the “Join This Group” button. When you join a group, you will receive a daily email update on topic discussion activity within that group. You have the option to unsubscribe via the link at the bottom of the email. You may also “Unjoin” the group at any time.
Q: What is a moderator?
A: Our moderators (admin) are the friendly and helpful representatives of What to Expect. They're staff members who are here to help keep the Community a friendly and welcoming place for all of our members. If you would like to contact our moderators, email them at Communityadmin@whattoexpect.com.
Q: What do the acronyms used in the group conversations stand for?
A: Community acronyms are listed on this reference guide. You can also find a listing of commonly used pregnancy terms in our site glossary.
Q: Is content ever removed from the Community?
A: What to Expect strives to create a safe Community and is committed to combating harmful misinformation, racism and all forms of hate speech. Accounts, discussions and posts that are in violation of the What to Expect guidelines will be deleted. If multiple members of a group are repeatedly in violation of the guidelines, the group will be removed entirely. Our automated AI will pick up and automatically remove some discussion content. Due to limitations of the automated process, content is reviewed by moderators to ensure that wrongly auto-blocked discussions are restored.
User-created groups that have been inactive for 3 months or longer will automatically be archived.
When a user requests to delete an account, discussion or post it will be permanently removed and cannot be restored.
To appeal a moderation-related decision, please email communityadmin@whattoexpect.com with your username, a link to the post, or a screen capture from the chat and an explanation of your reasoning. Messages with profanity will result in a permanent ban.
We are committed to providing a safe and lawful online environment. In compliance with applicable laws generally and with the EU Digital Services Act (DSA) specifically, you can report illegal content you see on this platform by emailing communityadmin@whattoexpect.com. Illegal content refers to material that violates the laws of the EU member states. This could include, but is not limited to, child exploitation material, cybercrime, fraud, or incitement of violence.
In case of immediate threat or harm, we recommend contacting local law enforcement directly.
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