SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS, e.g., FACEBOOK and TWITTER
Approved Pages/Profiles
Individuals
Victim (missing or murdered person)
Suspect (as indicated by LE)
- Links may be used to direct members to posts made by a victim or a suspect.
- Copying and pasting, or taking screen caps, directly from these pages is not allowed.
- Paraphrasing is okay.
- Posts by friends and visitors are off limits.
- Do not link to an individual's (victim or suspect) social media page if you are not 100% certain it belongs to the correct individual.
- If a social media page is set to private and you get in the back way, you may not post what you find. Private means private!
Public Pages
Mainstream Media (MSM)
Law Enforcement (LE)
Group support pages for victims, such as "Help Find..." and "Justice for...;
Legitimate non-profit organizations who provide assistance and support to victims and their families (e.g., Klass Kids, Texas Equusearch).
- Links may be used to direct members to a post by the owner or an admin of an approved social media page/profile.
- Posts by an owner or admin may be copied or quoted. This refers primarly to posts or tweets by MSM reporters, and announcements by law enforcement, the immediate family, or the admin of a group support page.
- Paraphrasing is okay.
- ***NOTE: Comments and posts by readers/visitors of these pages are not allowed to be quoted, copied or referenced. Just don't mention them.
- Regarding group support pages, i.e., "Help Find..." and "Justice for...: If at any time the WS staff determines a group support page to be inappropriate, a notice will be posted in the thread stating that the page is no longer approved.
Not Allowed
Social media pages that fall in the following categories are
OFF LIMITS.
Family members of either a victim or a suspect
Friends of either a victim or a suspect
Most any other individual
Don't link to these pages, nor make reference to information you find on them.
Any exception must first be approved by an administrator. You can contact an admininstrator via private message, or send an email to
[email protected]
EXAMPLE: If a suspect has been arrested for a crime relevant to the discussion topic, and you want to post a Facebook screencap from his/her personal page, you must first obtain approval from administration.
BAITING, TROLLING, INCITING CONFLICT
Trolling or making posts with the intention of creating problems on the forums is obviously against the forum guidelines. This includes registering an alternative ID for the sole purpose of creating problems on the forums.
A member who visits WS only to incite "conflict" will be designated a "troll", and find his/her account temporarily or permanently suspended. This includes but is not limited to outing members, bringing drama from other websites to Websleuths, trashing members in any way, hyper-focusing in the smallest details with the intent to annoy and create conflict, and any other reason Websleuths deems to be inciting conflict.
WS maintains zero tolerance for members who create posts intended to antagonize other members.
WS also reserves the right to require that a minimum number of posts, term of membership, or other criteria be met to allow posting on certain topics.
INVITING PRIVATE MESSAGES or EMAIL, and ALLUDING TO "INSIDE" INFORMATION
Inviting is termed as a post where you invite other members to contact you to find out more information, rather than post it in the forum. This is not allowed and any posts with emails or invitations to contact for more information will either be edited or deleted entirely.
This includes use of the Private Message system via comments such as Check your PMs or PM me posted in discussion threads.
Think about it - it's like whispering into someone's ear while you are at a table full of other people. If you want to have a private conversation just have it. Don't announce it.
Additionally, please don't state or suggest that you are privy to inside information, but either can't or won't discuss it.
If you can't post it, don't!
Etiquette & Information
