Getting started!

Welcome to CancerConnection.ca. Our online community is a place where people facing cancer and their loved ones can share experiences and build relationships to help them through their cancer journey.

Help us grow – invite other people to visit the community and welcome new members!

CancerConnection.ca thrives on your participation. As a member in our community, stay involved, start discussions and respond to what others have written. Add pictures, start a personal journal and seek new friends.

But remember – post only information that you are comfortable with others seeing and knowing about you. We strongly recommend that you not use your real name as the screen name that identifies you in the community. And follow the guidelines below to help make participation a positive experience for everyone.

Community dos and don’ts

Our dos and don’ts help ensure that the CancerConnection.ca experience is enjoyable and beneficial for all our users. The guidelines boil down to common sense, basic courtesy and respect, and not using the site for advertising or spam.

Do

• Be courteous and use good manners at all times.
• Be supportive and aware of other people’s feelings.
• Remain respectful even when there are differences of opinion or questionable behaviour. Topics are often sensitive and can lead to healthy debate. Although you may have strong feelings, personal attacks are never justified.
• Exercise tolerance. Religious beliefs are a source of strength for many people, and people of all faiths are welcome in our online community. Respect others and their beliefs or non-beliefs. Coming on too strong about your opinions or beliefs can be offensive to others and may have the opposite effect than you intend.
• Welcome newcomers. We love it when another person joins the community and participates.
• Lead by example. Share your opinion and experience, and contribute content that you think will be helpful to other members.
• Be yourself. Do not impersonate any person or entity, or falsely state or misrepresent your relationship with a person or entity.

Don’t

• Post in CAPS. Using all capital letters online is like shouting.
• Use obscene or hateful language. Profanity and personal attacks are not acceptable.
• Advertise commercial products or services, or recruit for research projects.
• Use CancerConnection.ca for any unlawful purpose.
• Post copyrighted information. Copyrighted material, emails and other privileged information may not be posted without prior written permission from the author.
• Post your personal contact information such as phone numbers, addresses and email addresses, or other private information such as social insurance numbers.
• Post personal details or private information about any other person. Remember – it’s not only your own privacy you need to protect but also the privacy of anyone you talk about.

Report it and then ignore it

• Use the flag function to alert us to problem content or members, or email us at cancerconnection@cancer.ca.
• Simply report the problem and then ignore users who try to provoke a response. If they can’t get a response, they will leave.

Our moderation approach

Why we moderate

Our team of moderators works behind the scenes to keep the community welcoming, safe and inclusive.

We monitor messages and blogs to check for information that could be harmful. We also watch for anyone misusing or breaking the conditions outlined in the terms of use and below in community dos and don’ts. We do not edit or remove messages or ban members without good reason.

How we moderate

Your messages, blogs and other posts to the community show up right away. We don’t screen community activity before it goes live.

This is called reactive moderation, which means that we rely on our members to tell us about any inappropriate content or behaviour. Throughout the website you’ll see flag buttons that let you notify us. Moderating in this way means that we can keep the community running 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, so that support is available when you need it.

Remember!

Every time you use the CancerConnection.ca community, you agree to the terms of use and the privacy policy. Make sure you completely understand their contents.

Views expressed in this community are solely the views of the members and do not represent professional recommendations, policy or advice of the Canadian Cancer Society.

Thanks for joining us!