1. Be Nice! Please understand that even if you don't give your email address you are not anonymous. Your Internet host address will be logged when you submit a message. Abusive or spam posts can be reported to ISPs or your company and you may be banned from this website.

3.Flaming/Trolling: Flames are posts intended to insult and provoke. Posters who speak incessantly and/or rabidly on some relatively uninteresting subject or with a patently ridiculous attitude will be banned. Repeated posts directed with hostility at a particular person or group of people or their beliefs will be cause for banning. Any individual who chronically trolls, who regularly posts arguments, flames or personal attacks for no other purpose than to annoy someone or disrupt a discussion will be banned. Trolls are recognizable by the fact that they have no real interest in learning about the topic at hand - they simply want to utter flame bait.

4. Off Topic Postings: Often people post remarks that have nothing to do with the subject of the forum. These will be moved or deleted at the discretion of the moderator.

5. Spamming: Those who come here and post numerous links to other commercial websites, forums, chatrooms or communities, without actually contributing any content to this website will be banned without notice. It's fine to post an occasional interesting link to another website, in the context of a thread's subject, but to only do that or to do it repeatedly is not allowed. If you have your own website, you can put the URL in your profile and a link will be posted to your site in every post you make so there is no reason to add it to your posts or signature.

6. Banning: People who violate these forum guidelines repeatedly are subject to banning. Once someone has been banned from the site, we don't not allow complaints about it. Once banned, we are done with that individual, and no amount of complaining from other members will help. We don't need to justify our bans. This only causes more work for the moderators. Which is usually the reason for the person being banned in the first place. So those who complain about a banishment, are subject to being banned themselves.

8. If you see someone abusing this message board, please do not reply to them or add "fuel to the fire". Ignore it until I can delete it. Abusive posts will be removed! (I don't leave weeds in my flower beds, nor do I leave inappropriate posts on the message board).

Do not engage in "flame-wars" or excessive exchange of confrontational postings. Debate is important, but users should not try to "pick a digital fight."

9. Please do not take information obtained from this message board as a medical advice. Most of the people on the board are simply regular people following the Atkins diet and are sharing their own personal experiences. What works for one person might not for another.

10. I reserve the right to remove any post deemed inappropriate from the message board. Your free expression here is not protected by the Bill of Rights since this is not a government-controlled institution.

11. No solicitations or advertisements are allowed. This includes advertisements for your business, your own online endeavors or the latest get-rich-quick scheme.

Occasionally, as the administrator of this website, I will make decisions that are not popular. That is life. I have given up trying to make everyone happy, because it is simply not possible. I don't have the time or patience to entertain angry discussion threads second-guessing the choices I make. As the administrator of this website I'm a very busy person. Feel free to contact me about any issue, but please bear in mind that I may not be able to respond immediately.

All decisions made by the Webmaster are final and are not open to debate.