Welcome to the Spirituality & Practice Website and Community. Sharing your thoughts and feelings, expressing your spiritual commitments, and participating in a community are important parts of both spirituality and practice. We have therefore created Practice Circles and Practice Groups for our community members. By registering for an account at S&P and by posting to the Practice Circles, you are agreeing to abide by these Rules of Conduct/Terms of Use.

SpiritualityandPractice.com is committed to maintaining a welcoming and safe community where freedom of expression can thrive. This is a multifaith website, and we have visitors from a wide variety of religious and spiritual traditions. We ask that you read and post here in the spirit of hospitality, openness, and unity.

We will not censor members for expressing an opinion, within the limits of these Rules of Conduct/Terms of Use. We will take action against any behavior that disrupts conversations or that violates the sense of community on the website. SpiritualityandPractice.com has the right, but not the obligation, to remove any member-generated content for any reason, without notice. These Rules of Conduct/Terms of Use reflect the standards of behavior that our members find acceptable.

1. Courtesy and Respect: You agree that you will be courteous to every community member. In a discussion, you will express your opinion about people's ideas, not about them personally. You agree not to make negative personal remarks about other community members, including negative remarks about their age, disability, gender, ethnicity, race, nationality, religion, sexual orientation, intelligence, character, appearance, health, mental health, education, or any other personal characteristic. You agree not to engage in derogatory name-calling.

2. Hate Speech and Violence: You agree not to allege that groups or individuals deserve violence or harassment, or attempt to dehumanize or degrade them on the basis of age, disability, gender, ethnicity, race, nationality, religion, or sexual orientation.

3. Proselytizing: You agree not to make aggressive, repeated, or unwanted attempts to convert another member to your religious or spiritual beliefs. Please respect the rights of others to follow their own religious beliefs, even if you think those beliefs are false.

4. Illegal Activities: You will not solicit or promote the use of an illegal substance, promote illegal activity, or discuss illegal activities with the intent to commit them.

5. Disruptive Behavior: You agree not to disrupt or interfere with discussions in Practice Circles or Practice Groups. Disruptive behavior may include creating a disproportionate number of posts or discussions; creating off-topic posts; making statements that are deliberately inflammatory; manipulating topics to disrupt conversation; posting in a language other than English without providing an accurate English translation; expanding a disagreement from one discussion to another; or any behavior that interferes with conversations or inhibits the ability of others to use and enjoy this website for its intended purposes.

6. Solicitation: You agree not to use community discussions to advertise or solicit on behalf of commercial, religious, charitable, or other organizations or causes. This includes promotion of new books, videos, DVDs, and CDs. (If you would like a product considered for review, email the Brussats a brief description.)

7. Spam: You agree not to repeat the same text substantially in more than one location in the Practice Circles or Practice Groups. You will not reproduce chain letters, pyramid schemes, mail fraud schemes, or any other unauthorized advertising.

8. Vulgarity: You agree not to display words, information, or images that are vulgar, obscene, graphically violent, graphically sexual, harm minors in any way, exploit images of children, or are otherwise objectionable. You agree not to post URLs of sites where such words, images or information are displayed.

9. URLs: You may share the URL of a web resource other members may find useful, but you agree not to post URLs repeatedly or for the purpose of promoting a website or service (see "Solicitation" above). You agree not to post a URL of a site that violates these Rules of Conduct.

10. Copying Posts and Photographs: You agree not to post or forward transcripts of e-mail or other personal communication without the author's express permission. You agree not to reproduce material (other than printing a copy for personal use) from the Practice Circles or Practice Groups (including member posts) without express written permission from SpiritualityandPractice.com. You agree not to copy or link to Practice Circle or Practice Group member posts with less than friendly intent.

Photographs posted to the Practice Circles and Practice Groups remain the property of the one posting them (if they are original and not copied from another source) and cannot be reposted or reused by anyone else without permission of the original poster. Photographs posted by Spirituality & Practice to illustrate our reviews have been obtained from publishers and film companies and can only be used in the context of a review. Other photographs posted by Spirituality & Practice have been licensed through a photo supply service and cannot be reused by those who have not purchased their own license.

11. Privacy: You will not collect or use information about users of the website without their express permission. You agree not to reveal personal information about someone else. SpiritualityandPractice.com will remove any post containing a personal telephone number, real name, address, or any information that might reveal someone's geographical location without their permission. You will not send e-mail to Practice Circle or Practice Circle members that would violate these Rules of Conduct.

Caution: Even though our Practice Circles and Practice Groups are private forums for those participating in an e-course or special program, for which they have paid a fee, we advise members against revealing any personal information about themselves. If you choose to display your e-mail address to other members, please be aware that SpiritualityandPractice.com has no control over who uses your email address for what purpose. You also agree to take responsibility for choosing the level of privacy you want for the information in your personal profile, choose either to make (a) information only available to private Practice Circles or (b) all information private.

12. Impersonation: You agree not to impersonate or spoof Practice Circle or Practice Group members, employees or volunteers. You agree to create and use no more than one username, without explicit approval from SpiritualityandPractice.com. You agree not to use the name of a revered religious figure or well-known public figure as your username. You agree not to express or imply that any content or materials you make, submit or post are endorsed by SpiritualityandPractice.com or falsely state or otherwise misrepresent your affiliation with a person or entity.

13. Minors: You agree that you will not invite a minor in the Practice Circles or Practice Groups to contact you for any reason.

14. Images, Text and HTML: You agree to refrain from using visually disruptive or excessively large font sizes and/or images. You will not upload, post, link to, e-mail or otherwise transmit any harmful component to SpiritualityandPractice.com.

15. Copyright: SpiritualityandPractice.com discussions are primarily intended for interactive conversation. You agree not to create posts that consist substantially of material copied from another source. You agree to respect intellectual property rights when posting in the Practice Circles or Practice Groups. You agree not to post copyrighted or trademarked images. You agree not to post articles or other text from another publication (copyright or not) except as follows: you may quote a small sample of it, credit the source, post a link to the author's original, and include your own comments in your own words. You may quote sacred texts in the context of discussing them, but include your own comments in your own words. You agree that you will not modify, adapt, sublicense, translate, sell, lease, reverse engineer, decompile, frame, mirror or disassemble any portion of this website, or offer to do so.

16. Contact Information: You agree to provide a valid e-mail address in your Practice Circle or Practice Group registration. SpiritualityandPractice.com staff must be able to contact you by e-mail if necessary to discuss your account. If the e-mail address in your profile is not valid, your posting privileges may be suspended.

17. Complaints: If there are problems in the Practice Circles or Practice Groups, we want to know about them so that we can attempt to fix them. You agree to report community-related complaints and problems appropriately. To report a violation of these Rules of Conduct, or to complain about another member, email us at the address at the end of this page, and a member of the staff will review your complaint and take appropriate action. You agree not to post problem reports and complaints publicly on the site, or to comment publicly on staff or host actions. You agree you will not harass SpiritualityandPractice.com staff. You will not engage in behavior that requires SpiritualityandPractice.com staff and/or volunteers to expend excessive time and/or resources.

18. Application: These Rules of Conduct apply to anything you upload to or create in the Practice Circles or Practice Groups, including posts, screen names, member profiles, discussion titles, or any other text or images.

19. Termination: We have the right to terminate your account and access to the Practice Circles or Practice Groups for violation of the above rules.

20. Reprint Rights: We have the right to reprint from Practice Circles or Practice Groups discussions any post or portion of a post (along with the username of the member who posted it) somewhere else on the site or in any other medium, such as a press release, grant proposal, or article, but only if we have received your permission to do so before reprinting your post.

21. Not Crisis Counseling: The information contained in the Practice Circles and Practice Groups is not intended to substitute for professional crisis counseling. Spirituality & Practice and our content partners for E-Courses and other online programs neither endorse nor are responsible for any opinion, advice, information or statement made or displayed in these Practice Circles or Practice Groups, nor are we responsible for any errors or omissions in such postings, or for hyperlinks embedded in messages. Under no circumstances will we be liable for any loss or damage caused by your reliance on information obtained in these discussions. The opinions expressed in these discussions are solely the opinions of the participants, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of SpiritualityandPractice.com or our content partners.

22. Educational Purposes: The information contained on SpiritualityandPractice.com — in our articles, reviews, blogs, spiritual practices, quotations, e-courses, teacher profiles, topics, projects and other content — is specifically for educational purposes. Every effort has been made to determine the sources of non-original content presented on the website, and website visitors are required to honor rights, according to our Copyrights Policy. As a visitor to this website, you agree that Spirituality & Practice is not liable for any loss or damage caused by your reliance upon advice in our reviews and articles, your interpretation of spiritual teachings, or your experience with a spiritual teacher, spiritual director, or other individual discovered through the website.

Please check these Terms of Use periodically as they may be revised.

If you come across any violations to these Terms of Use, do not hesitate to let us know at:
SandPTeam@SpiritualityandPractice.com

We'll be happy to address your concerns.