Hey all,

Things have been getting pretty intense in The Lockers, and we just want to remind you of the guidelines that our community lives by. These values were defined by our members over the past few years, and most should be self-evident based on our dedication to privacy and the need to keep the tone here respectful from member to member.


1) No attacking or mocking other members. Period. If you have something negative to say, keep it general. The issues that people are talking about here are real, and no-one has a right to attack or make fun of anyone else.


2) No trolling: Trolling is when people make inflammatory posts to get other people riled up. This is a teen-to-teen environment where members support each other and can safely discuss sensitive or important issues in their lives. Posting just to provoke other members wont fly here.


3) No links to other sites. Unfortunately, links that just go to other sites you think are interesting or entertaining can't be posted here. The only exception is stuff that raises issues relating to the Jewish community, or that can help teens deal with important things according to Jewish values.

Its totally impossibe for us to review the ideas, senses of humor, or attitudes/values of all the other sites out there, and we go out of our way to keep all content posted to The Lockers in tune with what we are all about.


4) No "How-To" posts: We realize that this sucks, but in this matter we have no other choice. We can't have members educating other members in 'how-to' make a bomb, use a drug, get away with stuff they shouldn't be doing, or even teach about what a certain sexual act is.

TheLockers.net is a place to talk about issues you already have. Its not a place to learn how to do new things you have never been exposed to.

The good news is that the Coaches Corner lets u get any kind of "How-To" advice over there -- from trustworthy advisors, and with the same anonymity TheLockers.net guarantees.


5) No sexually graphic posts or sexual health questions: TheLockers.net recognizes that there is a lot going on in the Jewish teen community relating to sex and sexual questions, and you should feel comfortable to talk about these issues here when you need personal support from your fellow teens. But there are certain moral/spiritual 'red-lines' that must be respected. Posts that are overly graphic beyond what is needed to speak about an issue are not ok. And health questions should be answered by a trained professional - not a layperson. We recently lauched the first component of what will be a growing health section where members can talk to a trusted counselor and/or rabbi about these kinds of issues, and in that section any and all questions and ideas are allowed.

6) No encouraging risky behavior: While some people may feel casual about certain types of risky behavior like drinking, recreational drug use, hooking up, acts of violence, and other stuff like that -- its not cool to encourage other teens to cross those kinds of lines. Everyone is entitled to share their personal perspectives and thoughts on these life-issues, but be sensitive to the difference b/t sharing your own ideas, and suggesting that someone else cross a serious moral boundary.


7) No personally identifying info: No names of individuals or institutions (with the exception of celebrities and government), no Instant Message SN's, and nothing that might give another person you know who's reading the site too much unique details on who you are (like a combo of your age, family size, and school type -- all together). You get the idea... The Lockers is based on anonymity, and we will always do our best to protect your privacy and that of others.



TheLockers.net does not practice censorship regarding life issues. But we do have guidelines to keep our community the way u guys have asked us to -- maintaining a space thats respectful, guards your privacy, & preserves a basic respect of traditional Jewish values.

We want you to know the reasons we may modify or reject a post, and invite your feedback or suggestions. You can always drop us a note via the feedback form, wich is linked to from the top of the page.

Hope it all makes sense. See You Online!


~Shufleye - Yer Friendly Neighborhood Admin

Firstly, an apology to I Got Issues and Kiyara: They both posted on this thread, and unfortunately while we were moderating today this thread was accidentally deleted.

We happened to have our responses to their posts elsewhere, so we have restored them, with our best effort to refelct their original posts.

(If you guys want to resend us your posts using the feedback form, we'll restore them in place of what we wrote)

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I Got Issues posted: I read the guidelines, and I think that deleting or modifying our posts is bad. It creates a feeling that big brother is watching. If these boards are for teens, then why don't you let teens moderate for themselves?

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Let me clarify any misunderstanding:

We Never Significantly Modify Any Post

When we mention editing, that is only in the simplest sense so that we can get a members post live without having to send it back to them to say: "hey, you need to remove the word f*** from your post", or something ridiculous like that. So instead we may "star" out the letters and minor edits like that. Another example is if someone has an otherwise solid post, but maybe one line in it takes a swipe at another member. So that line will be eliminated, consistent with our guidelines to keep the forum civil. But there is no reason to hold back an otherwise valid post.

If a post is totally cruel, or just too sexually or violently graphic overall, then we won't edit it - it just won't go up. There are legal issues involved here, which are actually super-complicated since you guys are mostly legally "Minors" (under 18) (it may suck, but its the law). You're dealing with heavy stuff on TheLockers.net, and by U.S. Law that requires a certain level of responsibility that me and my team have to follow.

Also, I think its reasonable for us to maintain the user agreement that everyone agrees to when they join the site. Every online community has a certain atmosphere that it promises - ours is never to censor ISSUES. But because we are a forum for such real issues to be discussed, we firmly feel that our members deserve the respect of their fellow teens. And if someone wants to come in and rag on someone who has shared some really heavy things, or be gratuitously crude just for shock-value, that's just not cool, and its not gonna happen.

I have tremendous respect for the members who are sharing deeply personally things here, and it upsets me a lot when new members come in and start attacking other peoples genuine posts. But I also realize that those "attacking" posts may be real too - and that some people are just in so much pain inside, or have so much fury inside, that they can no longer express their emotions in a civil way. So I've asked my moderators to do their best to allow those posts when they are not too offensive. But its often impossible to let many of those posts through - they are just too thoroughly hurtful.

Finally, some posts are kept back because they include a level of personal detail that we are afraid may give someone's identity away. And anonymity is something we will never compromise on -- it is our promise to you, and we consider it a matter of trust between us and you that we guard your privacy to our utmost ability. This has been the case with a few of your posts, IGI, and if you want we can further discuss it by email or IM - I'm sorry if you felt we were randomly blocking you - that would never be the case.



Regarding letting members moderate themselves, or other teens be moderators, that's simply impossible. You can't imagine how many people have tried to reveal humiliating things about other teens, which we have to sort through. If other teens were moderating, a lot of innocent people would have gotten hurt.

But I think the most important thing to remember is that this isn't just "a website", or another general "online community". TheLockers.net is a platform that we built for teens to wake up their community to what's really going on today. We go out of our way to emphasize that, and as any of you who we've met at your schools know, we do a lot more than just maintain this site. We are constantly forwarding on your issues back to schools, rabbis, community leaders and anyone else who we believe needs to hear what you have to say and do something to make things better for you.

If this site deteriorated into some nasty mud-slinging fest, or if posts that were crude just for shock value started popping up all over, many of the adults we are trying to "bring around" would use that as ammo to dismiss everything valid that is being said here!! And I think every teen knows that that's true.

You guys have unseated the community from its complacency - you've forced them to wake up to a reality that many, many adults are very afraid to deal with. Those adults who want to avoid these issues only need one or two excuses to trash the things you are saying here, or to throw water on the credibility of this forum, and suddenly you're voices are muted again.

I created In-Reach to advocate on your behalf - on behalf of the teen community. You can not imagine what a delicate dance it is to convince some people that you are serious about your lives and your future, and are only looking for serious answers to serious questions -- answers you deserve.

And many people are afraid of these discussions - afraid that the discussions create "bad ideas", rather than realizing that you guys are already exposed to pretty much everything, and what is missing is the opportunity to talk about it within your own community. Just yesterday I spent an hour and a half with Rabbi Dr. Abraham Twerski at his house to ask him to help me overcome the objections of certain community leaders who wanted us to take down some of your discussions!! We needed Dr. Twerski behind you, and your conversations on this site, to help us resist the pressures we are under from those who are afraid of these discussions.

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So please, trust us.

I promise you that I, and anyone on my team here at In-Reach, will only ever work with your interests - those of the teen community - in mind.

Sometimes that may mean that we have to keep a certain credibility to the conversations here - and keep nasty posts or expletives off the forum. But we will not censor your issues. And we will advocate for you in every way we know how.

"Big Brother" (and i gotta say, you kinda hurt me with that one) tries to keep voices from being heard. We just want to make sure no-one ever has an excuse to ignore your voices again.


~Shufleye

Firstly, an apology to I Got Issues and Kiyara: They both posted on this thread, and unfortunately while we were moderating today this thread was accidentally deleted.

We happened to have our responses to their posts elsewhere, so we have restored them, with our best effort to refelct their original posts.

(If you guys want to resend us your posts using the feedback form, we'll restore them in place of what we wrote)

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Kiyara posted: I like what Shufleye wrote here. But one question - is what is being discussed here really such a big deal? Are adults in the community really paying attention? If I asked a teacher in my school, or a parent in the community about TheLockers.net, would they know what I was referring to?
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Great question, Kiyara.

Actually, yes and no. Right now some community leaders and School Faculty members are in the know, and we speak with them regularly about issues you raise that need attention, but most adults are still relatively unaware of how much is happening here. But for a strategic reason.

What we are doing here is a REALLY big deal. There is such enormous denial in the Jewish community, and we have to be really thoughtful in how we break through that wall.

There are three reasons an adult could diminish the credibility of TheLockers.net, and everything you guys share here.

1) They can attack it from a clinical point of view, saying that it "gives good kids bad ideas", or attack the value of teen-to-teen support, or question what In-Reach does if someone is in real danger,

2) They can question it from a religious point of view. This forum is specifically for teens that go to modern orthodox yeshivot (there will be a 2nd forum next year for Schechter schools, G-d willing). People can try to argue that the real discussions you guys are having here are religiously dangerous or hashkafically inappropriate,

3) They can question it from an academic point of view, saying that we are undermining the schools (and if we don't have school support, we can't come to the schools to promote the site and meet one-on-one with the students - which is already a problem we have at some schools).

So what's our plan?

Right now our idea is to take the wall of denial down one brick at a time, starting with the most major ones. The first thing we are doing is forming solid relationships with those community leaders who have strong pull, get what we are doing, and who respect why TheLockers.net is so important for you guys. We are inviting them to be on our Advisory Board or our Board of Directors, and getting letters of support from others (like Rabbi Dr. Twerski). We're also forming relationships with those Yeshiva High Schools who are readily open to the intention behind TheLockers.net.

The reason for this is that as word gets out to the community at large, including your parents and teachers and rabbis about what's going on here, and about the intense and serious stuff you guys are sharing and dealing with, they will have no choice but to respect this site if it is backed by many major leaders across all areas (Rabbis, Shrinks, Educators).

Thank G-d, we have some really big community leaders, mental health experts, Rabbis, and High School Principals and guidance staff in your corner. So we are almost ready to start promoting the things you are sharing here to everyone. But there are a few more things we want to do before we really start to blow the lid off TheLockers.net to all adults.

First, we want to get up The Coaches Corner, so you and other members who have personal questions have cool and trustworthy people to talk to about them. And second, we are looking for a webmaster who knows php well to build out some content on the site about the issues you guys are raising.

So I'd say in about another 30-60 days we are gonna blow the walls off TheLockers.net, and after that things are gonna get pretty crazy. More parents and leaders are going to hear in your own voices the serious stuff you guys are dealing with every day. And when some impulsively try to deny it, there is going to be a solid group of leaders backing you all up!

Kiyara, this unwillingness to listen was going on when I was in HS - it has been getting more and more serious for the past 15-30 years. So we're going up against a serious emotional wall of resistance - one that is deeply ingrained in the community (i.e. "The Jewish community doesn't hang their dirty laundry out where anyone else can see"). So we've gotta be extremely careful, and extremely thoughtful and strategic in how we bring this wall down, and make the future you guys want from your parents, rabbis, and schools is as honest as it ought to be.

Our number one priority is to allow you - the teen community - to be heard. And right behind that is to make sure that no-one discredits you once you have spoken.

~Shufleye.

really-thanks. i appreciate that u took the time out to write that. its nice that someone cares even when they are out of the system and can just go off the aruba, or in our case, israel

hmmm, this blog seems to have some serious content. I really like what you wrote shufleye.

Dear Members,

Just a reminder that TheLockers.net has a zero-tolerance for the invasion of privacy of any of our members. Such behavior will result in the banning of any member from the TheLockers.net community, and/or the pursuit of both legal and technological defensive measures.

TheLockers.net relies on a common trust between people as an underlying value to everything taking place here. We will always do everything in our power to protect the privacy of our members.


~Rabbi Shu.