clarification of posting policies

July 30, 2007

This is in response to questions I've gotten about the pet posting policy.

Two years ago, Doug instituted the requirement that all posts be

approved by one of the moderators. There are three reasons for this:

1) We get a lot of attempts to posts ads for products that are not

legitimate. We don't want those kinds of posts or spam posts coming

into the group.

2) The primary purpose of the group is to share information about

Xolair and to provide support for folks with SERIOUS allergic asthma.

No " Lightweights " here.

3) To avoid the kind of drama that some of us have seen in posts on

the WebMd board. We want a group that is supportive of other group

members, without any " flame " messages or any of that kind of thing.

Practically speaking, we moderators cannot moderate discussions about

all areas of the allergic world. We don't have that kind of time. So

we have to prioritize issues the best we can. For instance, the

discussion on vacuum cleaners was a short one that led to a couple of

people posting info about allergy supply companies. That's helpful;

it make sense. However, if we started getting a bunch of posts about

which pillow protectors we all use, I really think that would send us

screaming. (Terry, don't even think about it.)

We have also ended the black box warning discussions (at least, until

there is an update) and invited new members who've been posting

questions about this to read the past posts on the subject.

I agree that it would behoove many of you to have a discussion about

non-allergic pets. Feel free to email each other or for someone to

start a post on the webmd allergy or asthma support board - those are

unmoderated and the way that they work allows folks to not even look

at posts they don't want to read. Many of our members get an

individual email for posts from this board and therefore can't opt out

of participation without taking time to look at each post.

So, please share your love for your pets, reptile, feline, canine,

equine, bovine, or otherwise with each other by email or through

webmd. Just not here.

Thank you for your understanding,

Addy

Group co-owner

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