Updated Rules and Guidelines

During the past year we've received a number of requests from both ex-SGs & ex-FGs who have been surprised to find that someone has mentioned them by their legal name on our site. Often the mention was not malicious in intent, just one well-meaning poster asking another, 'Did you know [so-&-so]? His/her legal name was [so-&-so] & he/she was from...'

In the cases we know of, none of the persons mentioned by legal name were guilty of any crimes. They were simply former members trying to get on with their lives, pursue higher education, support their families, even do philanthropic work, but with it becoming more common for employers to do Google searches, & with the policies & practices of The Family now highly documented, the readers were concerned that they would be thought to be guilty by association.

After receiving a number of requests by both ex-SGs & ex-FGs to remove their legal names we realized that this is no longer a day for posters to throw such personal information around carelessly. Removing content is a time-consuming process and could potentially cause innocent exmembers grief. We feel it would be easier if posters simply restrained themselves in the first place, & decided to make our rules & policies reflect this.

The new rule states:
No purposeless naming of legal names of ex-members, whether carelessly or deliberately: If you're going to cite any legal names, use them in compliance with our guidelines. The Family's policy has been to expose the faces and legal names of their followers, while protecting their leadership who live in hiding under assumed names - we aim to reverse that policy. When an individual has left the group and gone on to make something good out of his/her life, associating them with The Family can sometimes have adverse effects on their recovery. Unless you are reporting firsthand accounts of specific crimes which can hold up in a court of law, we do not need to cause former members unnecessary grief, creating "guilt by association" by connecting them to The Family.