Neuroendocrine Cancer Ronny Allan’s Group – Detailed Rules

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Disclaimer

I am not a doctor or any form of medical professional, practitioner or counsellor. None of the information on my website, or linked to my website(s), or conveyed by me on any social media or presentation, should be interpreted as medical advice given or advised by me. 

Neither should any post or comment made by a follower or member of my private group be assumed to be medical advice, even if that person is a healthcare professional.   

Please also note that mention of a clinical service, trial/study or therapy does not constitute an endorsement of that service, trial/study or therapy by Ronny Allan, the information is provided for education and awareness purposes and/or related to Ronny Allan’s own patient experience. This element of the disclaimer includes any complementary medicine, non-prescription over the counter drugs and supplements such as vitamins and minerals.

About. I also have a private Facebook group.  The group can be found here. This is a chat site for discussions about Living with Neuroendocrine Cancer. It’s for patients and/or their primary caregiver/carer/supporter. The primary caregiver/carer/supporter must ensure the patient is aware they are joining to fulfil this role.

The group is for any type of Neuroendocrine Neoplasm (NEN) – a term combining Neuroendocrine Tumours (NET) and Neuroendocrine Carcinoma (NEC). The site owner will advise if the group is not suitable once details of the diagnosis become clear. 

** We get a lot of people trying to join in addition to the patient and/or primary caregiver on the basis they want information about the cancer.  If you are the patient or primary caregiver/carer/supporter, please do not invite others to join unless there is a special reason why an additional support person is required (contact Ronny Allan to provide more info).  This is the wrong medium for those joining just for information – it’s a discussion group and therefore a very unstructured array of data/information.  If this fits your profile, please go to the following sources of information which all contain many authoritative links to expert guidance:

Website RonnyAllan.NET

Newsletter – see subscription at the bottom of this page. Sign up with an email.

Public Facebook Page Technical Info (blogs)Click here and Like
Public Facebook Page Awareness Info (blogs)Click here and Like
Public Facebook Page Ronny Allan’s main page but mainly contains anecdotes about living with cancer including travel and hikes etc, warning contains humour! – Click here and Follow

The owner may also invite carefully selected medical professionals to join. Regardless of who posts or comments, nothing in this group should be considered medical advice.

Disclaimer.  Check out the disclaimer which is applicable to all – click here.

What we do. This is a support and education group. It’s not designed to run like a standard Facebook patient forum. This is a group where people can feel safe and not be bombarded with too much unsubstantiated information and unrelated ‘Facebook tat’ you may see elsewhere.  We focus on important things that really matter to patients and their supporters.

What we don’t do. We don’t do the zebra/unicorn/peacock thing, we are people in this group and many people see this as dehumanising.  Nor do we do the ubiquitous junk mail stuff such as quotes/memes/GIFs. This group also discourages the spreading of cancer myths including those specific to Neuroendocrine Cancer.  If you have come to this group to call people by the name of an animal and you want to see masses of Facebook ‘tat’ and cancer myths, to poach members, then you’re in the wrong place and should leave. 

Neuroendocrine Neoplasms

Neuroendocrine Neoplasms (NEN) is a term covering all types from low-grade low stage well-differentiated Neuroendocrine Tumours (NETs) all the way up to high-grade high stage poorly differentiated Neuroendocrine Carcinomas (NEC).  Additionally, there are people from all across the world and who are in widely different types of healthcare systems (public and private/insurance-based). So please remember the audience when posting as this regularly causes confusion.  

The Detailed Rules.

As of 17th May 2023 – ALL MEMBERS MUST READ
***********************************
1. Admission to the site is open to those NET Patients and/or their primary supporter (e.g. a carer/a caregiver/a close family member/friend).  Primary supporters must ensure the patient has consented to you joining to fulfil this role, particularly if the patient is also a member.
 
2. By joining, you understand that other members are not medical experts and that any advice you may receive needs to be verified with your own doctors.
 

3. Healthcare professionals who are also NET patients are in the group as patients. Healthcare professionals (patient or not) must remember that any contribution made reflects the fact that they do not know the detailed medical circumstances of those asking questions.

4. All posts will be filtered, authorised, and where time permits, scheduled to make sure people get time to react to each post if they wish. People do not need my permission to post but posts that are not in adherence to these rules will not be authorised and the poster will be informed which rule is not in compliance. There may be gaps due to time zones, please be patient, there is no need to repeat posts because you think they did not work.

5. The subject of any post and subsequent discussion is expected to be NET education including support for those wishing to learn from others. Venting and complaining need to be balanced against the purpose of the group and these rules. Just venting and complaining without a learning and support element is not really what I set up this group for. No personal videos or photos please.

6. Do not promote contributions to religious, political, or other causes, and do not engage in or promote commercial activities, i.e. No selling. No fundraising, there are plenty of other places to do that.
 
7. Please discuss matters calmly and without hostility, profanity, personal criticism, or intimidation. The rules are designed to make this a safe, stress-free place. If we make corrections, we do so with kindness. Facts are welcome. I want us to be friends!
 
8. Please take care when posting anything that could potentially lead to identity theft, such as copies of scans or medical reports – you do so at your own risk. In fact, our moderators and admins may remove these to protect you where we feel your personal information is at risk.
 
9. When posting, please avoid posts of copyrighted material, such as photographs without attribution or unsubstantiated verbatim quotes from other forums.
 
10. Suggesting new members is fine but as members will be expected to read and then obey the rules before being accepted, please just send them a link to the group https://www.facebook.com/groups/RonnyAllan.NeuroendocrineCancer/ rather than inviting them via Facebook function. Our experience shows that many may not be willing to join. This will save any embarrassment for you and them; and will also save a lot of administrator time – it’s our experience that less than 5% of invited guests bother to answer the questions. Invites not answered correctly will be removed after 24 hours.
 
11. The administrators are aware of blogs and scientific articles and may choose to add a specific blog post or scientific article if it is felt the post supports a particular discussion AND meets the rules of the site. Adding medical or scientific news should include a reference as to why it is applicable or useful to NET education. False hope is not a good thing so news or articles making ‘wild claims’ without evidence will be removed. Please avoid sharing blogs not authorised by the group owner, as these would need to be vetted to ensure compliance with the group rules. 
 
12. Group files and polls/surveys. I would rather files were passed to the owner for consideration and subsequent adding to the group file repository. This is to monitor the evidence, compliance, relevance, and size of the lists. Polls are not scientific instruments and can often send the wrong messages. Consequently, only the site owner can conduct polls considered relevant. If you are interested in conducting a poll, please provide full details to the site owner for consideration. Posts conducting polls will not be accepted. Externally linked surveys are not allowed.
 
13. Animals. We prefer to be addressed as people rather than zebras, or collectively as a group rather than a herd. Pictures of zebras and ‘zebra-oriented’ themes (including emojis), including internet links that display such pictures, will also be deleted or rejected as a post. Ditto for unicorns/peacocks etc. This group operates a zero-tolerance policy on this issue.  If you have come to this group to call people by the name of an animal, then you’re in the wrong place and should leave. 
 
14. Personal updates are fine but there must be a question behind the update. For example, posts simply asking for prayers or having no other object than a religious statement are not allowed – sorry. Empathy is a given in this group. Please try to avoid introductory posts as these can clog up the group questions and answers – unless you have a story of course. Avoid posts that are of a trivial or strictly personal nature, such as mood illustrations, proverbs, ‘memes’, clip art or stickers, GIFs, coloured and themed post backgrounds, including in comments. There are plenty of other places for these types of posts – just not in this group.
 
15. Please do not criticise doctors or hospitals/medical establishments by name as others who think highly of them might be offended. These posts will be removed.
 
16. The group owner and administrators/moderators work very hard to build and maintain this group. Anyone found actively or covertly poaching members away from this group will be removed from the group and banned. We cannot fully control this, but we believe it must be a two-way consensual activity. Members should therefore be wary about receiving unsolicited messages from other members, they may not be what they seem and if concerned, report this activity to the owner or one of the other members of the group admin. Engaging in this activity may result in removal from the group, particularly when the member receiving a message out of the blue is uncomfortable. Our experience indicates members do not appreciate other members messaging them out of the blue, some describing it as ‘creepy’. 

Owners/admins/moderators of other NET groups can join as a patient or the caregiver/carer/support person of a living patient needing support but any of the above activities will result in removal from the group (unless they have a pre-arranged system with Ronny Allan)
 
17. Posts containing recommendations will be screened, and words and pictures in these group/site names that contravene group rules will be removed. The site owner realises that certain types of Neuroendocrine Neoplasms need expert and peer support, but this site still welcomes all types of Neuroendocrine Neoplasm because many of the issues are similar across the board, i.e. this site has a much wider scope.
 

18. The Administrators and Moderators are there to help but they are also there to protect the integrity of the group and resolve issues. Anyone found blocking a group administrator or moderator will be removed from the group. We have settings in the group that provide us with an indication an admin has been blocked.

19. All posts are monitored, and admins will delete posts and comments that are out of compliance. After reading these rules, if you think this group is not for you, kindly remove yourself. If you remain, it is assumed you will adhere to these rules.

20. Please respect everyone’s privacy. Being part of this ‘closed’ group requires mutual trust. Authentic, expressive discussions make groups great, but may also be sensitive and private. No screenshots are to be taken and posted elsewhere – what’s shared in the group should stay in the group.

21. Summary of what is not allowed. As you would expect, this will be a group for support and educational purposes. These posts are not accepted:

A. Accepting lots of the usual ‘tat’ and ‘junk’ posts I see on other groups.

B. Drama – people arguing beyond what appears to be civil.

C. No Memes including those inspirational quotes that seem to pervade the internet.

D. No Zebra, Unicorn, Peacock stuff including inferring via a theme, emoji or internet link i.e. if you post an internet link (url) and it by default displays something against the rules, that will also be removed. This is a progressive group, not stuck in the 1980s, and is focused on what matters to patients. It’s not rare!

E. No myths – e.g. no unsubstantiated claims of what prevents or causes cancer (including NETs). e.g. miracle cures that have no scientific base for treating cancer and in some cases, have been scientifically debunked or banned from sale because they are dangerous – therefore do not post about this please. e.g. cannabis conversations due to the aforementioned ‘miracle cure’ claims, circular discussions; and legal situation in many countries.

F. No coloured or themed background posts please.

G. No politics.

H. Posts simply asking for prayers (i.e. soliciting prayers). In response to a post, if people want to offer prayers for their own validation, which is acceptable, but people should not feel pressured in doing to. Our experience is that people who want to offer prayers will do so without being asked. Others will offer other types of support. Please do not solicit prayers.  People who want to offer prayers will do this; others may choose their own methods of supporting you.

I. No fundraising or ‘GoFundMe’ activities please, there are plenty of other places to do this.

J. No coronavirus or vaccine questions until the site owner informs you otherwise (including in comments). This is a support group, and these issues are clearly a discussion to have with your own doctor. You cannot expect any other patient or supporter to give you a 100% accurate answer in respect of your own situation. We want the support and the focus of the group to be on NET and not be superseded and taken over by controversial discussions. We review this restriction regularly. 

I will personally monitor this group closely to make sure it stays on track for what it is intended to be and not turn into yet another unmanageable support group. There are many of those out there. I know this group isn’t for everyone, so I want to make sure everyone knows what we do here, and what we don’t. Remember, being part of a cancer group is a privilege, not a right.  The following link provides some guidance to get the best out of this group – “How to use the group”

 

Ronny Allan

RonnyAllan.NET



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