Updates To Participation Level Designations

Today we are making changes to our forum participation levels to make the titles more informative. The full details are on our Community Stands, Participation Levels, And Posting Policies page. The relevant part is reproduced below.

2. Participation Levels

EpicureanFriends.com is an on-line community dedicated to the study, promotion, and practice of Classical Epicurean Philosophy. As with the ancient Epicureans, it is both a place of learning and a community of people working together in the same general direction — a team. Our goal is not to educate passive observers but friends in the Epicurean tradition, actively carrying forward Epicurean activity in the modern world.

Participation at EpicureanFriends.com requires strong affinity for Epicurean philosophy, but we are not primarily a hierarchical organization where all participants are required to agree with everything the ancient Epicureans said or wrote. Participation at higher levels indicates closer agreement with a larger number of Epicurean positions, but no participant submits to any code of conduct or requirements that apply outside the EpicureanFriends forum.

We implement a participant level system to assist guests and participants alike in assessing how much weight to give to any particular post. Posts by guests and newcomers will at times contain questions or opinions not consistent with the goals of the forum. The participant level assigned to each post serves as an indication of probability that the post will be consistent with core Epicurean principles.

Epicurean Philosophy does not consider all opinions to be equally true, and EpicureanFriends.com does not allow any and all opinions to be advocated over time. Good-faith questioning and disagreement is allowed and encouraged, but sustained advocacy against core Epicurean positions is prohibited. Those who are perceptive enough to be interested in Epicurean philosophy in the first place, will readily understand the line between good faith discussion and inappropriate advocacy. Any questions about that line can easily be clarified prior to posting by sending a forum conversation message to a moderator.

2.1. Level Naming System

We have adopted several different naming systems over the years to indicate which participants have longer and closer participation on the forum. Our current system is as follows:

2.2. 1 — Guest

Guests are newly registered members who are in the process of exploring EpicureanFriends and establishing both for themselves and for the community whether they are a good fit for the EpicureanFriends community. Guests are limited to posting in the Welcome forum, where we confirm that new registrants are real people engaging in good faith exploration of Epicurus. To avoid spam and trolling, Guests are required to respond to a Welcome email with basic information about their background and interest in the study of Epicurus. All Guests should review previous exchanges in the Welcome forum to see how this process works.

2.3. 2 — Aspiring Friend

Aspiring Friends have demonstrated enough engagement and good faith to be welcomed into the main forums. They are invited to post across the public discussion areas of the site and to attend new member meet-and-greet Zoom sessions. Guests are promoted to Aspiring Friend status after a period of time and posting sufficient for the moderating team to extend an invitation. Aspiring Friends can be presumed to be generally "on the Epicurean team," but they have not yet demonstrated the long-term commitment that characterizes a Friend.

2.4. 3 — Friend

Friends are the long-standing core of the EpicureanFriends community. Friends are not casual acquaintances but have a bond built on shared values, sustained engagement, and demonstrated trustworthiness over time. Friends have the ability to post in most areas of the forum. Friends are also invited to participate in our regular Zoom Meetings— the forum's more advanced sessions. Reaching Friend status means the community has come to know you, trust your commitment to Classical Epicurean philosophy, and welcome you into the deeper levels of the shared project. Posts from Friends carry the credibility of that sustained relationship.

2.5. 4 — Veteran Friend

Veteran Friends have demonstrated deep commitment to the goals of the forum and participate in the responsibility of maintaining the quality and direction of discussion. The posts of Veteran Friends are presumed to be in agreement with core principles of Classical Epicurean Philosophy even though occasional disagreements on non-central issues may occur.

2.6. 5 — Administrators

Administrators are responsible for the overall direction and operation of the forum. All participation on the forum is subject to moderation, and the Administrators retain at all times the right to accept, reject, and remove any post or any participant at any time for any reason. EpicureanFriends is a team-building community and we constantly seek input and guidance from our friends, but only the Administrators are ultimately responsible for the official decisions of the EpicureanFriends forum.

All decisions as to movement of participants from level to level are at the discretion of the Administrators.

Inactive accounts — Participants who have not posted within the last two years are moved to the Inactive list. An Inactive account can be reactivated by posting in the Welcome forum or by messaging an Administrator.

2.7. Zoom Meeting Access by Level

The forum hosts several regular Zoom sessions with different levels of access:

Zoom links are available in the respective forum or via the forum's private message system. Meetings are largely informal, typically lasting about sixty minutes. All general forum rules apply in Zoom sessions. Attendance need not be consistent — participants join as their schedules allow.