Everyone in COLONTOWN is living with the immense stress and disorientation of colorectal cancer. COLONTOWN exists to provide a private, supportive place to connect with other patients and carepartners, and to exchange information about colorectal cancer. With this in mind, we have created some guidelines to ensure that COLONTOWN remains a supportive, welcoming, and respectful community. We ask all members to read and abide by these guidelines.

COLONTOWN is a place where:

• All those affected by colorectal cancer are welcome
• Your personal information is never shared outside of the community
• All conversations are private, not visible to anyone outside of COLONTOWN

General guidelines for conversation:

• In all discussions please be polite and civil, and never use offensive or hurtful language or personal attacks
• COLONTOWN is a politics-free zone. In rare cases, pending legislation may directly impact patients and caregivers; please ask your Neighborhood Host whether this can be discussed
• COLONTOWN is a secular town. Please do not discuss faith, prayer, or your specific beliefs unless you are posting in one of our faith-focused groups. The rest of COLONTOWN is a place for love and compassion, NOT “prayers” and expressions of religious faith. This is very important in maintaining a welcoming environment for all, no matter our personal beliefs. Please express support and hope using non-religious language

Membership in COLONTOWN:

• All participants in COLONTOWN must be a member of the COLONTOWN DOWNTOWN group (and remain so) in order to join any neighborhood of interest
• Dual accounts (two people sharing one account), avatars, or pseudonyms are not permitted
• Please do NOT add any members to our neighborhoods
• Do not ever add COLONTOWN members to ANY outside Facebook groups without their explicit permission
• We welcome all CRC patients and carepartners as new neighbors; please ask potential new members to go to colontown.org/join and submit the request form

Activities to avoid:

• No sales or promotions of any sort of products, services, supplements, therapies, or medical treatments
• We do not permit promotion of non-evidence based treatments. “Miracle” cures without clinical evidence (peer-reviewed studies published for all to see and evaluate) provide false hope for cancer patients and their families.
  We do encourage questions and conversations about the many different legitimate treatment options, and about supportive therapies (acupuncture, CBD, diet, etc.). Be thoughtful about the difference between asking a question or sharing a personal experience, and promoting something as “the” answer
• No fundraisers for other causes. COLONTOWN is a nonprofit organization run almost entirely by volunteers. If you would like to be involved in helping us, please let your Neighborhood Host know. Please keep your support for other organizations to your Facebook posting outside COLONTOWN