Forum 8 was initiated by a few ex-premies approximately a year ago who felt there was a need to provide an open and welcoming presence for people who wished to discuss their shared history of being followers of Prem Rawat, his organizations, and the effects of his teachings. The main participants were expected to be former followers but anyone else (including current followers) would be allowed to participate.

The founders of Forum 8 still feel there is a need for such an online presence and are committed to continue Forum 8 on its original principles. In order to achieve such an open and welcoming style various guidelines (http://www.forum8.org/forum8/public/guidelines.htm) were drawn up and published prominently.

Sadly however there have been a minority of participants who have recently sought to flagrantly abuse and ignore these guidelines and accordingly the guidelines will now become Forum Rules. With this change the forum moderators will now take a more active role in either deleting posts or amending posts that, in the opinion of the moderators, break the rules. It is hoped that by this change the forum will once again become a pleasant place for the vast majority of posters. It has to be recognized that there is no way that the moderators can view every post in a timely manner, therefore there may be offending posts that will exist on the forum for a while. We urge other posters when they see such an offending post not to respond to such posts, as it becomes very difficult for the moderators to then take action. Posts that the moderators will pay particular attention to are posts that contain personal attacks or accuse other posters of being 'trolls'.

Forum 8 is a privately run and financed forum and is not an 'official' forum of any kind. As such anyone can start and manage other forums with the same, similar or different aims to that of Forum 8. As mentioned above the owners of Forum 8 are committed to continue with Forum 8.

Another change that has been implemented due to abuse is the ability of posters being able to delete or amend their posts even when such posts are several days old. Such deletions, particularly when made in an active thread, cause a great deal of confusion. For example the recent deletions by Susie and Gerry of many of their posts left the discussions incomplete, and led to other posters believing the moderators had deleted the posts. For now deletions or amendments can only be made in a shortened 2-hour window (previously it was 5 days). The moderators can amend or delete a particular post outside this new time window if a valid reason is given. Please write to the moderators at moderators@elitemail.org if you have a valid reason.

One misconception that has arisen is that posters here are discouraged from expressing strong feelings. Nothing could be further from the truth. Dealing with our time in the cult will naturally lead to strong emotions, which can be safely expressed here, but posters are simply asked to respect the forum rules when posting.

It is hoped that with the minor changes outlined above the forum will once again become the open and welcoming place it has always been.

As always the moderators will consider constructive feedback to any matters relating to the forum. If you have any such feedback please write to moderators@elitemail.org.

Thank you.