We explain our community guidelines and moderation philosophies below, but if you're short on time:
You:We love forums.
The Internet lets people from all over the world and different viewpoints digitally congregate to share ideas, debate contentious topics, and be passionate about whatever they care about. We started the LetsRun.com Message Board over 20 years ago with the goal of providing such a forum for running fans.
Today, runners train smarter, run faster, and are more knowledgeable than ever before. However, time has also proved that operating a public forum requires establishing rules and guidelines to thrive.
Moderation is hard – really hard. We are constantly trying to improve how we do it. We created this page to share our message board philosophy with you and to provide transparency in how we moderate.
Our goal is to provide an open, collegial forum where runners or fans of running can talk about running and other topics.
We believe in free expression. We believe in civility. We also believe anonymity can result in more honest and open debate.
Moderating a high-traffic forum requires us to respond to a large number of posts that some of our readers find objectionable. If you don't ever want to read anything objectionable, please leave, as it is an inherent drawback to an open forum.
This page exists to provide transparency into our moderation policies and our moderation performance. To increase transparency into this process, we are making public statistics about the volume and speed at which we respond to post reports. This data is automatically generated from our database and is updated in real time.
We believe the message board is at its best when people follow three simple rules:
We do not pre-screen or read every piece of content on the LetsRun.com Message Board.
Our moderation team includes both staff members and volunteer moderators. Moderators can remove posts and ban posters who break the forum rules. (If you are interested in moderating, email wejo@letsrun.com.)
Visitors can report any post to our team to review by clicking the Report Objectionable Post button beneath every post.
Every post reported to us is reviewed by a human moderator. If something is urgent, please call or text us at 1-844-LETSRUN (1-844-538-7786). You can also email us at remove@letsrun.com. Unlike Facebook or Twitter, you can always reach a real human at LetRun.com
We use tools behind the scenes to remove posts automatically without review so we encourage you to use the "Report Objectionable Post" button. In general, the most egregious posts get taken down quickly without human intervention, but sometimes this takes longer than we would prefer. Starting with this February 2022 update, some moderators will receive text alerts if any post is not reviewed within 30 minutes of being reported.
LetsRun.com may remove content at its sole discretion for any reason whatsoever, but we have a set of guidelines for moderators to follow when deleting posts. Moderators now select one of the reasons below when deleting a post.
If your post (but not thread) is deleted, you will see the reason selected by the moderator when visiting the thread in which you posted.
The more prominent someone is, the more we allow there to be critical discussion and speculation about them. To use an analogy from another sport, Tom Brady is going to get more scrutiny than a high school quarterback.
We let people discuss doping as we believe doping discussion leads to a cleaner sport, even if a drawback to this policy is that some people may speculate a clean athlete is dirty. The more prominent the athlete the more likely we are to allow the speculation.
The more specific the allegation the more proof we expect a poster to provide. Saying "To go from 4:10 to 3:55 in one year is not normal and makes me suspicious" is very different from saying "I saw runner X do steroids". With the latter, we would expect the poster to offer some proof, be willing to post it under their name, or contact our editorial team for anonymity.
People often state unverified claims or opinions as fact. Instead of saying, "I think Runner X is using performance enhancing drugs because they progressed from 4:XX to 3:xXX in one year," they say, "Runner X is a doper." Try not to do this.
Every thread started appears in the main forum index. To manage this limited real estate, entire threads may be deleted due to moderator discretion or because the thread has spiraled out of control. Please use the "Report Objectionable Post" on the first post for threads you would like to see removed. Placeholders do not show up for deleted threads on the main index, so you will not be able to see why your thread was deleted if you were the thread starter.
We have more technical terms of service below.
Please note the following terms of service which govern the LetsRun.com message board(s).
Posts that encourage violence, abuse or harrassment. Posts with graphic violence or adult content.
Posts that threaten, or harass other people on the
basis of
race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity,
religious
affiliation, age, or disability.
Posts that expose other people's
private
information (such as home phone number and address) without their express
authorization
and
permission. However, you acknowledge that your identity is not a
secret
whether
or not you reveal your name in your posts. Your IP address is tracked. As a result
others,
including LetsRun.com, may be able to figure out who you are and thus your identity
may
be
revealed to others.
The message board forum(s) are not designed to
serve as
a place where one makes posts that are nothing more than glorified advertisements
(i.e.
anything
promoting another website, product, etc.). If you would like to advertise
contact
us at advertise@letsrun.com.
Do not steal other's work. We support the concept of fair use and parody, but not IP theft.
Slow response times can result from posts requiring extra deliberation or from posts reported off hours.