Welcome to the American Heart Association's MyStart! Community. It's a great place to connect with other like-minded individuals who want to walk their way to a healthier life. Whether you're looking for motivation, need friendship to keep you on track or support when times get tough, we hope that this Community will be exactly what you need.

Things to Remember

• The MyStart! Community thrives on its members

• The MyStart! Community is a free service

• This site is for adults only, above the age of 18

• Stay involved, make comments, seek new friends, and share your successes

• Invite your friends, family and colleagues — Everyone is welcome!

• Follow the Community guidelines listed below so we can make sure everyone has a good experience

• Our guidelines are always evolving so that we can make sure the Community remains safe

• When there is a violation of our rules below, we may:

1. Provide a warning

2. Delete some or all of the content

3. Temporarily or permanently block the member depending on the situation

• We reserve the right to modify or change these guidelines without notice

Getting Started!

• Please notify us here if there is an issue you'd like to report. Please note that while the American Heart Association (AHA) has no obligation to delete content that you find personally objectionable or offensive, we will do our best to address any problems that may arise.

• This site is not a substitution for medical advice, treatment or diagnosis. Seek the counsel of your healthcare provider if you have any questions regarding a medical condition or information you may have received by another member of this site.

• All content on the site is public. We have the right to modify and publish, both on our site and in other media, any information you post in our Community areas. Please note that the material you post may be indexed by search engines such as Yahoo and Google.

• AHA staff may use your membership e-mail to contact you regarding your messages in our Community. You're responsible for keeping your e-mail address updated. Failure to do so may result in your being banned until we can confirm that you have a valid e-mail address associated with your AHA Community membership.

• Keep your password private. The sharing of memberships or screen names is prohibited and may result in your account being banned. AHA accepts no responsibility for use of your membership or computer by third parties, with or without your permission.

• Post only information that you are comfortable with others seeing — and knowing — about you. Many people can see your page.

Netiquette

How you talk to others in an online Community is not that different from the way you would talk to others in real life. But there are some things you should be mindful of in an online environment:

• This site is for adults who are trying to live a heart healthy lifestyle. Some may have serious conditions and are using this site as a way to stay motivated and find support to get healthy. Be mindful of this as you make comments and give advice to others.

• Posting in all caps is the same as SHOUTING

• Stay on topic and don't ramble

• Browsing the site is okay. Look around and get comfortable before you engage with someone.

• Don't use offensive language, be rude, vent or use hate speech

Rules:

• Do not post personal information about yourself or someone else. This includes your email address, phone number, home address, etc. We will work hard to maintain your privacy but we need your help in keeping information private.

• It's okay to debate or discuss topics, but personal attacks or harassment of others will not be tolerated and will be cause for action.

  • Types of attacks

    • Personal insults

    • Threats of violence or harm

    • Comments designed to aggravate others

    • Attacking someone because they attacked you (if you have a complaint about someone, report it, please don't engage)

• Don't use this Community for your commercial purposes or for political statements

  • This Community is for personal use of the members in it. They don't want to hear about your cousin's vitamin business or your husband's health services. Don't upload banners, ads, your chain letters, and logos. Don't upload information about a medical study. Don't solicit for money.

• Don't upload copyrighted materials or something that doesn't belong to you

  • If you found it somewhere else, or you know it belongs to someone else, don't post it. That means pictures, videos, etc.

• Don't upload a picture that you wouldn't show your children — that means no pictures of nudity, or sexual content, violence, weapons, etc.

• Don't link to sites that are advertisements, or sites to where malicious content reside

Build a Community spirit

• You should keep in mind that adding a post is like walking into a room where conversations are underway. Ordinary behavior in such a situation is to listen to the conversations in order to determine the subject matter and context. Join the conversations that interest you or introduce a new topic if you don't find the conversations compelling.

• Don't be shy. Start a new topic if there is something you want to talk about with other members of the Community. After all, you joined this site to interact with others!

You should not:

• Register for more than one user account, register for a user account on behalf of an individual other than yourself, or register for a user account on behalf of any group or entity

• Use or attempt to use another's account, impersonate a member, or create a false identity

• Engage in spamming in any form, such as friend requests, invitations to groups, or private messages

• Post research or journalism surveys on our forums

• Solicit passwords or personal identifying information for commercial or unlawful purposes from other users

• Interfere with security-related features of the site