SomniTalk Code of Conduct
Last updated: 29 August 2026. By registering you agree to this Code of Conduct.
This is the whole deal, on one page. It is written to protect you, the people you post alongside, and the usefulness of the board itself. Please read it once before your first post.
What SomniTalk is — and what it isn't
SomniTalk is a community of people on sleep-therapy machines, plus the SomniCharts editorial desks who keep the Library stocked and the rooms tidy. Anyone can read it. Members can post.
Nothing here is medical advice. Not the staff posts, not the Library summaries, not the reply from the most experienced member on the board. Your clinician decides your settings, your prescription and your diagnosis, because they have examined you and nobody here has. The Medical Disclaimer says this at greater length, and it means it.
It is also not a support queue. Anything that needs somebody to look inside your SomniCharts account — billing, a lost password, data that vanished — goes through the in-app feedback route on the SomniCharts site, not a public thread.
Protect yourself — anonymity first
Use a handle. Not your real name. A username that could not be Googled back to you is the single best thing you can do for yourself here, and it costs nothing.
And it is a rule, not just advice. Usernames must be one continuous handle — letters, digits, underscores or dashes, no spaces — and must not be, or look like, a real person's first and/or last name. A username we identify as a real name is suspended: the account stays banned until you ask us ([email protected]) to change it to a non-name handle. Offensive, profane or impersonating usernames are treated the same way.
If you use SomniCharts, register a separate SomniTalk account with a fresh handle. The two systems share no login and no data, and some SomniCharts usernames are real names — do not reuse yours here.
Never post:
- your address, phone number, email address, date of birth, employer, school or workplace;
- your driver's licence or other ID numbers, and your vehicle registration;
- your insurer, policy number, claim number or clinic account number;
- photographs of prescriptions, sleep-study reports, letters or invoices;
- your machine's serial number — it appears on the device panel, on settings screens, in some exports, and in filenames;
- anybody else's details, ever, including a family member's or a clinician's.
Crop names, serial numbers and window titles out of screenshots before you upload them. If in doubt, blur more than feels necessary.
Assume that anything posted here is public forever. Search engines index it, people copy it, and archives keep it after we delete it. Some of the people reading are not friendly: data brokers, insurers, employers and marketers all read patient forums. That is not a reason to stay silent — it is a reason to stay anonymous.
Be kind, be useful
Disagree with the idea, not the person. No harassment, no hate, no mockery of somebody for not knowing a thing yet — everybody's first week was the same.
No fear-selling: do not frighten somebody into a product, a supplement or a panic. And say when you are guessing — "I think, but I'm not sure" is worth more here than a confident wrong answer.
Don't sell
No advertising, affiliate links, referral codes, discount codes, or "DM me for a deal". No bulk-harvesting the board and no automated posting.
SomniTalk is not a marketplace. No offering, selling, buying, trading or giving away goods or services here — machines, masks, parts, supplies, medications, prescriptions, accounts — and no soliciting anyone else to. That includes "does anyone have a spare…" and "I have one going cheap".
Vendors, resellers and clinicians are welcome as members. Identify yourself as one, declare any commercial interest in what you are recommending, and do not use the board as a sales channel. That is the whole rule and it is not negotiable.
Medical boundaries
Share experience, not instructions. "Here is what changed for me, and here is what my clinician said" is exactly right. "Set your pressure to 11" is not — you cannot know that, and somebody will do it.
Nothing that tells people how to modify a device or a drug regimen: no clinical-menu unlock codes, no firmware hacks, no step-by-step for running a machine outside its documented settings, no dosing advice. People read this board at 3 a.m. and act on what they read.
The desks may append a clinician note to a thread, or move it somewhere it fits better. That is editing for safety, not a telling-off.
Write it yourself
AI writing tools are part of everyday life and we do not object to content drafted with them — on three conditions: a human member posts it, has read it and stands behind it; it is relevant to the thread and actually says something; and it arrives at the pace of a person in a conversation, not a feed. Unattended bots, automated posting and bulk AI output are spam and are removed.
No plagiarism. Do not present another person's writing as your own, copyrighted or not, reworded or not. Quote briefly, say where it came from, and link to it.
Search before you post — and it's fine if you don't
Most questions here have been asked before, often in five slightly different ways, and the search box will usually find you an answer faster than we can write one. Have a look first: it is genuinely the quickest route.
But if you miss one, nothing bad happens. Duplicates get merged into the existing thread, never mocked. Nobody on this board will ever be told to search harder next time.
Moderation and consequences
The editorial desks moderate, helped by automated checks. Between them they may hold a post for review, edit it for privacy — redacting a serial number or a name is the most common edit we make — move it, lock it, or remove it.
Ordinary mistakes get a quiet fix and, where it matters, a note saying what changed. Repeat or malicious behaviour — spam, harassment, selling, doxxing, dangerous instructions — earns silence first and removal second.
If you think a decision was wrong, say so once, calmly, in Site Feedback, or write to [email protected]. We would rather be told. Re-posting removed content or carrying the argument into other threads is itself a breach.
[email protected] (delivered to [email protected]) also handles: "this post contains my information", account deletion requests, anything unlawful or urgent, and copyright complaints. Copyright and trademark notices are handled under US notice-and-takedown practice, with Canadian notice-and-notice forwarding where it applies; include the URL, what is wrong, and how to reach you.
Age and accounts
You must be 13 or older to hold an account here. If you believe a younger child has registered, write to [email protected] and we will remove it. (The SomniCharts application itself sets a higher age in its own terms.)
One person, one account. A verified email address is required before you can post — it is the cheapest spam control that does not put a puzzle in front of a real person. Do not impersonate staff, clinicians, members or organisations; staff accounts carry a visible badge.
You can delete your account and ask for your posts to be removed at any time: see the Privacy Notice, or write to [email protected].
The agreement
By registering you agree to this Code of Conduct, the Terms of Use and the Privacy Notice.
If you are new, the recommendations for newcomers are the friendly version of this page — how to search, what is safe to share, and how to ask a question that gets answered.
Related: Recommendations for newcomers · Terms of Use · Privacy Notice · Medical Disclaimer · About SomniTalk
Nothing on SomniTalk is medical advice. Talk to your own clinician before changing therapy.