These terms govern LifeQuestioning.com for readers, public contributors, invited writers, verified professionals, and admins. Writers choose their own topic and send their profile details. The team later files the published article under a site category. They cover how submissions are verified and reviewed, including why we check for hate speech, and how work on this Site may be reused elsewhere.

1. Acceptance of These Terms

By accessing or using LifeQuestioning.com (the "Site"), you agree to these Terms of Use. If you do not agree with any part of them, do not use the Site.

These terms apply to everyone who uses the Site: readers, people who leave comments or subscribe, public contributors who submit a post or story (including people we invite or hire to write), and admins who operate the Site.

We may update these terms from time to time. Changes take effect when posted on this page. When we change this page, or another rules page, a Super Admin may email all public contributors and admins so they know. Continued use of the Site after a change means you accept the updated terms. Public contributors who submit after a change agree to the version in force on the submission date.

2. Who These Terms Cover

Writing on LifeQuestioning comes from people we invite or hire, and from people who choose to submit. Admins operate the Site. They do not write those pieces. The roles below are how we describe people on this Site.

• Readers (users): anyone who visits, reads, comments, reacts, votes, shares, uses the contact form, or subscribes to emails. You do not need an account to read.
• Public contributors: people who submit their own writing on the submit page. They choose their own topic and write it themselves. If we publish the piece, their profile (name, photo, bio) is shown on the article. That is the return for contributing.
• Verified professionals: a public contributor who is a psychologist, counselor, therapist, or medical professional, or someone whose profession or degree qualifies them to write about these professionally, and whom we have verified from the details we can obtain. They get the same public profile, plus a verified badge.
• Invited contributors: people we email a link to, because we invited or hired them to write. Only that email can verify, create the contributor profile, and upload the article. They have the same freedom and the same rules as anyone who submits on their own.
• Admins: people with a LifeQuestioning admin account. They operate the Site. They review, check sources and links, assign the article category, and publish. They do not write the articles for contributors and do not create writer accounts on their behalf. A Super Admin manages contributors, grants verification badges, and edits settings.

3. Use of the Site by Readers

You may use the Site for lawful, personal, non-commercial reading and reflection. You agree not to misuse the Site.

• Do not attempt unauthorized access to admin tools, other people’s accounts, or private files (including original contributor article files).
• Do not interfere with the Site’s normal operation, scrape content at scale, or use automated tools to spam comments, votes, or forms.
• Do not use the Site to break the law or to violate other people’s rights, privacy, or safety.
• Do not copy, republish, or redistribute substantial portions of Site content except as allowed in the intellectual-property section below.

4. Content and Its Purpose

Our content is published for personal reflection and general information only. It is not medical, psychological, legal, financial, or other professional advice. Please review our Disclaimer for details.

An article shows the contributor when one is linked. If none is linked, it may show a complete Admin or Super Admin profile. If neither exists, the byline stays the LifeQuestioning team. Email addresses stay private.

While we aim for accuracy where we state facts, we do not guarantee that all content is complete, current, or error-free.

Read our Disclaimer

Read our Editorial Policy

5. Prohibited Content and Why We Review

We review comments and every public contribution before anything new goes live. Review is not a formality and nothing is auto-published. We review so the Site stays a calm, usable place to think, not a channel for harm.

We review in particular to check that material does not promote hate speech, violence, harassment, or the targeting of people because of race, ethnicity, religion, nationality, sex, gender, sexual orientation, disability, age, or similar protected characteristics.

We also review for originality, basic quality, safety, privacy of other people mentioned, and whether the piece is reflection rather than professional advice or spam.

You agree not to submit or post any of the following. We may reject, remove, or refuse to publish material that includes it, and we may refuse future submissions from the same person.

• Hate speech, slurs, or content that dehumanises or incites hostility toward a person or group.
• Harassment, threats, stalking, or personal attacks.
• Incitement of violence, self-harm, or criminal activity.
• Sexually exploitative content, or any sexual content involving minors.
• Doxxing or sharing another person’s private details (name, address, contact, photos, medical or family information) without their consent.
• Plagiarism, AI-dumped text presented as your lived experience, or work you do not have the right to submit.
• Spam, scams, undisclosed advertising, or content whose main purpose is to sell a product or drive traffic off-site.
• Unlawful, defamatory, or infringing material.

6. Reader Comments, Reactions, and Polls

If the Site allows you to post comments, you are responsible for what you submit. Comments must follow the same prohibited-content rules as contributions.

By submitting a comment you grant us a non-exclusive, royalty-free right to display, store, and moderate it in connection with operating the Site. We may edit, hide, or remove any comment at our discretion.

Reactions, poll votes, and share clicks are stored mainly as counts. We may use an anonymous token so the same browser cannot vote twice. That is not an account.

7. Public Contributor: The Whole Submission Process

Public contributions start from the Submit your post/story button on the homepage, or from the call-to-action on an article page. Both open the submit page. An article may also show a short reminder that links to that page. Submitting is optional. There is no fee and no guarantee of publication.

This is the process, in order:

• You open the submit page and first read the contributor guidelines.
• You verify the email address you will use. We send a one-time 6-digit code to that address. The form does not unlock until that code is confirmed. We do not take an email from the form itself. The server uses the verified address.
• If this is a second (or later) submission from the same verified email, we may fetch your saved name, country, profession, bio, photo, and links so you do not have to retype them. Your email is still not shown on the public Site.
• You complete everything on your side: you choose the topic, write the piece, and send name, country, an “about you” description, an original article file (PDF, DOC, DOCX, or TXT), and optionally profession, a photo, and one profile link. There is no topic picker. After reading the piece, the team files it under a site category from the admin side.
• You must confirm the guidelines, these Terms, and that your name, photo, and bio may appear in the article author section if the piece is published. That profile credit is what you receive if we publish. Email stays private. Sensitive information is not shared with the public without your consent.
• You confirm that we may change font size, color, or font style so the piece matches the site standard. That does not change your words or your point. You may also allow minor grammar corrections without intentionally changing your meaning. Grammar permission is optional; if you do not tick it we still review the piece, but we will not make those grammar edits.
• While you use the submit flow we store anonymous events about which button you used, how far you got, where you left, and short error codes if something failed. We do this to see where people get stuck, leave, or hit an error, fix the submit flow, and improve the feature. Those events do not include your name, email, file, or the text you typed. We keep them for about six months. We do not use these events to identify you.
• On submit, status is pending. The original uploaded file is stored for the team and is never auto-edited or auto-published. Admins download the original from a protected route.
• A Super Admin reviews the piece, including every source and link mentioned in it. A citation or URL that cannot be checked, or that does not support the claim, is removed or the piece is held back. Possible outcomes: pending (still in review), approved (accepted for possible use), rejected (will not be used), or published (only after the piece is linked to an article that is actually live on the Site).
• If we change status, we email you. The published email includes a link to the live article. An admin may include a short note (for example requested changes).
• Approved does not mean live. Published is set when an approved submission is linked to an article that is publicly live. If that article is unpublished or unlinked, the contribution can return to approved.

8. Verification: Email, Identity, and the Verified Badge

“Verified” means different things in different places. None of them is a government ID check. This is how it works on LifeQuestioning.

• Email verification (every public contributor): you must prove you control the inbox before you can submit. That is a one-time code, not a public badge. It stops people submitting in someone else’s name and lets us email you about status.
• Returning contributor: the same email + code can reload your saved profile. That is convenience, not a trust badge.
• Invite-bound contributor link: a Super Admin can email a submit link that works only for one address. That person must verify that same email, create their contributor profile, and upload the article themselves. Someone else cannot use the link with a different inbox. This does not create an admin account.
• Verified badge: a Super Admin may grant a verified tick if the person is a psychologist, counselor, therapist, or medical professional, or someone whose profession or degree qualifies them to write about these professionally, after we verify them using whatever details we can obtain about that person (for example the information they submitted, a public profile, or other reasonably available records). It is not a licence check and not a government ID check. It is not given automatically on submit. It can be removed.
• Admin login: admins access a private portal with their own credentials. Super Admins can edit another admin’s public author profile and, if public fields actually change, that person is emailed and can contact us if they disagree.

9. Admins

Admins operate the Site. They are not the writers. Writing comes from contributors who were invited or hired, or who chose to submit. A Super Admin has every Admin right, including a public profile.

• Admins review submissions, check sources and links, assign the category, and publish. They do not upload a contributor’s article for them and they do not create a writer account.
• If no contributor is linked, the public article may show a complete Admin or Super Admin profile. That profile is filled from My Profile. It is not a separate writing path.
• Admins must not publish hate speech, harassment, or the other prohibited content listed above.
• Admins must treat contributor emails, original files, and unpublished drafts as confidential. Those materials are for editorial use, not for sharing outside the team.
• Admin accounts are for the named person. Do not share logins. Do not use the portal to access data you do not need for the work.
• If we update an admin’s public profile and the public fields actually change, we email them. If they do not agree, they should contact us using the Contact form.

10. Publication, Credit, and Your Public Profile

Submitting does not create a right to be published, to keep a particular title, or to control the final headline, category, images, or surrounding Site features (comments, questions).

If we publish a public contribution, we show your first name, last name, country, profession or degree, photo, bio, and a “Profile” link if you gave us one. That is the credit you receive for the writing. If we have verified you as a psychologist, counselor, therapist, or medical professional, or someone whose profession or degree qualifies them to write about these professionally, we also show a verified badge. We never put your email on the public article. You chose the topic. The team later files the article under a site category.

If we later edit those public profile fields, we email you. If you do not agree, contact us. We resync the public byline when the reusable contributor profile is updated.

You can ask us to take down or correct a published byline or piece where it is reasonably possible. We will consider requests that are about privacy, safety, or a clear error. We are not obliged to unpublish solely because you changed your mind, but we will look at it in good faith.

11. Intellectual Property and Using Work Elsewhere

Unless otherwise stated, the articles, text, graphics, logos, and other materials on the Site are owned by or licensed to LifeQuestioning and are protected by intellectual-property laws.

Readers may share links to our pages and quote short excerpts with clear attribution to LifeQuestioning. You may not copy, republish, or redistribute substantial portions of Site content without our prior written permission.

Public contributors keep copyright in the original words they wrote. By submitting, you grant LifeQuestioning a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to review, store, edit for clarity and grammar as you permitted, change font size, color, or font style so the piece matches the site standard, adapt into an article on the Site, display it, and use your public profile information with it. That licence lasts for as long as the piece remains on the Site, and for reasonable archival copies after that.

If we publish your contribution, you may reuse your own original piece elsewhere only if you clearly name this website. At minimum you must say it was originally published on LifeQuestioning and include the name “LifeQuestioning” and a working link to the live article (or to lifequestioning.com if the article URL is gone). You may not present our edited Site version, our headline, our images, or our layout as if they originated somewhere else. You may not strip our name off and republish the piece as an exclusive original on another platform.

Staff-written and team-bylined articles are LifeQuestioning’s editorial work. Staff authors and admins may not republish those articles, or substantial parts of them, on other sites, in books, or in newsletters without prior written permission, and any permitted reuse must name LifeQuestioning.com.

If you believe content on the Site infringes your copyright, contact us with the URL, a description of the work, and proof you own it. We will review takedown requests.

12. External Links

The Site may contain links to third-party websites, including a contributor’s Profile link. We do not control and are not responsible for the content or practices of those sites, and a link does not imply endorsement. Accessing third-party sites is at your own risk and subject to their terms.

13. Privacy

How we collect and use personal information, including reader comments, newsletter sign-ups, public-contributor emails and files, and admin profiles, is described in our Privacy Policy. These Terms and that policy should be read together.

Read our Privacy Policy

14. Disclaimers and Limitation of Liability

The Site and its content are provided "as is" and "as available" without warranties of any kind, whether express or implied, to the fullest extent permitted by law.

To the maximum extent permitted by law, LifeQuestioning and its team will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, or consequential damages, or for any loss arising from your use of, or reliance on, the Site or its content.

We are not responsible for views expressed by public contributors. A published community piece is that person’s reflection after our review for the standards in these terms; it is still not professional advice.

15. Changes, Suspension, and Refusal

We may modify, suspend, or discontinue any part of the Site at any time. We may refuse, delay, or remove a submission, comment, profile, or account (including an admin account) if these terms are broken or if we reasonably believe the Site, readers, or other people would be harmed. Material changes to Terms, Privacy, Editorial Policy, About, or the contributor guidelines may be emailed to contributors and admins.

We are not liable if the Site is unavailable for any period.

16. Contact

If you have questions about these Terms of Use, a submission, a profile change we emailed you about, a verification badge, or a republication/credit issue, please get in touch.

Contact us