LongeCity's origins lie with a personal website: On his private page where he chronicled his engagement with life extension, Bruce Klein also maintained a private bulleting board 'home for immortals'. Soon, visitors reached a critical mass.

And then it happened: Rather than staying at that level, we transcended it together. Bruce agreed to give up his control for something greater: the 'Immortality Institute' was founded as a members-based organisation.

This 'big tent' approach stood the test of time: Protagonists came and went, the original founders passed on the torch. The organisation endured, because it was no longer any individuals private agenda, it became an idea, a mission, and a community. We have left the days of the founding behind. We even changed our name, but, as an acknowledgement to this first, bold step into a unique community, LongeCity still refers to its internal Members section as the 'Immortality Institute' and remains open to Members from across the globe.

Also, until this day, our history shapes how we look at working with others: we celebrate the fantastic potential that lies in each person's own initiative and seek to empower individuals to pursue exactly those projects they feel passionate about, but we also try to link, to integrate, to join together and to collaborate in a broader context for maximum effect.

B) Private Individuals and their efforts/websites

There are many of personal websites around of the type Bruce started with. Some are just one person's way of discovering a new field, others grow into great resources or global benefit.
The great thing about them is the freedom they give you as the author to manage them largely as you please. Downsides exist: personal websites often have limited circulation beyond a particular social sphere or topic, missing chances for cross-pollination. A lot of energy is spent on re-inventing the wheel many times over, while it could be more productively channelled into improving what is already there. Mainly, they are fickle things, and anyone with internet experience learns not to trust them remaining as they often grind to a halt or disappear as the sole author/owner gets engaged in other priorities.

So on balance, LongeCity aims to make it easy for people to contribute directly to a larger pool. Members can have their own webspace or blogs or fora or linklists etc. without needing to home brew. If they want control, they can have as much as possible as long as it doesn't clash with others. (1)

On the other hand, some people only tap their full potential if they feel a project is fully and entirely their own.
IF that aspect is important to you, then please, by all means, do your own thing! We would much rather let a thousand flowers bloom than no growth at all. For maximum benefit, maybe you could still cross-reference to LongeCity?  (2)


C) Other initiatives and Organisations  

Now, this is a slightly more complicated topic.(3)

LongeCity understands itself as part of a movement. As usual in any movement, there are different preferences, protagonists, perspectives, powers and priorities. On the one hand, there is a real opportunity cost associated with not combining forces. It is sometimes very difficult to wish people good luck in setting up their own initiatives when, very clearly, their creative and financial resources could be much more effectively leveraged by using existing links and mechanisms.

On the other hand, different approaches and competition are absolutely essential to ensure that as many paths for success as possible are being pursued. LongeCity does not exist for its own sake. If it was not clear that we can make a unique contribution to the greater cause, we would close down and direct everyone to other initiatives. We need to be clear about what contribution we are making, when others are doing a better job and also when we are duplicating or being duplicated and why.

To all similar initiatives out there: If it looks like we are doing something very similar, please lets discuss if there are ways to generate greater synergies. This may simply mean that we stay in touch, it could mean collaboration on specific projects or it might go as far that LongeCity stops doing something and leaves it to you. OR you might decide to do what you are doing as part of LongeCity.

Two things in particular, we would much prefer to collaborate on:
1) if you are doing anything that involves a forum, we would be thrilled if you could do that at LongeCity. Over the years we have seen so many forums come and go, that we really think it a great shame to reinvent the wheel time and again. We'd gladly give you all the support and 'moderation' powers to run your own forum section at LongeCity, and a suite of powerful IT tools together with a great deal of experience as well.

2) if you are blogging or writing regular articles on life extension. Again, it is a great shame to see so many fantastic contributions swept away in the winds of time, whereas they could have been archived at LongeCity. We can easily supply you with all the tools and support, in fact we might even be able to pay you a little bit of money for your efforts - and the copyright still stays with you!

In summary, we have a mission, but not a specific 'line'. Instead we want to be a 'city'- a place where people come together. A place where different 'homes' exist fruitfully together, an umbrella group and a forum for exchange.
We would like to be a 'one-stop' info point for life extension on the web, from which people can move on to pick exactly those aspects or initiatives -at LongeCity or elsewhere- that they like. Any fellow initiatives out there, please get in touch to help make that vision a reality from which everyone benefits.

D) Advertisers at LongeCity 

This is a slightly different topic. Anyone who visits LongeCity will not fail to notice that it attracts the attention of people who do not care much about our mission. Some come to debate, many to learn about nutrition (but not with an ultimate interest in life extension), some try to make money. To be quite frank, part of LongeCity's particular approach is to try to extract funds from these dynamics in order to re-allocate them towards the common mission. In this context, we sometimes partner with advertisers. Now, we do in fact discuss each advertiser internally and have rejected quite a few as not something we would affiliate with. However, at the end of the day the imperative is to raise money for a cause that we consider of life-saving importance. In that context we do not necessarily choose advertisers based on their own, (or their products) life-extension credentials. LongeCity does not endorse any advertisers beyond the fact that they have made a donation to the community in exchange for exposure. Advertisers never influence our policy, ever. Advertisers get banners (please click on them) -- thats it.
Having said that, advertisers featured at LongeCity very often have a real commitment to the cause- they would not have found us otherwise. When we say something nice about an advertiser, then that is NOT something they paid for but a genuine observation regarding their conduct and contribution to the cause.

E) Members representing LongeCity?

Membership of LongeCity is a strange thing: On the one hand, its a strictly in-or-out affair. On the other, Membership is just one way (and perhaps not a good one) to differentiate the 'talkers' from the 'doers'. If you are clearly a 'doer' we would probably consider you a Member of the life extension community whether you have joined the Immortality Institute or not. One way of simulating that is to give people 'points' for activities in connection with LongeCity. If you get enough points, Membership is free. Anyone who wants to join LongeCity but can't afford the (very modest) Membership donation, please get in touch, we have never denied membership to a committed peer based on inability to pay.
LongeCity is an open place. Membership as such does not entail 'vetting'.(4)

We hope that our Members conduct themselves in an exemplary manner that reflects well on the broader community at all times. But clearly, this is not always on the cards, not least because we are deliberately opening our doors to a diverse range of backgrounds and perspectives. Thus, whether someone is a Member does not mean that this person is in any way representative of our Membership or can speak on behalf of the organisation.

What about leadership? The case is not too different. Really, the only requirement to move into a leadership position at LongeCity is some tangible commitment. We don't vet people apart from a very basic appointment review and a requirement to sign the leadership agreement. Directors and certain key officers are asked for ID, but that's about it. Now, leaders *are* expected to behave in certain ways when representing LongeCity. Clearly, they owe as much to the Membership and community. But when not wearing the LongeCity hat, leaders are free to express their views and pursue their activities as they please and without any review by LongeCity. Some leaders may have gone on to do some strange things in their lives – LongeCity does not pry into a persons private affairs, successes or failures, ventures or missteps as long as it does not affect or organisation, community and mission.
If there is uncertainty whether a LongeCity leader is doing something in an official capacity, the fault is with us for allowing this ambiguity to prevail- please let us know and we'll make sure to clarify the situation.

F) CONCLUSION

The above are observations that I make from the Chair... but with the proviso that this perspective and policy might well change as time moves on – as you have seen from our history LongeCity is certainly able to evolve!
I hope the above is useful as a reference point regarding how LongeCity relates to 'others'. I also hope it has become clear that we really don't see a lot of 'others'. Anyone who shares our mission is 'one of us'. People interested in life extension are often individualists -- and any talk of a 'community' will need to take this into account. But mindful of this fact, as gently and effectively as possible, LongeCity aspires to provide a hospitable 'home' for a community, for diverse communitIES and lone travellers alike.  

Footnotes:

(1) A good example of such a compromise are forum threads: A new discussion is initiated by a 'threadstarter'. A certain amount of responsibility comes with selecting a good topic, framing it well, giving it a good exposition. It can be frustrating if people spoil 'your' thread with inappropriate remarks. On your own website, you could just remove comments at will. On LongeCity, Members can ask to become Moderators of their own threads. It should be made clear in the first post if that option is used, so that other contributors are aware of this.

(2) For example, did you know that you can maintain a blog externally, AND a 'mirror' blog at LongeCity? Every post you make in your own blog can be automatically imported into your LongeCity blog. Ask if you need help setting this up.

(3) A reference to the 'Life of Brian' may help to set the scheme in a humorous way:

(4) There are some conditions of membership --they are listed in our bylaws, and I shan't go into them here, but suffice it to say that it is not very difficult to join. Very few Members have ever been expelled and where that happened it was based on activities that were directly in connection with activities on the site. While Members might sometimes be rebuked or even banned from posting on our public forums, even that does not entail automatic removal of Membership.    

Starting in 2012, we are hosting the podcasts ourselves:

DOWNLOADS: http://www.longecity...ory/7-podcasts/

Pre-2012 interviews can be found on the 'ustream' public broadcasting channel

USTREAM: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/sunday-evening-update/videos

Many podcasts (with visuals) can also be found on our youtube channel

YOUTUBE: http://www.youtube.c.../immortalityorg

• Cryonics Overview
  
• Existing Cryonics Organizations
  
• Cryonics Services Offered
  
• Sizes of the Organizations
  
• Whole Body/Neuro Options
  
• Cryopreservation and Yearly Fees
  
• Human Cryopreservation Procedures
  
• Funding Cryonics by Insurance
  

Bylaw A. User Agreement

Article 1
The following shall be the letter of the agreement that all visitors, Members and their guests will be asked to abide by when interacting with the LongeCity("ImmInst") website: Please read this Agreement carefully before accessing the Site.

Section01 The Nature of this Agreement
(a) The following are the terms and conditions (the "Agreement") offered to any person ("you") for access and use (including but not limited to forum user registration) of the LongeCity/Immortality Institute (ImmInst) web site and all affiliated web sites (the "Site"). The Agreement is the basis for using and interacting with the ImmInst website. By accessing the Site, you agree to abide by this Agreement.
(b) Access to the Site is a privilege and not a right. If you do not agree with this Agreement, or have no intention to follow the rules outlined herein, you may not use the Site. If you have any reason to interact with a representative
of ImmInst, but you do not wish to follow these rules, please email support@imminst.org
(c) The information in this document is subject to change. These changes will be announced on the Site, but you must also agree to periodically review this document for changes. After eight (8) days of any change in the Rules, your continued use of the Site indicates your acceptance of any changes made.

Section02 Account registration
(a) Only natural persons aged 16 or above may register an account with ImmInst.
(b) Each natural person may hold one single account. Registering with multiple accounts is not allowed unless specific permission is given by ImmInst.
(c) You may not use the account of another person unless such use is inadvertent and infrequent (e.g. using a family members login from the same computer not noticing that the person forgot to log out).
(d) Persons whose accounts have been suspended, deleted or blocked by ImmInst may never register another account unless specific permission is given by ImmInst.
(e) Users are free to choose any alias as long as the name is not offensive and as long as there is no risk that the username may be confused with a natural person, entity, initiative or endeavour that the person using the account is not authorised to represent. Final decisions on the acceptability of any user alias are made by ImmInst leadership.
(f) An ImmInst Member who has been suspended or banned from the Site is not considered in good standing. A user who has been suspended or banned from the Site may not apply to become an ImmInst Member.
(g) Accounts may be suspended, deleted, or changed by ImmInst for a variety of reasons including but not limited to a violation of this user agreement. If you are unsure why your account is inaccessible you can email support@imminst.org.
You must not register a new account the without express permission from the Secretary.
(h) When an account has been suspended, Members will be notified within 8 days of suspension and may appeal to the Secretary within 8 days after receiving such notification. If no agreement can be reached with the Secretary, the Member may appeal the case to the Board. There is no right to appeal for users or other individuals who are not Members.

Section03 Content
(a) ImmInst provides an open platform for registered users to share text, video, audio, programmes, scripts, files, hyperlinks and other material on the Site ("Content") as long as such sharing is lawful and not in contravention of this
Agreement. However, ImmInst does not undertake to scrutinise, evaluate, test or verify any Content prior to it being shared on the Site.
(b) Content from the Site may be downloaded solely for your own non-commercial use.
(c) You understand that by using the Site, you may be exposed to Content that you may deem offensive, indecent or objectionable.
(d) ImmInst does not control the Content contributed by users and, consequently, provides no guarantee as to the correctness, integrity or fitness of such Content.
(e) Content are the responsibility of the person from whom such Content originated. You agree that you and not ImmInst, are entirely responsible for all Content that you upload, post, email, link, transmit or otherwise make available via the Site.
(f) When contributing Content, you agree that this Content may be edited or deleted or rendered to display in a different manner at the discretion of ImmInst.
(g) ImmInst will not use Content you contribute for commercial gain without your express permission, but cannot warrant or guarantee in any way that others who you decide to share the Content with might not use it for commercial activities.
(h) ImmInst cannot be held responsible for any Content that has been contributed through its open platform. ImmInst will not react to requests to verify, redact, edit, delete or obfuscate any Content.

Section04 Intellectual Property & Privacy
(a) By contributing Content you agree that you shall have no recourse against ImmInst for any alleged or actual infringement or misappropriation of any proprietary right in relation to the Content that you have contributed.
(b) By contributing your own original Content you agree to make this Content available in perpetuity under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. http://creativecommo...-nc-nd/3.0/us/unless you give express notification to the contrary at the same time that you contribute the Content.
(c) ImmInst will not share private data with third parties without your consent, however ImmInst may use the information it obtains as a result of your visiting and/or registering with the Site for the purpose of enforcing this Agreement or in order to save a life or prevent unlawful activity.
(d) ImmInst is not responsible if you decide to post or share private information about yourself or others on the forum. ImmInst will not normally redact, remove or alter such data if you subsequently change your mind.

Section05 Limitation of Liability
(a) In no event will ImmInst be liable for consequential or incidental damages
which may arise in connection with your use of the Site. Accordingly, you agree that ImmInst shall not be responsible to you or anyone else for any loss-of-profit, direct, indirect, incidental, special, or consequential damages
arising out of the use of the site.
(b) You acknowledge that the limitations set forth herein are integral to the amount of consideration levied in connection with the access and use of the Site and any services rendered hereunder and that, were ImmInst to assume any further liability other than as set forth herein, such consideration would of necessity be set substantially higher.
(c) You agree to defend, indemnify and hold ImmInst and its officers, directors,agents, and employees harmless against all costs, expenses, and losses, incurred from any violation of this Agreement (including negligent or wrongful conduct) by your use and access of the Site.
(d) ImmInst provides the Site and associated information "as is" and does not make any direct or indirect express or implied warranties.
(e) ImmInst does not verify the credentials of anyone contributing Content to the site and does not endorse any Content that is contributed as advice. Anyone providing advice and guidance on or in association with the site is doing this strictly in a personal capacity, whether or not this person has an official role with ImmInst, unless the advice is specifically, expressly and in each instance authorised by an ImmInst director. Users are reminded that 'Advisors' are advising the ImmInst board on policy. This does not constitute an endorsement by ImmInst of that Advisors communications with others.

Section06 Basic Prohibitions
(a) The following activities are strictly prohibited and may lead to immediate suspension or deletion of the account, court action and notification of law enforcement officials.
(b) Violating any applicable local, state, national or international law;
(c) Personal threats to anybody, whether or not that person is using the Site
(d) Misrepresenting yourself as a person who you are not.
(e) Representing yourself as affiliated with an organisation without due authorisation.
(f) Contributing Content that contains a virus, any type of malware or corrupted data;
(g) Interacting with the Site in such a way as to seriously impair the functioning or usability of the Site including but not limited to excessive contribution of irrelevant Content;
(h) Display the contents of the Site on a different web site without permission.
(i) Violate the Site's security including but not limited to accessing unauthorized data or logging into an account or attempt to log into an account for which you do not have authorization, scan or test for hardware or software
vulnerabilities, perform a denial of service attack, attempt to spread a virus or malware, or falsify TCP/IP information.
(j) Contributing any solicitation including but not limited to advertising, promotional materials, junk mail, spam, chain letters, pyramid schemes (also see section 8 below)

Section07 Content related to health
(a) Any and all advice and/or opinion provided is strictly personal and never endorsed by ImmInst, nor should it be construed to be the official policy of ImmInst to provide health advice.
(b) You must seek professional medical advice prior to embarking on any course or treatment associated with any Content on the Site.
(c) You must determine what government regulations exist associated with the procurement and use of restricted substances such that they do not contravene any laws in your country.
(d) All Information on the ImmInst Forums, including those associated with health, sciences fora are provided as an area for the open exchange of anecdotal experience and information, not as a professional source of advice.

Section08 Advertising, promotions and commercial activity
(a) Organisations or individuals seeking to advertise on the Site must first apply to ImmInst for such approval.
(b) Advertising is any Content (including private messages) that draws attention to, solicits, endorses, offers for sale, links to, critiques or otherwise relates to goods or services where one of the parties involved in initiating such Content or one of their associates stands to benefit from financial transactions that may results from such Content.
(c) ImmInst seeks to limit surreptitious advertising where users who may have a financial stake in such matters contribute Content simply to increase product desirability or brand awareness. Such Content will be censored on the basis of suspicion alone. On occasion, 'innocent' Content may inadvertently be subjected to such censure. Users should be aware of this and are kindly asked to refrain from protest in these cases, as the common aim is to increase the quality of Content on the Site.
(d) Even if a promotion has been agreed by ImmInst, this does not imply, and no-one must imply that this constitutes an official endorsement by ImmInst of the promotion, the organisation and individual conducting the promotion or the
promoted products or procedures.
(e) Users must not use the Site for initiating or conducting commercial transactions, whether in private messages, or by using contact details displayed on the Site unless expressly authorised by ImmInst.

Section09 Posting Guidelines
(a) Users must agree to consider the posting guidelines as specified in Article
2. Adherence to these guidelines is monitored by ImmInst Moderators, Directors and other designated Officers.
(b) Violation of a guideline will incur a warning. Repeat violation on more than three separate occasions will result in a time-limited suspension of the user account ranging from eight days to eight years.
(c) Disputes regarding the enforcement of posting guidelines should be taken up, in the first instance, with the Moderator who has issued the warning. If no resolution can be found in dialogue, the dispute can be notified to the Lead Moderator. Warnings issued by the Lead Moderator can be disputed with the Secretary. Users who have an open dispute with a Moderator cannot be warned again by the same Moderator – but the Moderator in question may still report questionable posts by that user.
(d) ImmInst has reserved a forum for the expression of free speech known as the William O'Rights Memorial Forum. ImmInst will not restrict Content in this forum even if it violates the posting guidelines as long as such Content does not violate the other provisions in this Agreement. This is a forum where users can engage in 'flame wars', ensure that posts are not interfered with by a Moderator, or complain about ImmInst without threat of censure.

Section01 A-- General tone of conversations
(a) A.1-- Be polite. That does not mean that you cannot try to destroy another’s argument utterly but never lose your tone or your temper while doing so. Also under no circumstances should you employ personal judgments or remarks about people themselves rather than their arguments. Aside from the fact that such judgments are more often than not ill founded, they drag down the overall quality of the discussion as well as costing time and space.
(b) A.2-- Some words are generally considered offensive terms, in polite conversation such as "fuck, "shit", "faggot" or "nigger". Causing offence rarely if ever helps to elevate the quality of a discussion. Generally, use of such words will result in a warning or ban, but discretion may be exercised depending on the context.

Section02 B-- General writing style
(a) B.1-- Do not write excessive amounts of text. Be concise! No one has the time or the inclination to plough through a pile of superfluous rhetoric in order to discover your main points. If you really feel that you have to write an essay, then write a summary at the end as every considerate essay-writer would do.
(b) B.2-- While every caution is advised about over-using the forums design tools, please by all means DO use them, if this helps to make the text more accessible.

Section03 C-- Starting a new topic
(a) C.1-- Before starting a new topic please consider if the topic is informative, or will stimulate an interesting discourse.
(b) C.2-- Please check if the issue has been discussed before on the Site (It is not important to be a 100% sure about this – the ImmInst forums are quite large and old. But please make a quick search, especially if you have not been with the community for long. Sometimes, it may make sense to open a new topic anyway, but would be great if you could reference previous discussions.)
(c) C.3-- Please think about a good title. (This is very important. Please spend some time on considering the title. Titles like "A Question", "Hello" or "Life Extension" may lead to an otherwise interesting topic being deleted. Challenging titles may draw a lot of visitors will still incur a warning if they are not informative. Give full titles. "Vitamin E" is bad, "Vitamin E harmful?" is not as good as "Risk of Vitamin E supplements in Cancer".)
(d) C.4-- Is it a privileged topic? (ImmInst Members can create new topics over which they, as threadstarter have editorial control. This is to empower members who are willing to put in a bit of work to maximise the quality and values of a discussion thread. Other contributors must be alerted to the threadstarters intention in the first post, but cannot subsequently complain if their posts are edited.

Section04 D-- Replying to topics
(a) D.1-- Please ask yourself "Does my reply offer a significant contribution?"

(b) D.2-- It is critical that you try to keep follow-up posts on topic. Avoid going off on a different tangent. If it occurs to you that this might be another thread, open a new thread and put a link to it in the old one. The last word about relevance stays with the Moderators or the threadstarter.
(c) D.3-- As an extension of the previous point, do not derail a topic with fundamental critique even if you think that this would desirable. In particular do not question the necessity of a certain life-extension technique by referring to another method that seems more relevant to you. (Two examples: do not answer a question about the capacity of artificial intelligence to value human emotion correctly by stating that the ‘Singularity’ is a bunch of nonsense anyway; Do not intrude on an exchange about the bioavailability of resveratrol by stating that you don't care because you are signed up for cryonics)
(d) D.4-- Refrain from posting personal information unless it is inherently necessary to elaborate your views or position.
(e) D.5-- There is usually no benefit for people in reading that you agree unless you give an explanation to go with it.
(f) D.6-- You do not have to be an expert on the subject matter, but if you feel that you really don’t know enough about the subject, then ask informed questions before stepping into the ring for debate. If someone posts a link or uploads an article- read it before you go on. Also read the posts of your predecessors and be aware of related discussions elsewhere

Section05 E-- Posting images
(a) E.1-- You are welcome to post your own images and drawings when they are relevant to sharing knowledge. Irrelevant or excessive positing of images, including emoticons (smiles) often diminishes quality of the Content and will likely incur a warning.
(b) E.2-- Showing images to illustrate a point or make a humorous quip is popular with some posters, but please consider if such posts could derail a discussion or create issues around copyright infringement.
(c) E.3-- Please be considerate about causing embarrassment when sharing images. As a rule of thumb, if you would be uncomfortable viewing it at work, do not post it.
(d) E.4-- Avatars: ImmInst encourages users to use a small portrait (passport-type) photograph as 'Avatar' of themselves, but this is not a requirement. However, the use of other peoples photographs or the Imminst logo as Avatar is not allowed.

Section06 F-- Quotes and references
(a) F.1-- When replying to a previous post by quoting it, only quote precisely enough text as is necessary to understand your reply. Using the "reply" function in the forums will quote the entire post that you are replying to. Do not use this feature without due consideration.
(b) F.2-- If you quote, reference the quote properly, but only quote the important bits. (It is customary to put alterations to a quote in square brackets and indicate left-out bits by putting “...”) Do not quote whole articles, rather give a link or upload them. If you have to quote a substantial passage, then indicate the important passages that you want to draw attention too.
(c) F.3-- The use of references is strongly encouraged. Such references should contain enough information to find the relevant source with one or two mouse clicks. When using a link, please remember that the hypertext url may be specific to your own access and useless to others.