Community Guidelines

Scope

These guidelines will evolve as the Tackling Loneliness Hub community develops and grows. The guidelines refer to online discussions and using the Tackling Loneliness Hub. You are responsible for familiarising yourself with these guidelines. The moderator [Community Manager] will notify members of any significant updates and changes to the guidelines.

Aims

The Tackling Loneliness Hub aims to be home to a wide range of voices, from across sectors and at different levels of involvement in the loneliness agenda. You may find opinions that you disagree with and some that you may find offensive. It is not our intention to censor opinion.

The views expressed on this website do not necessarily reflect the views of the Department for Culture, Media, and Sport, the Campaign to End Loneliness at Sheffield Hallam University, or Neighbourly Lab.

We try to be as fair as we can when moderating content, but in a large community with many different viewpoints, there will always be some people who will not be happy with our moderation policies. While we regret that this happens, we have to make decisions based on what is best for the community overall.

Guidelines

To help create a collaborative space, we have designed opportunities for you to connect, discuss and share your work with other members. We have developed functions within the site for you to do this and there are opportunities to take part in and lead activities. It is only with the involvement of all members that the Hub can flourish.

By joining the Tackling Loneliness Hub, all members are agreeing to:

• be respectful to other users and the moderator
• offer constructive and encouraging feedback
• be mindful of how other members may interpret your comments and views
• stay on topic and share information and resources relevant to loneliness
• familiarise yourself with the community guidelines
• report others who do no not follow the community guidelines

Moderation

Members can report any activity in the Hub that breaks the community guidelines. Our Community Manager can also take action when community guidelines are violated. We will usually:

• Investigate any reported activity in a timely and comprehensive manner.
• Provide a written notice to a member who violates the guidelines, explaining how their activity violated community guidelines, and the actions that will be taken.
• Edit, hide or delete any content that has been found to violate these guidelines.

If a member violates the community guidelines more than once, the Community Manager reserves the right to suspend or delete that member, following investigation of the actions of that member.

We will do our best to moderate any posts or comments in a timely manner, but we cannot guarantee that we will be able to do so. Nor can guarantee to moderate any post or topic completely.

Ownership and liability of posts

Content and messages posted on this are the sole opinion and responsibility of the poster.

Inappropriate behaviour

The moderator may take action if members are found to be:

• Posting personal insults.This does not contribute to the conversation or a collaborative working environment members want to be part of. If somebody insults you, please report this rather than responding.
• Posting off topic and hijacking conversation or activity. We expect to see a variety of discussion due to the breadth of the topic and interests but posts which hijack discussion will be moderated.
• Inciting illegal behaviour. We have a duty to remove any content deemed to be encouraging or facilitating illegal behaviour.
• Making personal or organisational attacks, threats or defamatory comments.
• Sharing inappropriate or graphic imagery. This may include images depicting nudity, violence, sex or death.
• Posting unsolicited advertisements. This may be in the form of service offers, advertorial content or sales pitches.
• Using inappropriate language or hate speech. Based on race, nationality, ethnicity, religion, gender or sexual orientation.
• Sharing private or sensitive data or information.
• Violating copyright or sharing resources that may be confidential.

If you believe another user is not acting appropriately and within the guidelines, you may use the reporting function in your activity feed, or you can send a screenshot directly to community.manager@neighbourlylab.com

The moderator may or may not accept that the issue you highlight violates the community guidelines.

Libellous content

If you feel you have been defamed or libelled in the Hub, your first step should be to contact the moderator to have the offending post removed: community.manager@neighbourlylab.com

What to do if your post is moderated

If your post is edited or deleted because it violates the community guidelines, you will be contacted by the moderator confirming the action.

You should not:

• post the same message again
• taunt the moderator
• taunt other members of the website community for reporting you

Ending your membership

If you decide to end your membership of the Tackling Loneliness Hub, we will not delete your old posts as it makes the discussions difficult to follow for the remaining readers. Instead, these posts will be attributed to an anonymous ‘Deleted member’, and your personal information will not be visible.