Community guidelines and moderation policy

Community guidelines and moderation policy

Scope

This guidance is a live document that will evolve as use and membership of the Tackling Loneliness Hub develops and grows. It refers to online discussions and posting of content using the Tackling Loneliness Hub. You are responsible for familiarising yourself with this policy. The Hub Community Manager will email all Hub members with any significant updates and changes to this policy, as well as via the Hub community feed.

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 Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport; What Works Centre for Wellbeing; or the Campaign to End Loneliness.

We try to be as fair as we can when moderating but in a large community of users, 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 cannot suit all of the people all of the time and have to make decisions based on what is best for the community overall.

Guidelines

To help create a collaborative space we have designed opportunities to connect, discuss and share your work with other members; we have developed functions within the site for you to create working groups; and there will be increasing opportunities to take part in and lead activities on and off line. It is only with the commitment of all members that the Hub can flourish.

By joining as a Hub member, 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 these guidelines
• report others who do no not follow these guidelines.

How to Report abuse

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@campaigntoendloneliness.org.uk

Inappropriate behaviour

The moderator may take action if members are found to be

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. Inciting illegal behaviour.
   We have a duty to remove any content deemed to be encouraging or facilitating illegal behaviour.
4. Making personal or organisational attacks, threats or defamatory comments.
5. Sharing inappropriate or graphic imagery.
   By this we mean imagery that is disturbing to other members. This may include images depicting nudity, violence, sex or death.
6. Posting unsolicited advertisements.
   This may be in the form of service offers, advertorial content or sales pitches. 

7. Using inappropriate language or hate speech.
   Based on race, nationality, ethnicity, religion, gender or sexual orientation.
8. Sharing private or sensitive data or information. 
9. Violating copyright or sharing resources that may be confidential.

Moderation

The Hub is a new community space, and we are all finding our way around. If you have any questions about whether something you want to post might break community guidelines, please feel free to contact the community manager at community.manager@campaigntoendloneliness.org.uk

Members can report any activity in the Hub that breaks these community guidelines. Even if a member is not reported by another members, 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.

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. The Moderator’s email address is community.manager@campaigntoendloneliness.org.uk

Why was my report not accepted?

The Moderator may or may not accept that the issue you highlight is actually abusive under our rules.

 What to do if your post is moderated

If your post is edited or deleted, you will be sent a message from the moderator confirming the action. If you still don’t understand why you were moderated you can contact community.manager@campaigntoendloneliness.org.uk.

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

Timeliness

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.

Completeness

We cannot guarantee to moderate any post or topic completely.

Ownership and liability of posts

Messages posted at this site are the sole opinion and responsibility of the poster.

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