Forum Rules & Moderation - Suggestions

Welcome, Rules, & Feedback
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This is a thread to discuss and suggest the rules for the ELP forums. Our summer interns (@eavq, @Tzintia_Montano, @HerculesMunda, @MiraK ) are currently drafting some rules and moderation guidelines, but if you have any suggestions for rules you think would be helpful, post them here!

As an ELP community member and forum moderator:

  1. I accept and promise to follow all the above guidelines.
  2. I agree to take action as specified by the ELP Moderator Guidelines.
  3. I agree to abide by the documented tasks and actions required by my role as a Moderator to uphold the quality of the forum and the quality of its information.

ELP is a global community of language lovers
We believe that everyone should have access to free information on language and culture. Our guidelines are meant to build a mutual understanding of what being a part of this community is all about. We will take action if any of these guidelines are not upheld, so please read carefully.

1. Always be Respectful
You agree to be aware of potential multiple cultural differences between the users and your fellow community members.

2. Mental Health is important
You will remember to take a break when you become frustrated or find yourself in a heated debate due to either of the parties fail to choose peace over ego.

3. Think before you share
You will report any toxic behavior to an administrator/Moderator and provide screenshots of conversations.

4. Embrace change
You understand that people in the moderator roles are subject to change, and recognize that guidelines in this document can be discussed openly with other moderators active in their role.

5. Be respectful of others and where they’re coming from.
You understand that moderators from different regions will have different interpretations of model behavior, however, you promise to have an open mind when escalating any behavior that is out of the basic participation guidelines for all users.

Please don’t use ELP Community Forum to

  1. Attack a person or group of people with words and actions
  2. Spam the forum or people’s comment
  3. Impersonating someone in a misleading or deceptive manner
  4. Script or cheat maliciously
  5. Write inflammatory comments
  6. Share Illegal & Pornographic content or Personal confidential information
  7. Associated with racism or intolerance

Please don’t waste your time looking for loopholes; we will remove any content that violates the spirit of these guidelines and you will risk losing partial or full access to ELP Community Forum without warning. By following these guidelines, we will all contribute to an interesting and helpful community of Language Lovers.

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As an ELP community member and forum moderator:

I think we can have different guidelines for moderators - these are good points for users, though!

We believe that everyone should have access to free information on language and culture.

Maybe we should also specify that “everyone should have access to free information on language and culture, in cases where that knowledge is appropriate to share. We encourage you to share any parts of your language and culture you choose to share - this is a place for people who enjoy learning about languages and cultures! All communities also have the right to keep any knowledge or language private, and not share it - please respect these boundaries when you are sharing or looking for information. No one owes you any specific information about their language or culture.”

Our guidelines are meant to build a mutual understanding of what being a part of this community is all about.

A place I used to volunteer (a writing center for kids/teens) had the rules on the wall under the heading “Things Upon Which We All Agree:” - I liked this, because it made clear that these rules were something everyone had a stake in, and weren’t just enforced on the kids by the adults. Maybe we could use similar wording here…

You will report any toxic behavior to an administrator/Moderator and provide screenshots of conversations.

I dunno how much snitching (with receipts, no less) we want to overtly encourage - “YOU WILL REPORT” sounds a bit ominous, like we’ve got secret police or something! Maybe something like “if you see posts that violate these guidelines, or are inappropriate for this community, we invite you to report them to a moderator, so we can keep this a positive and helpful space.”

  1. Attack a person or group of people with words and actions

I like the way this is phrased!

  1. Spam the forum or people’s comment

This is a good one - and we should also include "Advertise or sell services - this is a non-commercial space. We may make some exceptions if you want to share/promote a language-related service you offer (for example, if you run language classes online for a small fee), but in general, please don’t try to sell things here!)

  1. Write inflammatory comments

“Inflammatory” is kind of subjective - lots of things which are appropriate to post here might be considered “inflammatory” by some people. Maybe we should say “Make posts with the intent to start conflict or make other people uncomfortable”? On another forum, I’ve seen the nice guideline “Be respectful. Don’t pick fights, goad, or belittle people. Discuss in good faith and a spirit of mutual understanding; if you are having a disagreement, or you have different opinions from someone else, strive to express your position persuasively, to understand and be understood, not to beat the other person or ‘win’.” I think this ties to your notion of “choose peace over ego” (a really good way of phrasing it!)

  1. Share Illegal & Pornographic content or Personal confidential information

Maybe the doxxing thing should be its own rule? Like, “Do not share personal information about any other user, unless they’ve specifically asked you to (and even then, maybe don’t!). You may think it’s no big deal to share information about your friends online, but this is a violation of their privacy, and not okay to do in this community! This includes information about where people live or travel, where they work or go to school, their real or full name, information about their family or pets, or any other personal information.”

I think we could also phrase the first part as “Please don’t share content that is illegal, pornographic, extremely violent, or otherwise inappropriate for public spaces.”

Please don’t waste your time looking for loopholes

Hahaha, this is very sassy! I think maybe we want to be a bit gentler in the guidelines, perhaps something like “We reserve the right to remove content that violates the spirit of these guidelines, or which our moderation team finds harmful to the spirit of community and cooperation. Violation of these guidelines may result the user in losing access to the Community Forum, temporarily or permanently.”

More thoughts to come soon, but this is a really great start - thanks @HerculesMunda !!

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