Member Feedback on what stops people using the forum / hope to make people comfortable on the site

Continuing the discussion from "Yer not from round 'ere" - should we challenge posts from non-SE23 residents?:

Dear all,

Firstly thank you to all members for taking the time to provide feedback on the site, moderation and the issues that stop or reduce your, or others, participation here. The message is clear - some people do not feel comfortable posting here and that is not an acceptable position for us as a team, or for a local community forum.

So we’d like to start off with an apology to all members who feel that way. We will do our best to remedy the situation and hope that people who might want to use the forum will, if they do not now, feel comfortable doing so in the future.

Issues noted:

Some common themes listed above or by multiple people include:

• A minority of people or one person taking over topics
• A minority of people or one person being overly aggressive / dogmatic / relentless with their arguments
• People responding to each other in quick succession in a heated way or directly attacking each other, or others
• The tone of responses making it feel unfriendly
• General politics being brought into local topics
• People feeling the forum is overly political in a certain direction
• When general politics or other non-local issues, these can and are divisive
• Moderators not taking swift enough action to the above, or in some cases no action
• Difficulty understanding / using the flagging system.

How we can make things better:

So how can we remedy this? Well the honest answer is only in partnership with our members, you. Moderation, ideally would be light touch and allow us to focus on key issues as they arise, and everyone can help us with that.

That said, as moderators we have some tools at our disposal that we could and should have used more in the past, that would have reduced some of the friction. We will aim to utilise these further in the future. We trialled in this thread ‘slow mode’ which stops members posting more than once an hour - we think this will be useful is potential contentious topics where we want to keep the thread open, but give people time to fully consider their responses. There is a disadvantage to this of course in that members cannot post as often as they would like, but it’s probably a good middle ground.

We also of course have the option to close topics. This is something that is done fairly regularly on some other forums and Facebook groups and might be something we can implement more if a discussion has effectively run it’s course.

In terms of general politics creeping in, we will just take a firmer line on it, but also ask members to try to be mindful not to introduce it, and if you do see it to not respond and just flag it so we can deal with one post, instead of the following 5-10 posts. It can be difficult to separate local and national politics, sometimes it is clear, and sometimes it is grey. We will make a judgement call on those - in the current climate that is incredibly difficult to police.

What we do fairly often, that is unseen publicly, is to message members directly to edit a post where it contains a political post. Often 90% of the post is fine, we just need the political slant removed (eg Tory this or Labour that). Sometimes members just ignore the request or refuse, which means we either have to move the whole post out, or delete the text ourselves (which can be difficult to do if it affect the sentence structure). Additionally, as we wait for the member to take action, people can respond to the post, making the thread then difficult to edit and giving us more posts to look at - in these instances if the flagging system can be used instad of responding it’s very helpful to us .

So this brings us to the individuals who dominate, are overly aggressive in their responses or unrelenting in pushing their views, and whose tone is off-putting to some, not to mention direct, or indirect attacks on members. In hindsight, there is no doubt we have let some things go which we should not have. There is a suggestion above for a yellow card or sin bin type type system, and we will look at that. We have a number of options from speaking to users offline, silencing them, suspending or banning. Some of this we do already, but it is hidden from view.

What we will say is that we will make a renewed effort to make sure that this sort of behaviour is identified is eliminated from the forum. Repeat offenders will receive guidance and warnings, and ultimately will be banned if their behaviour does not improve. That will apply to anyone.

A fresh start

Tomorrow is a new day and we will aim to start afresh, implementing the above, and tweaking things as we go along.

We can’t do this on our own though, we will need your assistance. We will provide more guidance on the flagging system in the coming week or so to make it clearer. In affect every member can help us moderate the forum by being mindful of their posts, and helping to alert us when posts fall below that standards expected. We are a small team of moderators all with our own personal lives that keep us busy - we give up our time to try and keep the forum going and friendly (and clearly as above some further work is needed) however we really do need your help also to achieve this.

To our regular members, thank you for your continued support and use of the site, as well as your feedback to improve. We have some truly incredible members on the site and we know how useful your input and posts are to many people - thank you. To those considering coming back or joining, we would urge you to give us another try and help make the forum one SE23 can be truly proud of.

If anyone would like to discuss any particular issues or concerns privately you can message the @moderators as a group, and we are listed below individually.

If you have further feedback or suggestions please detail it below, or in due course if appropriate start new topics in the site feedback area of the forum.

Thank you, from the moderator team.

@oakr (Al) @Londondrz (John) @applespider (Dom) @ForestHull (Mike) @moderators (for all of us).

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We’ve also tweaked the site guidelines a little.

There is now a section describing tea breaks and slow mode, and taking on some of the feedback, we’ve added the following suggestions to the Always Be Civil section:

Thanks to @ThorNogson as I borrowed some of your words there - I hope that’s ok

I welcome the clear concerns highlighted by @oakr - well expressed and recognising real concerns by many forum contributors and visitors.

I would add one additional issue that I have heard expressed and felt myself: moderation favouring some individuals (that may include moderators/admins/owners as well as local councillors). We should all have to abide by the same rules and judged to roughly the same standards (with some leeway given to those who are infrequent posters and don’t know the rules and how to subtly bend them).

But I think that this recognition and slight change in approach by the moderators is most welcome.

I think this is helpful. As I mentioned before the problem I have is threads where local issues are discussed, particularly those to do with traffic and housing, seem to attract certain contributors with an aggressive debating style and entrenched political views. This leads to those threads becoming wider political debates with contributors to threads challenged robustly and sometimes aggressively on every point they make. This may be fun sport to some, but it is intimidating and puts off people who are not keen on that debating style or simply want to talk about a local issue.

I don’t want to reopen the non resident debate but would humbly suggest if there are posters, resident or not, who want a robust political debate about the wider politics of car use, housing, role of public sector workers etc… a hyper local forum is probably not the best place to scratch that itch.

I just wanted to clear up that this was a joint post from the moderator team after our call and discussion last night - we’ve now changed the post author to show that (my technical ineptitude meant I didn’t do that last night).

Absolutely

It was a long meeting for all four mods last night talking through the concerns and coming up with the consensus that @oakr has posted.

Fairness in moderation was one of the topics covered and we agree that everyone should have to abide by the rules and be held to the same standards. It is possibly worth noting here that although the results of moderation should be visible in a friendly forum where local issues predominate, interactions with any member who is being asked to edit posts etc, will be via private messages rather than publicly on threads.

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I find this very sad, but accept I am in a small minority (possibly of one)

I agree with Leo entirely, and this point is definitely key.

One person’s fervent opinion or point of view out in the ether could be dismissed as being just that – one person’s moment of anger and frustration. But if 15+ people click to like/support it, that indicates they too are similarly frustrated, and that speaks volumes.

Also, can I ask why posts keep being moved to a separate subsidiary? It’s happening so much over the recent discussions and I find it quite confusing.

Disclaimer: Not a criticism! Just wondered if there was a reason that’s unclear to me.

Thanks!

It’s very easy to click on the like symbol but not clear what element of a very long post, with links to numerous links that may be being quoted out of context, is being liked. Without the alternative choice of a thumbs down symbol, you really can’t tell much about the consensus of opinion.

That’s completely fair. I should have been more specific, I was talking about the single-paragraph posts that can be seen as individual outbursts, but garner a lot of supporting clicks.

Sometimes it is pretty obvious. Other times, not so much. In this topic there was a lengthy, though well considered post which has been consigned to Moderator Action. I cannot understand how that post broke any guidelines but I also recognise that perhaps my unconscious bias may be at play.

Moving forward I expect we will see what many might consider over moderation and I can accept that. After all many have asked for more moderation, not less. But in the spirit of a new dawn it would be helpful to understand why a post might have been removed when perhaps to the casual observer it may not be so obvious.

I also appreciate that explanations may not be immediate. The moderators have jobs, kids and other things to do. Thoughtful moderation can be better than hasty moderation.

Yep - we’re lucky that some homeschooling hasn’t been posted here yet as @oakr’s sharing a laptop with one of his children!

Here is my second attempt! Wish me luck

To reiterate for some, I’ve explained in my first post, why I am getting involved. I think SE23.Life has the potential to be a fantastic noticeboard, discussion forum, and local virtual meeting place. It can also be a very useful tool for councillors to interact with our residents and hear about issues in the area. However, the refusal of moderators to effectively tackle the very small minority, who regularly make attacks on others, needlessly politicize debates, and respond in a harassing manner to those they don’t agree with - has, for a lot of people, made this forum an unwelcoming place. It has meant the ward councillors, other than me and Sophie, have chosen not to get involved. I think this is a legitimate problem for me to involve myself in, both as a councillor and forum member.

However, having said this, I am very grateful to see @oakr considered and lengthy post here which suggests to me that the moderator team have taken our concerns seriously. I look forward to working with them to improve this forum along with others.

My two pence on things that can be done to improve things:

Moderates take a bit more of a hands-on approach to when posters are clearly riled or enter the site looking for a fight and to attack others. Moderates need to step in early by momentarily blocking the poster and offering them some feedback on why they’ve taken this action to protect other posters. (Take this as a yellow card). After a brief cooling-off period, if the person returns in the same manner, then the posters get a longer sin-bin. If this becomes a persistent pattern of behaviour, and a poster is regularly attacking others, then permanent blocks are in order.

Sometimes, someone account might not warrant a momentary block, but moderators might have a word and give them a little warning for the way they’ve entered or added to a debate and make a note of this behaviour (like a referee does). I know there are certainly times when I have responded in the [wrong manner](Thorpewood Avenue Half One Way and School Street Poll, and not helped further discussions in an appropriate manner.

Then, once in a while, moderators should meet together and can compare notes and work out who the persistent offenders are who drag down the tone of the debate and attack others.

I urge others to continue to offer their feedback and suggestions as @Oakr suggests.

DO NOT use examples of when you’ve felt attacked, or felt that moderators have not responded appropriately to unpleasant hassling or barbed-politicisation - while you may think it is important to offer examples to illustrate your points - by calling out people’s behaviour, you will be accused attacking or marginalising then. This relates to my original post, in which I argue that rules protect people from being challenged about your their tone or conduct.

Therefore, I would recommend that you Direct Message the moderators instead to offer examples of conduct you’ve seen or received that has made you uncomfortable and made you want to disengage from this forum.

Well said Leo - it’s hard to find anything in your thoughtful post to disagree with.

Just to add my two cents on slow mode, which I think is clearly a helpful tool. I can understand why it would not apply to moderators, as they need to be able to intervene if necessary. However, I think it would be appreciated by users if moderators could behave as if they needed to wait an hour between posts, as there were several breaches in the now-locked thread from yesterday, which I suspect may have put others off from contributing.

Hi @Fran_487

As mentioned above, we are trying to more pro-actively target early posts which do not meet site guidelines.

Posts that don’t meet these are moved, and either permanently consigned elsewhere, or we will ask the poster to amend their post, explaining where they have broken the guidelines. If the poster amends the post so that it meets the guidelines, we will then move it back, or allow the poster to to repost as such the new version.

In particuliar, as @LeoGibbons alludes to, we want to ensure that members do not target other members - a repeated complaint so we are being very proactive on that front. If there are concerns about about individuals, the moderator team can be messaged @moderators , or the site owner individually @ForestHull.

It is possible we will be accused of over moderation, and we may be guilty of it over the next few days and weeks, but on the balance of where we are if the matter is grey that is the approach we will take to make sure all users feel the environment is safe for them.

I hope that clarifies things for you and @starman.

Thank you Jon. I think if we are responding as users as opposed to moderators, we should absolutely do that, and if we don’t (we are human and make mistakes also) we should be pulled up on it - again the flagging system can be used. In a moderator capacity we may post more regularly (though we will aim not to) - it’s new to us also and we will need to learn from it and take the feedback like yours, but certainly sometimes we will need to interject to respond to questions or alleviate issues more regularly than normal.

Hi Leo. Your profile pic includes a LBC symbol noting that you are local councilor. While a nice feature, it could cause some confusion to readers as it would suggest that any post you make is in the capacity of a local councilor when clearly that is not always the case.

This area of confusion is not new. For a very long time it was impossible to know if a moderator was posting as a moderator, or expressing their own opinion. Particularly if one was contributing to a topic in both capacities. This led to the addition of a moderator “tag” which they could engage when appropriate so that it was clear in which capacity they were posting. The “yellow” highlighting came later.

For yourself and Sophie it might be helpful if admin can offer the same. I’m pretty sure this can be done though would require you to consciously engage the badge when in your official capacity.

Except in this case I think it is:

Also:

Sadly not - moderators and admins have special status baked into the software. Perhaps a simple disclaimer to say “I am posting my own views” is enough though - in other dealings with Councillors I know they have always been clear to point out when they are expressing their own opinion rather than council policy and such, and I think Leo has done a good job to be clear here, though I’m sure he can clarify further if needed - though let’s not get too far off topic

Hi Mod’s.
I know there is a 'lounge’, but given the nature of some of the other threads and the way they escalated it seems what we need now is a ‘playground’ (or perhaps boxing rink, even).

Good idea. We all need to play from time to time. And intellectual boxing is a very useful way of keeping ourselves in shape.

This sounds promising, I joined the forum last August and have definitely struggled to feel comfortable being as involved as I’d like with the tone some threads take - spending a lot of time lurking instead, I suspect I’m probably not alone.

I definitely think the overall aim of the forum should be focused on local discussion and I support trying to keep politics out of it but despite this local focus there isn’t much of a community feel on the forum. A lot of the suggestions in this thread surround how the forum can be better policed to avoid conversations going in an unpleasant direction but it might be worth thinking about what positive actions can be taken to help improve participation.

I’m not familiar with how the Discourse platform works but I think it would be good to have more areas for open conversation - in the same vein as the mysterious #lounge…

Channels/groups for things like Cooking, Gardening, TV, Sports etc. might be a nice way to encourage participation on the forum even if it’s outside of the core SE23 focus whilst making sure posts and topics all fit within the SE23 focus. Again I don’t know if this is possible on the platform so may be a non-starter.

I think this is along the lines of something @Swagger suggested in a post a couple of weeks ago and what @NewtoSE might be getting at in this thread.

This might be completely against the local-led direction of the forum the moderators are working towards but it feels like a way for to engender more free-flowing conversation.

Hi @Dom_Mo if you click on the triple burger icon on the top right of the page (mobile browsing) there is a menu which will allow you to select many of the interest groups you mentioned. Any other questions please just let us know.

I think one problem right now is that there isn’t a whole lot going on. The events calendar would normally have been full to bursting with local events this time last year, but that’s sadly not the case now. The loss of many local events, I feel, had lost a bit of the local feel and positivity here. Obviously there’s a lot drawing conversations to various wider issues in the world too.

All of this does however make the forum an even more important resource I feel.

We do have had some good general threads that cover some of the topics you mention:

• Houseplant Hill; indoor gardens of SE23
• Bakers corner photo thread
• Crochet Appreciation
• Pumpkin Carving 'Creepy' Corner
• Allotment / Gardening Chat and Advice 2020 Thread

Making more categories is certainly possible, but rather than creating a lot of niches, it might be better to use #general and see if anything rises out of that category first.

Possibly the best thing here is for people to try posting about their interests and see what sticks. Moderation is to keep it civil and friendly, but the forum is really powered by everyone that contributes positively.

This is a really good point… because there isn’t much going on in locally in terms of events, and people can’t go out and socialise, they will be looking to interact online with their community. Especially important for those that might live alone and/or particularly missing friends and family.

Though I haven’t participated myself, I do enjoy the gardening and bakers threads as well as the pictures of wildlife, so would welcome others in the same vein. Noted that these are also the friendliest, most non-confrontational threads too, so feel like a safer space to engage with. With that in mind… I have actually got a loaf in the oven now, so will post up a pic when it’s done!

Yes I think this is a good point. I also think that this lockdown maybe partly to blame for some of the arguments. It is making lots of people crazy and it may be no coincidence that we are having this conversation now. It’s having a bad effect on everyone. Every waking hour staring at screens. I have found myself getting bent out of shape over small things that would not bother me usually. Everything is “online” and we can’t really go anywhere to escape. I think the lack of real face to face interaction with others can contribute towards people acting in an uncharacteristically antagonist manner. I should be out and about going about my lawful business in my usual cheery way, but instead I find myself stuck indoors on some local forum or comments page on a newspaper article having an argument with someone I have never met about Brexit. It’s tragic. We must be kinder to each other and make allowances for stresses many of us are under.

Post of the week.

It has been lovely to see a wider range of voices on the Forum over the last five or six days. Whatever the reason long may that continue.

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I was wondering how these suggestions were coming along, and what the @moderators current policy is in dealing with discriminatory user behaviour beyond simply moving posts. I would suggest that merely labelling the posts as ‘off topic’ is not sufficient.

Hi, and apologies for the delay responding.

Absolutely, we’d all agree with your point. Information on expected member conduct on the forum and how to flag posts etc is available in the FAQ, though we plan on expanding this in the next few days.

Where a post is viewed or reported (flagged) as potentially discriminatory it will initially be moved out of the main area of the forum whilst it is investigated.

Once reviewed the moderator team will have one or more of the folowing options available:

• Speak the the member to understand the post from their perspective
• Hide the post permanently
• Provide guidance to the member on future posts
• Restrict the users’ access levels
• Issue a warning
• Silence the user for a period of time
• Ban the user

Essentially each case would be judged on it’s own merits. Past behaviour may also be taken into account.

No forms of discrimination will be allowed or tolerated on the forum, and anyone the moderator team feels is acting in a malicious, baiting or bullying way in this respect will be banned without warnings or any of the other options detailed above being used.

Thanks

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I’m finding the moderation very heavy. The model seems to be chairing or steering discussion, rather than intervention as a last resort. On the other hand there has been a too-light touch when moderating some individuals who have been guilty of ad hominem attacks.

I suppose it’s hard to say without seeing where conversations might have wandered off to without moderation, but I think that there’s been some good, balanced moderation of topics that were starting to stray recently. And some other things that have been moderated seem to be things that should have been raised privately with moderators anyway. Just my two cents in case @ModTeam are gauging feedback.

It’s difficult to mod, some will see it as heavy handed, some will see it as too light. We have to try and tiptoe somewhere down the middle. But what we do, in most cases, is all agree as mods before a decision.

The moderation on this site is very forensic &, in my opinion, OTT.

There have been many people who have left as a result.

The ‘ad hominem attacks’ comment I find risible. Some people have made very strong personal opinions on this ‘forum’ that have divided attitudes.

At the end of the day, the purpose of a ‘community’ forum is to bring people together.

FYI (as someone pointed this out to me the other day) on the subject of making people more comfortable, if anyone’s bothering you or you don’t want to see their comments then you can click on their profile and select ‘Ignored’ and you won’t see anything they post.

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Game changing! What happens if you ignore someone who then ends up in a threaded conversation with people you don’t ignore, do you see blank spaces or is the whole thread ignored?

It will hide the ignored users’ posts, but you can click to expand them in case you want to read them for the context of discussion.

I think that’s burying your head in the sand. All that results in is people being driven out of conversations, leaving the perps to badmouth them behind their backs.

When I was very young in my very first job on leaving school I was a post clerk in a factory. All male apart from me, the nurse, the typists and one lab assistant. Delivering the post was like running the gauntlet of whistles and crude remarks and porno calendars. If you answered back you were frigid or had no sense of humour. You had to turn a blind eye or leave. Some of the older guys were really kind and as embarrassed as I was. I lasted six months.

I think mods ought to mandate this for certain people that frequently invite themselves into tit-for-tat exchanges with other members.

It should be easy enough for mods to work out who is instigating unsolicited critical replies directed at certain member(s) in targeted fashion

I must admit I forgot / didn’t know we had this…I’ve used it very sporadically in the past on other forums and it worked well for me, I tended not to do it permanently but just for a while if a I needed a breather from someone.

I’d not thought about it but it’s something we could discuss that could be useful in some situations.

Or you could ignore them and move on. Responding is an option and not mandatory.

Being responded to isn’t something over which anyone has control, however.

Very true, but without a retort there is less fuel for the fire.