Your feedback needed: Updating our Community Guidelines

[Dimity]

Sorry if my message got buried on the detail @espressologic . The guidelines taken at face value seem to systematically strip away most if not all meaningful content, leaving only the opportunity for superficialities.

[espressologic]

Thanks for your points @Dimity.  There’s a lot to unpack here, so my response will also be a bit long. I will respond to each point and also include some additional questions for further discussion.

Firstly, the forums are indeed for people with lived experience of mental health issues and their carers, and this is primarily who posts. Supporters and allies are also valued members of our community, as long as their participation is supportive and respects the experiences of others. Should the guidelines reference supporters and allies specifically?

Regarding your concern about discussions on suicidal ideation, self-harm, or family violence: we aim to ensure that the forums are safe for all members. While we cannot provide crisis support, as I’ve said previously we do encourage members to share their feelings and seek peer support. Our goal is to manage the level of detail in posts to prevent potential triggers for others, not to silence any member’s experiences. How can we make this intent clearer whilst not making the guidelines overly lengthy?

Our guideline against detailed descriptions of trauma or abuse aims to protect our community from potential harm. Members are welcome to discuss their experiences and emotions but should avoid explicit details that might inadvertently distress others – this is not a new guideline, it is already in place. How can we make this intent clearer?

The "Avoid Rumination" guideline encourages recovery-oriented discussion, which can indeed include introspective reflection. This guideline is not meant to discourage sharing but to promote conversations that can help members move forward and find support. How can we make this intent clearer?

We take moderation very seriously and strive to monitor posts effectively. However, the community's help in reporting posts allows us to address issues more swiftly and efficiently. Over 10,000 posts per month are made to this community, and we have only a handful of staff.  Much of the responsibility for ensuring a safe and supportive community will always lie with the members – this is true of any forum, anywhere.  How can we clarify this point?

Regarding the mention of services or sharing information about research and inquiries, it's essential that this is done without promoting personal gain. Discussions about public services are welcome when they offer support to other members. Does this need to be specifically clarified?

The "no self-promotion" rule is specifically about preventing commercial promotion or professional solicitation. Sharing helpful resources, including community and government services, is encouraged as long as it doesn't cross into promotional territory. Does this need to be made clearer?

I was really disappointed to read that you feel the guidelines seem discouraging or disparaging of lived experiences. One of our guiding lights at SANE is that “lived experience lives here”. We want to honour and respect the diversity of experiences within our community, not diminish them. Our challenge is to create guidelines that protect all members while fostering a space for open and supportive dialogue.

My final question relates to understanding do your concerns reflect the tone of the guidelines or their existence altogether? Each guideline has been established for specific reasons, primarily focused on safety and support and based on feedback we have received from this community. However, the way we communicate these rules is equally important, and we must ensure they are conveyed in a way that feels supportive rather than restrictive.

Another question for the room might be, how would you write guidelines for this community if you were starting from scratch?

[Dimity]

Dear @espressologic 

I deeply appreciate your thoughtful response. Thankyou. It deserves an equally thoughtful reply so I'll take most of your questions on notice.

But I can respond immediately on one set.

You say

"My final question relates to understanding do your concerns reflect the tone of the guidelines or their existence altogether? Each guideline has been established for specific reasons, primarily focused on safety and support and based on feedback we have received from this community. However, the way we communicate these rules is equally important, and we must ensure they are conveyed in a way that feels supportive rather than restrictive.

"Another question for the room might be, how would you write guidelines for this community if you were starting from scratch?"

I wholeheartedly support the need for guidelines.  I take issue with their tone and ensuing capacity to alienate. I think your drive for brevity and simplicity has clouded the need for clear understandable  and compassionate communication.

If I were writing guidelines from scratch I'd write each guideline in 3 parts.

1. The guideline.

2. Reasons for the guideline. You've already in this thread explained justifications for many of the guidelines which in many cases show you've sometimes written a broadbased guideline blocking content much more narrowly defined. Perhaps the exercise of writing a justification can sometimes inform a rewording of the guideline..

3. One or two examples of how the guideline might apply.

As someone with lived experience I know it can be enormously difficult to convey the depth of our vulnerability and suffering and consequent capacity to perceive hurt. Many of us interact with the Forums when we're at our lowest ebb. We recognise that in each other, and that is one of the Forum's greatest strengths. I don't know how to explain that to you so offer a poem.

No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief.'
BY GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS
No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief,
More pangs will, schooled at forepangs, wilder wring.
Comforter, where, where is your comforting?
Mary, mother of us, where is your relief?
My cries heave, herds-long; huddle in a main, a chief
Woe, wórld-sorrow; on an áge-old anvil wince and sing —
Then lull, then leave off. Fury had shrieked 'No ling-
ering! Let me be fell: force I must be brief."'

O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall
Frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed. Hold them cheap
May who ne'er hung there. Nor does long our small
Durance deal with that steep or deep. Here! creep,
Wretch, under a comfort serves in a whirlwind: all
Life death does end and each day dies with sleep.

I think that if the guidelines could be written in that three part structure  I've suggested, it would be a kindness to members... but also importantly would help new moderators and peer support workers in interpreting and applying the guidelines.

[espressologic]

Thank you - the 3-part structure sounds like a great idea.

Perhaps we also need to have something somewhere that recognises the potential to perceive hurt, where it may not be intended? This is not only true of the guidelines, but in the interactions we have with each other in threads.

[ArraDreaming]

I missed there can I still provide some feedback

[Shaz51]

Sure can @ArraDreaming 😎

[espressologic]

@ArraDreaming yes please, keen to hear your thoughts!

[NatureLover]

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@espressologic wrote:

Another question for the room might be, how would you write guidelines for this community if you were starting from scratch?

---

I am actually happy with the guidelines as they currently are, and see no need for change, @espressologic .

I think in trying to make the guidelines shorter and/or easier to understand, we've somehow come up with more distress and uncertainty. 

The main point I see is that members who are suffering SI and SH and are in distress or struggling to get through the day (not crisis) are now upset that they feel they can't post things that previously helped them to get through. They rely on the forums here and now feel they can't. 

I think that this means that the new guidelines are unclear. That's not to disparage all the work you have put in, at all, @espressologic ! 

I take note of this point in your OP:

"One of the key pieces of feedback was that our community guidelines are too complicated, with a perception that these are sometimes inconsistently applied to members' posts by our staff."

I don't see any way that guidelines of a forum like this can not be complicated. 

To that end, I think @Dimity 's 3-part idea is good. 

Thank you for listening to us, and also for pinning this thread to the front page 🙂

[espressologic]

Thanks @NatureLover. I'll wait to see what further feedback we get over the next week, then we'll have another go at a revision to incorporate the feedback we've received.

[Dimity]

Hello @espressologic 

Yes the guidelines should encourage supporters and allies. Many posters in the carers forum are extended family or friends not specifically carers.

The intent to avoid distress by limiting graphic or explicit detail could be spelt out in a 3 part guideline - the rule, the explanation/justification,  and examples.

Avoiding rumination may be a well-intentioned guideline but difficult to interpret, monitor and police. Maybe subsume it in the 'Avoiding repetition ' guideline and instance that rumination is unhelpful in the explanation/justification. 

The point about moderation is fair. Perhaps an overarching statement about the forums community relying heavily on mutual support and care, and looking out for each other, might help the tone. But I was unduly harsh.

Yes to both questions - I think unpacking sharing about public services from personal promotion and soliciting for profit is definitely warranted. They deserve to be addressed separately and their original conflation was unfortunate. 

Thankyou again for the opportunity to respond.