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Your feedback needed: Updating our Community Guidelines

espressologicSenior Contributor19 Apr 2024, 3:04 pm AEST

Your feedback needed: Updating our Community Guidelines

Hi everyone,

Late last year, SANE invited forums members to participate in a co-design activity where we asked for feedback on all aspects of the forums.

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.

Below is a new, simplified version of the guidelines that we are seeking your feedback on here in this thread. Please feel free to ask any questions you have also about why we have certain guidelines, point out anything that is unclear, or anything you think we have left out that is important.

This thread will be open for feedback for the next two weeks, and will close at the end of the day on Sunday May 5.

We will look to upload the revised guidelines, incorporating your feedback, in early June.

Thanks for your time.

UPDATE: Revised version will be posted later today (May 6), and we will leave the thread open for further feedback until Sunday May 19.

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SANE Forums Community Guidelines

1. Who Can Join

If you are aged over 18 and currently living in Australia, then you are welcome to join. We welcome people looking for peer support, connection or belonging, whether you have lived experience of a mental health condition, or care for someone who does.

2. Keeping It Safe

Emergency Help For Suicide, Self-Harm, Family Violence: The forums do not provide crisis or emergency support. If you or someone else is in immediate danger, please contact emergency services and do not post to the forum. If we see such posts appear, we will have to remove them and possibly contact emergency services on your behalf.

No Detailed Descriptions: Please don’t share very detailed posts where you name medications, eating disorder behaviours, self-harm, suicide methods, sexual behaviour, trauma or abuse. Please see our more detailed guide for posting safely about suicide and self-harm and eating disorders.

Supportive Discussion: Do not discourage other members from seeking help, or encourage harmful behaviour.

Avoid Rumination: The forums are a recovery-oriented space. We encourage the sharing of helpful content focused on well-being, recovery, and help seeking behaviours.

Report Posts Of Concern: Please report any posts you see that break these guidelines; our team may not have seen them.

3. Being Respectful

Stay Friendly: Avoid posts that are disrespectful, rude, hurtful or could make someone feel unwelcome.

Fair Discussion: Avoid saying things that name or identify other people, practitioners, services, or refer to breaking the law.

No Pressure: While sharing and supporting are encouraged, do not place pressure on other members to respond to your posts. Everyone participates at their own pace and comfort level.

No Self-Promotion: Please don’t try to sell anything, give professional advice, look for clients or ask people to join in on research.

Fact-Check: If you’re sharing something factual, please let us know in your post where you found the information.

Avoid Repetition: Please don’t repeat the same or similar message across the forums or within threads.

Responding To Emails: We may contact you by email to check in on your safety, explain a decision to edit or remove a post, or discuss your forums activity. Your response to these emails is expected and appreciated.

4. Staying Anonymous

Stay Anonymous: Use a forum name that doesn’t give away who you are offline or on other social media sites. Please stick to using only one forums account.

No Personal Information: Do not share any personal, identifying details such as names, addresses, or places of work or study. Please remember your forum member name and posts may appear in search engine results.

5. Breaking The Guidelines

We will edit or remove posts that break these guidelines, and we will email you to let you know this has happened. We will also explain our decision and, if appropriate, provide advice on how you can re-post safely within the guidelines.

For members who repeatedly break guidelines, then we may take any of the following actions:
• Place limits on the number of posts you can make
• Place limits on when you can use the forums
• Remove your forums access for a period of time
• Remove your forums access permanently

53 replies

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In response to: Your feedback needed: Updating our Community Guidelines

DimitySenior Contributor21 Apr 2024, 9:02 pm AEST

Re: Your feedback needed: Updating our Community Guidelines

@Zoe7 I think I queried some of the messages...

In response to: Your feedback needed: Updating our Community Guidelines

Zoe7Senior Contributor21 Apr 2024, 9:02 pm AEST

Re: Your feedback needed: Updating our Community Guidelines

@espressologic I echo @NatureLover and @Dimity suggestion to pin this to the home page so more members can see it.

In response to: Re: Your feedback needed: Updating our Community Guidelines

Zoe7Senior Contributor21 Apr 2024, 9:06 pm AEST

Re: Your feedback needed: Updating our Community Guidelines

Yes @Dimity I agree with your queries. I have been looking at the present guidelines and the revised guidelines - there are some glaring ommisions as well as a lot of 'extra' wording that is not necessary. When I have finished I will tag you as I would love to hear your views further. Give me a couple of days 👍

In response to: Re: Your feedback needed: Updating our Community Guidelines

DimitySenior Contributor21 Apr 2024, 9:12 pm AEST

Re: Your feedback needed: Updating our Community Guidelines

Thanks @Zoe7 I'll look forward to your appraisal

In response to: Re: Your feedback needed: Updating our Community Guidelines

Zoe7Senior Contributor21 Apr 2024, 9:13 pm AEST

Re: Your feedback needed: Updating our Community Guidelines

I will be really interested to have your views on board too @Dimity 🥰

In response to: Re: Your feedback needed: Updating our Community Guidelines

AppleblossomSenior Contributor22 Apr 2024, 8:29 am AEST

Re: Your feedback needed: Updating our Community Guidelines

Really resonated with these comments @Dimity @Former-Member @NatureLover @Zoe7 @espressologic

brought up similar points in the past

best the forum keeps some transparency and open dialogue and discussion

yes language use is important… inclusivity and safety can be tricky to negotiate in this diverse world

moderators need to be open minded rather than policing.

Thanks for trying

In response to: Re: Your feedback needed: Updating our Community Guidelines

espressologicSenior Contributor22 Apr 2024, 9:03 am AEST

Re: Your feedback needed: Updating our Community Guidelines

Hi everyone, thanks for the great feedback so far. We are working on getting this thread pinned in a more prominent place today.

I'll clarify a few points raised so far about the intention behind some of the guidelines:

No self-promotion (research): the intent here is to stop the forums being flooded by researchers promoting their own studies, not to prevent members from sharing studies that they have participated in.

Avoid repetition/rumination: the intent here is not to stop people from discussing ongoing conditions or symptoms, or denying that recovery is non-linear, but to address issues where some members have posted identical or very similar messages on a daily (or sometimes multiple times daily) with no new information or context. These posts are often reported to us by other members who find them distressing or are frustrated that their helpful replies don't seem to be having an effect. We hope that the forums can be a space that help people move forward on their recovery journey, rather than enabling them to stay 'stuck'.

Fair discussion (naming of services): this is an update of an existing guideline about repetitive criticism of services. On a busy forum such as this, it is too difficult for our moderators to define 'repetitive' as it would require them to go back and review posting histories, so we are proposing changing this to not naming services at all. We encourage general discussions about difficulties people have had with services, but complaints about specific services should be taken up with the service itself, or the appropriate state-based agency. The intent here is not to stop people from naming national services or evidence-based apps that might be helpful for members to try.

Tone: it is a tough ask to write guidelines that are clear, concise and positive when a lot of the things we need to include are about setting limits and rules. I appreciate that a lot of "don'ts" can be alienating. Looking forward to further feedback on how we can 'split the difference' between emphasising what is desired vs. what not to do. I'm sure we can also find a space for explaining why guidelines are in place also.

In response to: Re: Your feedback needed: Updating our Community Guidelines

NatureLoverSenior Contributor23 Apr 2024, 6:48 am AEST

Re: Your feedback needed: Updating our Community Guidelines

Thank you for clarifying, @espressologic ! 🙂

@espressologic wrote:
Fair discussion (naming of services): this is an update of an existing guideline about repetitive criticism of services. ... The intent here is not to stop people from naming national services or evidence-based apps that might be helpful for members to try.

I wonder if the proposed new guidelines could be amended to say something like, "No complaints about any services"?

@espressologic wrote:
Avoid repetition/rumination: the intent here is ... to address issues where some members have posted identical or very similar messages on a daily (or sometimes multiple times daily) with no new information or context. These posts are often reported to us by other members who find them distressing or are frustrated that their helpful replies don't seem to be having an effect. We hope that the forums can be a space that help people move forward on their recovery journey, rather than enabling them to stay 'stuck'.

I wonder if you are talking about SH and SI here?
I know that people with BPD do experience SI on a daily basis, sadly, as part of the condition. Plus other very helpful, caring members do also - members who are accessing help in the forum of meds and many types of therapy. I wouldn't want to make these members feel that they could no longer write about their distress - effectively placing a 'gag' on them. Would you be able to clarify further?

@espressologic wrote:
No self-promotion (research): the intent here is to stop the forums being flooded by researchers promoting their own studies, not to prevent members from sharing studies that they have participated in.

I understand. I see now that they way you have listed "research" under "No self promotion" makes complete sense - sorry I didn't pick up on earlier!

Thanks again.

In response to: Re: Your feedback needed: Updating our Community Guidelines

espressologicSenior Contributor23 Apr 2024, 8:36 am AEST

Re: Your feedback needed: Updating our Community Guidelines

Hi @NatureLover, I was thinking about this after posting yesterday.

We don't want to stop people from posting about distress, including feelings of self-harm and suicide.

What is important when posting about these topics is to give the community something to work with in supporting you. This could be either:

(a) Including some detail about self-soothing or distracting techniques that you've already tried today, or intend to do later

(b) Asking the community for suggestions about what might help

For example:

"I’m just so tired of feeling this way. Every day feels exactly the same, and it’s like nothing I do makes any difference. I've been trying XXX today but it hasn't been helping as much as it normally does. Looking for some new ideas I can try."

If posting about feelings of suicide, it's also important to let the community know that you're safe and not intending to act on the feelings (otherwise we will worry!). If you are struggling to contain the urges, then we would ask that you contact crisis services and not post on the forum because we can't provide immediate support here.

In response to: Your feedback needed: Updating our Community Guidelines

Captain24Senior Contributor23 Apr 2024, 1:46 pm AEST

Re: Your feedback needed: Updating our Community Guidelines

I’m agree with what the other members have written.

My concerns are feel rumination and repetition of posts. I understand it in some instances. However some times our brains are on repeat cycle. Sometimes you feel the same thing for a while.

With some of these guidelines I don’t believe that I am acceptable of being here.

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