Have your say: updating a guideline

We’ve been listening and have heard members when they tell us that its difficult when their posts get moderated for talking about negative experiences seeking help.

So in response to your feedback we are taking action and want your input on how to improve. We are reviewing the guideline below that currently sits under Safety:

(please share helpful content, focussed on wellbeing, recovery and help seeking behaviours)

As well as feedback from members we also find it tricky from a moderation point of view.

We honour those that have had very real difficult and negative experiences seeking help within the mental health service sector. We know that the support system does struggle to allow for the complexity that exists in mental health issues.

People should be able to get support from their peers about this. At the same time we also need to acknowledge the positive experiences and also be extremely mindful of how discussions may impact another person’s help seeking/recovery journey. For those that may still be in a process of gaining courage to reach out, we want to be sure we do not leave them feeling a bit deterred to take that next step.

The guideline above has the right intentions, but it is too broad and leaves too much room for interpretation. This results in inconsistency – things being over or under-moderated. The suggestion is to remove it as a direct guideline and instead add it as a comment to the bottom of that section.

Posts that are seeking support from peers about a negative experience they had are not against the guidelines, though mods/community managers will probably join in the discussion. Also, if the post named a specific organisation, there is still the guideline about defamation that could be relevant.

The other update we are looking to do, is to add a guideline under safety that states:

• Do not post ongoing / repetitive criticism (three posts in two weeks) of a service or the service system. If you are unsure of where to raise your concerns email team@saneforums.org for information on feedback mechanisms.

The goal of this guideline is to help avoid impacting another person’s help seeking journey. We are not trying to silence anyone but instead redirect them to us so we can help you take that feedback to the right place – as the purpose of the forums is social and emotional support

We are really keen to hear your thoughts on the above? How do these guideline updates make you feel? Do you think they will be beneficial to the community?