5-Filters moderation rules

[mods]

Who are the moderators?

We are three regular posters on the board. You can find a list of the current moderators here.

Reasons for moderator engagement

Moderators have the right to step in to edit or remove posts that fail to follow the board guidelines described in the general categories below, and in the good post guidelines.

1 - Facilitating civil discussion

We ask all posters to avoid:

• Aggressive or insulting posts
• Ad-hom attacks
• Hounding or brigading
• Referring to other posters as trolls, idiots, snowflakes or other such terms

If you feel like a topic or a post is neither important nor interesting, then simply don't engage. If you feel that a post is inappropriate then please flag it for the moderators to take a look. In general no individual poster should act as a gatekeeper for the board.

2 - Protecting posters identity

We ask all posters to avoid posting any personal details about any other posters. This could include:

• Full names
• Place of residence
• Occupation details

In general, please only post details of yourself that you feel comfortable being publicly available on the interweb.

3 - Removing libelous or illegal content

The moderators may also remove any posts containing content deemed to be potentially libelous, or illegal. We encourage our posters to read Discourse's Acceptable Use Policy, and Content Standards. Such posts could end up taking down the entire board and might even leave moderators and/or the admin exposed to possible legal trouble. That's not a risk any of us should have to take.

Sanctions for breaking board rules

We are generally reluctant to enact sanctions, however there will be a sliding scale of sanction for deliberately and repeatedly breaking board rules:

• An official warning
• Poster will be silenced for a week
• Poster will be suspended (banned)

All moderator decisions will be made public on the board. Moderators will reach out by PM to any poster that is being sanctioned, to explain the reason, and seek a resolution.

Challenging moderator decisions

If the mods make a decision that seems unfair or plain wrong then, in the first instance, please get in touch with us via the private messaging system. We want to encourage all users to feel welcome to challenge the mods, but we do not want to disrupt the day to day discussions on the board with endless threads on moderation. We also don't want to encourage the public posting of what might be private information about any posters. If, after our private discussion, we feel that there are issues that need to be discussed or voted on publicly, we will create a thread to handle that and bring it to the wider board attention.

And when you do PM us, please keep it civil. Abuse against any poster here, including the moderators, will not be tolerated.

User participation

We do want this board to feel community owned and run. Posters can actively help to keep the board running smoothly by:

• Following the guidelines
• Flagging posts that are inappropriate
• Avoiding factionalism and brigading
• Not enabling or supporting abusive posters and not encouraging abuse
• Not gatekeeping or trying to decide for the entire board which posts are important and which posts are not.
• Using your judgement to decide which posts are important to you and limit your engagement to those areas
• Making use of the in-built Discourse trust level system

[mods]

Hi all

We have been running for two months now, and the board is gradually beginning to take shape. We felt that it was important to be able to clarify exactly what the principles of moderation for the board were, and are now sharing the result with everyone.

Feedback is always welcome, and we full expect the moderation guidelines to further evolve over time.

There are two other items that are important and both will get a thread in the near future:

1 - Board funding

The idea is that this place becomes a self funded space, and thereby co-operatively owned by its members. Currently the costs are approx $5 / month, but this will likely rise to approx $10 / month. At some point soon(ish) we will set up a 5-Filters funding page where users will be able to contribute whatever amount they feel comfortable with. There is no pressure.

2 - Selection of moderators

The current moderators are three people who have been discussing the idea of setting up a board for a number of years. In the interests of getting it finally off the ground, we took up the role as moderators. At some point it would be good to discuss how we as a community want to select our moderators. It feels like a good idea that both funding and moderation are handled in a democratic way by the members of this space.