Policies and Guidelines of the London Commons

This page and subpages will aim to consolidate material regarding policies and guidelines that have been developed by the London Commons community.

see: http://freedom.2y.net/wiki/London_Commons

 



Draft collected policies of LondonCommons.net

We spent most of the time at the last meeting editing this collection of all of the policies for the website. Mostly we made small clarifications, and discussed larger changes and additions that would have to be made.

Here they are posted as a book page. If you change something, please explain the edit by filling out the log field in the edit form. Large changes and additions should probably be marked as tentative some how until they can be agreed up at a meeting.

LondonCommons.net policies

All of our policies are decided at meetings run by consensus. The meetings are open to anyone who has an account on the site.

User name policy

  1. Users are required to use their real names as their user names on the site.
  2. First and last name are preferred, but using one real name and one initial is acceptable.
  3. When a user signs up for an account using an obviously fake name, they will be contacted by a user moderator requesting that their user name be changed.
  4. If the user refuses to change their user name or there is no reply in two weeks, the account will be blocked by the user moderator.
  5. Also, until the user's real name is used, their account will be temporarily limited so that they will be unable to post content and the comments they add will be held back in an approval queue.

Unacceptable Content

  1. All content posted to the site is subject to deletion at the discretion of the moderators. Moderators will only delete content under the following circumstances:
    1. The content is deemed to be an advertisement, (Note that there are some excepions made under the Calendar/Event posting guidelines and policies)
    2. The content is protected by a copyright and has been posted without permission of the copyright holder (content licensed under a Creative Commons license counts as permission).
    3. The content is deemed to willfully promote hatred.
    4. Calender/event post that do not fall under the Calendar/Event posting guidelines and policies.
  2. In the event that a moderator deletes content, they must document their action and the reason why in the deleted posts forum.

Style and category edits by moderators

  1. Moderators will never edit or change the content of a user's posts, however a moderator may make stylistic or categorization changes to any post for the following reasons
    1. more than one image is used in the teaser/preview of the post
    2. the teaser/preview of the post is substantially longer than normal
    3. the post was mistakenly put into the wrong category on the site
    4. the post is missing a title and its link cannot be clicked

Conflict, civility and personal attacks

  1. Comments made on the site are permanent and will not be deleted upon request of a user regretting what they have posted.
  2. If a discussion on the site becomes heated or personal attacks are made, a moderator will attempt to diffuse the situation either by privately messaging the users involved or requesting in a comment that people remember to respect each other and/or apologize for any incivility they have brought.
  3. A moderator cannot take these steps in a discussion that they have already participated in.
  4. When intervening in a heated discussion, the moderator should identify his/herself as a moderator.
  5. Attempts to diffuse heated discussions and resolve conflicts due to incivility and personal attacks should not be limited to moderators. As LondonCommons.net is a user-driven community, all users should feel welcome to participate in conflict resolution on the site.

Repeat "flamers"

  1. If a user has been warned three (3) times to stop making personal attacks and/or creating incivility in discussions on the site, their account may be temporarily limited.2
  2. The decision to limit their account must be made by at least three (3) moderators, documented on the site and discussed at the next London Commons meeting.
  3. When a user's account has been limited, she-he will be unable to post new content. The user will be able to add comments to content on the site, but before their comments are published they must be approved by a moderator.
  4. Moderators will approve all comments in the approval queue that are civil and do not include personal attacks.

Moderators

  1. A user may become a moderator by a consensus decision at a London Commons meeting.
  2. In order the retain the status of moderator, the user must regularly sign into the site and attend London Commons meetings. (put numbers on it.. not signed in/at meeting for 5 months for example).
  3. Moderators will be reviewed regularly at London Commons to determine if they should retain their status.
  4. Need to include something about user moderators.
  5. Set terms for moderators?

Privacy Policy

- we need to outline a privacy policy

 

Calendar/Event posting guidelines and policies

*Tentative, please contribute*

The London Commons Event Calendar strives to strengthen the community by promoting community oriented events.

The Calendar is open to (but not limited to) postings promoting "not-for-profit" events that open to the public, organising meetings, community and municipal meetings and consultations, rallies and protests, etc. Posts promoting events charging admission are welcome if they are non-commercial in nature. (i.e. concerts by independent artists or at an independent venue, lectures, indy and documentary film screenings, fundraisers, etc...).

Events of a commercial nature, be they for-profit or not-for-profit, and prank post will likely be removed by moderators.

 

Consensus discussions and decisions relevant to this policy:

Calender versus blogs - Different definitions of content
i)Calender - priority for protection "For-profit Corporate" - definition of what will not be allowed to be addvertised on the calender. Further refinements pending.
http://www.londoncommons.net/node/1824#comment-3679

No policy of deleting fake events is in place.
Consensus on adding “open to the public and factual” to the definition of events acceptable on the calendar (in addition to “non-corporate and not-for-profit”)
http://www.londoncommons.net/node/1891#comment-3790

Do not post advertisements. The only exception is for the events calendar, in which case you can advertise an event that costs money ONLY if it is not run by a corporation.
http://londoncommons.net/content/londoncommonsnet-documentation

Updated procedure for dealing with fake user names

http://londoncommons.net/node/2017

As referred to in the minutes from the last meeting, we've updated the procedure for handling accounts with obvious fake names.

Once an account has been flagged as a fake name account by a user
moderator (currently Rachel Ayres) it will not be able to post content
(like blogs, audio, forum topics etc). The account will be able to
post comments, but those will be held in an approval queue. If the
user changes their user name to their real name their comments will
then be approved and they will gain the ability to post content. If
they never change their username, the comments in the queue will never
be made public.

This won't stop somebody from signing up with a fake name and
immediately posting, but it will stop situations where a person
continues to post for a few days under their fake name.

 

Jeremy

Working Policy Document on personal attacks and civility

http://freedom.2y.net/wiki/London_Commons/Personal_Attacks_Policy

This is a work in progress that requires as much input as we can get, from as many people as possible.
Here is what we have so far.

Examples of personal attacks

Examples of personal attacks can include, but are not limited to:

  • Accusatory comments, such as "George is a troll", or "Laura is a
    bad writer" can be considered personal attacks if said repeatedly, in
    bad faith, or with sufficient venom.

  • Negative personal comments and 'I'm better than you' attacks, such as "You have no life."
  • Racial, sexual, homophobic, ageist, religious, political, or ethnic epithets directed against another contributor. (Disagreement over what constitutes a religion, race, sexual preference, or ethnicity is not a legitimate excuse.)
  • Sexist remarks
  • Unfounded accusations of racism, sexism, classism, xenophobia, homophobia, etc...
  • Unfounded accusations of impropriety of one kind or another
  • Using someone's affiliations as a means of dismissing or
    discrediting their views — regardless of whether said affiliations are
    mainstream or extreme.
  • Profanity directed against others.
  • Threats of legal action.
  • Threats of violence, including death threats.
  • Threats or actions which expose other LondonCommons.net users
    to political, religious or other persecution by government, their
    employer or any others.
  • Revealing another user's personal information (i.e. Address,
    Telephone #, workplace, other identifying information, medical
    information, 'secrets', etc...) or threatening to do so.
  • Posting a link to an external source that fits the commonly
    accepted threshold for a personal attack, in a manner that incorporates
    the substance of that attack into LondonCommons.net discussion.
    Suggesting that a link applies to another user, or that another user
    needs to visit a certain link, that contains the substance of an
    attack.

Examples of what is not a personal attack

  • Disagreements about content such as "Your statement about X is
    wrong" or "Your statement is a point of view, not fact" are not
    personal attacks.
  • Remarks describing an user's actions and made without
    involving their personal character should not be construed as personal
    attacks.
  • Stating "Your statement is a personal attack..." is not in of
    itself a personal attack — it is a statement regarding the actions of
    the user, not a statement about the user. (It can however be a harmful
    statement if it's untrue.) A comment such as "responding to accusation
    of bad faith by user X" is not necessarily a personal attack against user X.

Civility in a nutshell:

Participate in a respectful and civil way. Do not ignore the
positions and conclusions of others. Try to discourage others from
being uncivil, and be careful to avoid offending people
unintentionally.

Examples of incivility:

Petty examples that can contribute to an uncivil environment can include, but are not limited to:

  • Rudeness
  • Judgmental tone
  • Arrogant tone
  • Condescending tone
  • Stating opinions or interpretations as fact or "obvious" conclusions
  • Belittling contributors because of their language skills or word choice
  • Belittling or marginalising opposing viewpoints
  • Ill-considered accusations of impropriety of one kind or another
  • Starting a comment with: "Not to make this personal, but..." or the like.
  • Calling someone a liar, or accusing him/her of slander or
    libel. Even if true, such remarks tend to aggravate rather than resolve
    a dispute.
  • Excessive use of CAPS and explanation points (i.e."YOU ARE WRONG!!!!!!!!!!!")
  • Gratuitous use of the 'F'-Bomb and other profanity
  • Calling for bans, blocks or moderator intervention
  • Responding to the above, especially with the above.

More serious examples include, but are not limited to:

  • Taunting
  • Personal attacks
  • Racial, ethnic, sexual, and religious slurs
  • Profanity directed at another contributor
  • Outright Lies
  • Indecent suggestions

Incivility happens, for example, when you are quietly posting a new
blog entry, and another user tells you, "If you're going to write a
pointless page, could you spell-check it?".
Escalation occurs when you reply, Mind your own business.

This style of interaction between users drives away new
members, distracts others from more important matters, and weakens the
entire community.

 

Some useful tools for self-reflection 

Here are some links that examin how people interact with each other online and in the real world. You'd be suprised at how some of the examples can make it feel like you're reading about yourself!  


 

Kiddy Corner

We've had some threads that were real gems here on the 'Commons... some liks will be collected here esentally showing how not to go about being civil on the net...

London Commons Moderators

Selection Of Moderators

Moderators of the London Commons are selected by consensus at London Commons Meetings.

Roles of Moderators

Site Administrators

User Moderators

Moderators

Current Moderators

The Current Moderators of the London Commons are as follows:

Admins:

 

User Moderators:

 

Moderators:

 

Meeting Minutes