Rules & Guidelines: what do you think?

TheMix

Hey everyone,

As you'll be aware, we've recently returned from a break from group chat. Around these times, we like to talk with you guys about how we can improve parts of the community. You might have seen our other post in Live Chat Announcements about Support Circle (if you haven't, go take a look!). Another thing we want to talk about is the rules and guidelines.

Until now, it's been a super long time since they last had an update. A lot of the information in them was out of date, and there were some very questionable styling choices (we're looking at you, clip art...).

Recently, you may have noticed us slowly reposting updated versions. The main aim of this has been to make sure what's written down is up to date. There are some guidelines we've always had that we discovered were never actually written down anywhere (for example, the rule against multiple accounts).

So, we're looking for feedback on these updated guidelines. We'd mainly like your thoughts on the posts in Start Here: Rules & Guidelines in particular. Every piece of feedback (however small) is super helpful for us. So even if you don't have much to say, feel free to hit 'agree' to show it looks okay to you.

If you wanna go a bit deeper than that, we've put the complete list of guidelines below.

Thanks in advance!

Mike & the team

Complete list of guideline links:

Start Here
Rules & Guidelines
Mods & Moderation Policy
About us
Helping Each Other
Online Safety

Chat & Debate
Anything Goes > Positivity Corner
Politics & Debate
Travel & Free Time > Creative

Support Topics
Health & Wellbeing
Sex & Relationships
Gender & Sexuality
Drink & Drugs
Home, Law & Money
Work & Volunteering
Student Life

Admin
We Need You
Problems & Suggestions

Articles
Articles

TheMix

Just bumping this to say we've cut this thread down a bit - it was pretty mammoth at first! The main thing we want your thoughts on is the main Rules & Guidelines thread.  

Mike & the team

Former Member

I just read the Rules & Guidelines part. Looks okay I suppose, just the usual blunt info you'd see on sites :-) xoxo

Former Member

I hope feedback is still appreciated given how it's been a couple months lol. But I'm bored and thought I may as well check out some other parts.

I just read "Mods and Moderation Policy", and "About us". They look fine to me - simple, clear, pretty friendly. Same with the Rules & Guidelines part, though that was more blunt than friendly (not necessarily a bad thing though) - I know I posted above about it, but I was pretty sad and stuff at the time so was slightly worried it reflected the unhappy mood ahah

Though if you really want examination and detail... On Mods and Moderation Policy, there's this part:

"Closing a thread prevents people responding to it. There are a few reasons we might do this:

1) The person might be dragging up something difficult that the OP would rather leave behind them. Bringing these things back up can be an unpleasant experience.

-------

I don't think you quite specified there that the person commented on the thread months/years late, and that's why they could be dragging up something difficult - if you see what I'm talking about. So to specify that, you may say something like, "Sometimes people will comment on a thread some months since it was last posted on. By doing that, the person might be dragging up something difficult that the OP would rather leave behind them. Bringing these things back up can be an unpleasant experience."

But it's still obvious, so don't worry about that

If you want more feedback I can read more lol.

x

Former Member

Edit: ahh really sorry for spamming, hope you don't mind too much. Though you now have all the feedback you'll desire (from one person anyway) - I've read all of it now.

Start here: I already covered you on three of the things. But I just read "Helping Each Other" and "Online Safety" - it was good.

Chat & Debate: Was the same - good.

Support Topics: Again, good. Though just another silly point-out - you called the about in Student Life & Education, "About this forum (Student Life)". Not sure if you'll want to edit it to "About this forum (Student Life & Education)".

Admin: All good.

Have a nice day

TheMix

Thank you so much for this @kathleen0172, and apologies for taking so long to get back to this thread and check out what you said.

Support Topics: Again, good. Though just another silly point-out - you called the about in Student Life & Education, "About this forum (Student Life)". Not sure if you'll want to edit it to "About this forum (Student Life & Education)".

This is a good spot - those two should definitely have matched up, so we've changed that now.

I don't think you quite specified there that the person commented on the thread months/years late, and that's why they could be dragging up something difficult - if you see what I'm talking about. So to specify that, you may say something like, "Sometimes people will comment on a thread some months since it was last posted on. By doing that, the person might be dragging up something difficult that the OP would rather leave behind them. Bringing these things back up can be an unpleasant experience."

Great point - it does read a bit weirdly without that clarification and might not be obvious otherwise, so we've added that in too.

Thanks for the general feedback as well. It's good to know everything sounds more or less as expected, even if the main Rules & Guidelines post is a bit bluntly worded. With that one in particular, we were super aware that it's a long post, so we leaned towards clear and concise wording over sound friendly and bubbly. As you said, it's the same sort of tone you might see on other websites.

Appreciate your input @kathleen0172 - having someone else's eyes on things is a huge help!

Mike & the team