[fleur de lis]

Following on from an extensive review extensive review listening to the problem the members said existed in H&R, their solutions to those problems and their ideas for the forums, along with moderator and admin input, from Tuesday 26th July we will be making the following changes to the Health and Relationships forums:

Forum structure

We will be splitting Health and Relationships into two forums - Health, and Relationships, each with some subforums. Below is an outline of the type of threads which will belong in each forum:

Health - General health queries and discussions which do not fit into either of the Health subforums
Sexual Health - Threads about contraception, STIs, pregnancy, smear tests etc
Mental Health - threads about depression, anxiety and other mental health issues
Relationships - For general questions and discussions about relationships which do not belong in either of the Relationships subforums
Romantic relationships - Questions, advice and discussion about love, dating and committed relationships
Friends, Family and Work - Advice and discussion about interpersonal relationships with friends, housemates, parents, siblings, work colleagues etc.

Moderation

We will be making the following changes to moderation in H&R:

• We will be taking a harsher stand against members who insult or abuse either the original poster or other people posting in threads
• We will be stricter with trolling
• We will be toughening up on spam in forums and threads of a sensitive nature, particularly in the Sexual and Mental Health forums
• We will be operating a '3 strikes and out policy' - if you receive 3 warnings from H&R you will be banned from there indefinitely.
• You will not be able to post images in H&R any more.
• We will be premoderating all new threads in Sexual and Mental Health
• We will be premoderating anon threads and posts made by members in the Probationary Users group.
• We'll also be getting 3 new mods in to help improve moderation coverage in H&R.

If you have any questions about any of this or would like to clarify anything, please ask and we will do our best to help.

You can read the newly updated H&R guidelines which outline our moderation policy here. The new policy will take effect from when we make the changes to the forum structure.

[-strawberry-]

No images? Why not? I'm sure images can help to solve a lot of problems where words can't.

[Wahaaaay]

Awww, images always make for an interesting thread

[fleur de lis]

(Original post by -strawberry-)
No images? Why not? I'm sure images can help to solve a lot of problems where words can't.

Because the majority of images being posted were spam.

[-strawberry-]

(Original post by fleur de lis)
Because the majority of images being posted were spam.

Is it possible to moderate pictures then? Because they can be really helpful, especially for just general health worries.

[Beska]

(Original post by fleur de lis)
[*]We will be operating a '3 strikes and out policy' - if you receive 3 warnings from H&R you will be banned from there indefinitely.

Brilliant policy.

[fleur de lis]

(Original post by -strawberry-)
Is it possible to moderate pictures then? Because they can be really helpful, especially for just general health worries.

I don't believe so, but I will double check. People may still link to images if they are appropriate and helpful to the thread (such as medical diagrams), they just won't be able to post them directly into the thread in image tags.

[karateworm]

Top down, heavy handed moderation is not going to create a cohesive and fluid community.

[CherryCherryBoomBoom]

I think this is a really good idea having all those sub forums, as I've always thought that "Health and Relationships" seems way too general

What's the Probationary Users group? And am I in it?

[Farseer]

(Original post by CherryCherryBoomBoom)
What's the Probationary Users group? And am I in it?

I think it just means new users.

[RightSaidJames]

(Original post by karateworm)
Top down, heavy handed moderation is not going to create a cohesive and fluid community.

To a certain extent I agree, but H&R has lots of problems with spam and trolling, more so than other parts of the site, so by restructuring and making a few small changes to the way we do things we hope to reverse this trend.

In fact, things like stopping people from posting images is more bottom-up than top-down, as it means that instead of warning people for posting spam images it means that they aren't able to break the rule anymore. As fleur said, people can still link to useful images if they want to.

Overall I think we will end up giving out less warnings in the long run.

(Original post by CherryCherryBoomBoom)
I think this is a really good idea having all those sub forums, as I've always thought that "Health and Relationships" seems way too general

Glad you agree

What's the Probationary Users group? And am I in it?

It's a usergroup that all new users are placed into that restricts or pre-moderates some of their activity (for instance, anonymous threads are automatically pre-moderated and they can't post images anywhere on the site). After making a certain number of posts and sticking around for a couple of months (plus some other conditions) you are automatically moved into the normal user group. And no, you're not in it

[CherryCherryBoomBoom]

(Original post by Farseer)
I think it just means new users.

(Original post by RightSaidJames)
Glad you agree



It's a usergroup that all new users are placed into that restricts or pre-moderates some of their activity (for instance, anonymous threads are automatically pre-moderated and they can't post images anywhere on the site). After making a certain number of posts and sticking around for a couple of months (plus some other conditions) you are automatically moved into the normal user group. And no, you're not in it

Thanks

[sil3nt_cha0s]

(Original post by karateworm)
Top down, heavy handed moderation is not going to create a cohesive and fluid community.

This. H&R is gonna turn into a boring, unpopular forum.

[RightSaidJames]

This thread is not for criticising our decisions and dooming them to fail before they've started. By all means give feedback, raise concerns or make suggestions, and of course you should feel free to ask any questions or get something clarified.

[Advanced Subsidiary]

Excellent policy, exactly what the doctor ordered. It seems like some of the ideas people suggested were used after all. Good stuff

[The Real Quaid]

(Original post by fleur de lis)
Mental Health - threads about depression, anxiety and other mental health issues

This seems counter-productive. If I had feelings of depression or anxiety I wouldn't feel comfortable posting in the mental health forum

[Pride]

darn, no images. I can understand why they've decided to do this but most of the images I've posted have been on H&R threads, so that's bummer...

[Aj12]

(Original post by sil3nt_cha0s)
This. H&R is gonna turn into a boring, unpopular forum.

Rather than the trolling mess it is now lol.

Seems partly a good idea I suppose.

[Democracy]

Sounds good!

[Colbert]

About time tbf. The only way this could be improved is if one strike = permaban