We are aware that online community spaces can become unsafe for many potential users, particularly those with more marginalised experiences and identities.
There is a legal and ethical responsibility that lands with those hosting and maintaining those spaces to act in ways which can minimise and address potential harm faced by site users. With this in mind, we will aim to take the following steps to address potential types of harm that could be experienced by RadHR site users, while engaging with the site.
Likely types of harm
We believe that the likely users of RadHR will maintain a high standard of self-moderation to avoid objectionable or unsafe activities, as the basis for engaging with RadHR is about finding more ethical ways of working together. We do not believe that RadHR will be a site where children or young people are likely to be engaged, so have not focused this policy on the specific types of harm and safeguarding needs that apply to those under 18 years of age. If this shifts, we commit to adapting this policy to address those needs.
While the self-selection criteria of the site provides a strong cultural onus towards considerate and caring interactions, the issues discussed on RadHR are also ones that people can feel very strongly about. We accept that there are likely to be significant differences of opinion represented in the online discussions on RadHR. Different life experiences can also lead to different expectations around how disagreements and conflict are addressed and we don’t want to assume conflict is necessarily about harm or malicious intent between site users.
Given that this is the case, we expect that there may be points in which more active moderation of different community discussion spaces may be needed to avoid or address incidents of harassment or bullying between site members, where differences in communication styles or differences of opinion, cross-over into the kinds of behaviours that cause harm to others.
Steps that we will take to address these kinds of harm
Initially, as the community grows, we expect site administrators to serve a more active role in community moderation. This may include:
- Private messages encouraging different ways of communicating differences, to community members that are engaging with the site in a way that runs counter to the principles that RadHR has been founded on,
- Arranging individual calls or other discussions with members to help understand why they have been engaging in harmful way on the site, and if there are steps that, as site administrators, we could take to support them to engage differently,
- Deleting individual comments from community members that are in clear opposition to RadHR’s principles,
- Offering to mediate private discussions between members, if there is shared will and capacity to do so,
- Taking steps to warn members that continue to engage in these ways that their accounts may be temporarily suspended,
- Temporarily suspending accounts of those that continue to act in harmful ways towards other community members.
- Permanent bans of site users in the most extreme situations, if the above steps have been offered and they have not led to shifts in behaviours amongst community members.
Towards collective community moderation
In the medium-term, we expect moderation of the online forums of RadHR to become more distributed amongst active users of the site, with initial guidance from site administrators. This transition could also be about facilitating collective decision making processes between community moderators around what steps might be appropriate to uphold community values on the site, to ensure members’ safety and avoid reverting to punitive or exclusionary measures to do so.
As we get closer to this point, we will expand this policy to include clearer guidance on the parameters of community moderators’ roles, steps to help prepare community moderators to carry out these roles, and the situations where site administrators will still be expected to intervene more directly.
Site administrators will take initial responsibility for selecting active members that we believe will uphold RadHR’s core principles, to take on collective moderation responsibilities. We will also work with community moderators to establish more collective and democratic ways in which community moderation and safety can be maintained.