Introduction

Audience

The forum is for anyone interested in digital rights in the UK, which will mainly be activists and volunteers but also a wider group of engaged citizens.

History of ORG

Founded in 2005 by 1,000 digital activists, ORG has become the UK’s leading voice defending freedom of expression, privacy, innovation, consumer rights and creativity on the net. Getting into the political trenches in the UK and EU, we mobilise our supporters to stop bad laws. Working closely with other campaign groups, we lobby government and talk to the media whenever our rights are threatened. ORG is a non-profit company funded by donors, mostly by people like you. We depend on regular contributions to run and win our campaigns. If you would like to become an ORG supporter, please head to www.openrightsgroup.org/join.

About the Guide

This is an evolving document to help moderators on the Open Rights Group. All moderators should help shape the document, particularly while we're getting the forum into shape. Common sense will most likely, for now, prove to be a better guide!

Policy

General Rules

Play nice and don't stomp about. Take your authority seriously as others are likely to as well. Do no harm: err on the side of caution. Use your fellow moderators as a resource if things are unclear.

Illegal activities

Our servers are based in England so English law applies here. ToS will detail illegal activities

Expectations

NB Need a way for moderators to inform the group of their up and down time!

Moderator Guidelines

Moving threads

???

Deleting posts

Only if a double-post.

Spam

Needs something sensible, including

Keep a copy for verification
Report account to be deleted

Closing (locking) a thread

Useful if threads go off-topic or on and on.

Splitting threads

Appropriate if a question is asked at the bottom. What's the process?

Merging threads

Useful if duplicate / similar discussion but do leave a notice

Miscellaneous

When quoting a post make sure not to hit "Edit" by mistake.

Bumping is generally discouraged but is tolerated if the thread has not had a response in more than 24 hours. Use your own judgment and always err on the side of the bumper if you are unsure.

No matter what you do or don't do, you probably can't please everyone. Once you have accepted that fact, your life as a moderator will become much easier.

Resources

IRC

Head to #openrightsgroup on freenode.net with urgent questions.

forum-mods@gentoo.org

Might be useful to have an email list for folks having trouble with their a/c

Administration principles

Retain control of top level category creation
Encourage people to stay on topic (enforce where necessary)