First of all, take a breath. When emotions run high we run the risk of needless escalation. Disagreements are usually not life-or-death situations on this forum, even though the stress hormones may be telling our bodies otherwise. Walk away from the screen and do something else for a little bit.
After you come back calm, make a judgement call. Does the message meet any of these criteria:
Major infractions
- Illegal stuff
- Comments or behaviour that are (or can be interpreted to be) abusive, violent, threatening, derogatory, vulgar, sexist, or racist.
- False information, particularly regarding cures or treatments
- Advertising of products or services
- Polarising political chat (we do not allow overtly polarising political chat on this forum because we feel that the world has enough of it already, we want everyone to feel welcome here)
- Spam
- Impersonation
- Doxxing (revealing someone’s private information/identity).
Minor infractions
- Off-topic comments
- Repeat of a topic
If the post does not meet these criteria, then just keep scrolling and don’t engage. There is no need to address everything, this world is big enough for different views.
If the post does meet one or more of these criteria, then you have several options:
- Talk to the person. We have enabled personal messages. If you feel that this can be addressed one-on-one, please do so. There may be instances that the person does not know how their comment may have been interpreted and they may be happy to edit their response. Be aware that the moderators are able to see your communications.
- Flag the post. Describe in your flagging what exactly is wrong with the post. This will bring the post to the attention of the moderators, who will then decide what to do within 48 hours.
- If it is an on-going issue with a particular person, please message the moderators describing the ongoing issue. This can be done by clicking the circle containing your profile picture in the top-right hand corner, clicking the user name -> messages-> new message, and addressing to “moderators”. This will initiate a discussion and decision made by the entire panel of moderators.
We hope this will allow us to foster a welcoming community that maintains its focus on supporting people living with Hepatitis B.