Abandoned Groups Procedure

This document was initially adopted by the Reps at the meeting of 24th September 2014 and amended in November 2014 after discussion and recommendation on Structure group. The document was amended in September 2016 and since. (check 'history' above to view changes). This document below is the current procedure.

1. PREFACE

A group's owner role is to look after the group and Freegle's reputation. Part of this is asking for help if required and if the group is not being moderated or emails to the volunteer team not being answered, Freegle needs to address this as soon as possible. It is always preferable that a group is owned and run locally and Freegle will respect the wishes of active owners. It is preferred that all groups are run in line with the Best Practice guidelines.

2. DEFINITION OF ABANDONED GROUP

An abandoned group is one with absent owners. Absent owners are those who meet any of the following three conditions:

• have not been active on the group for an extended period (eg. 1 week), or totalling more than 3 weeks out of a period of 6 weeks whilst retaining owner status on Modtools, and have not responded to reasonable and extensive attempts to contact them; or
• have responded to contact attempts but are frequently inactive for periods of 24 hours and over, and have given no prior notice or other information that may explain their absence is temporary; or
• have demoted themselves or been demoted to Member or unsubscribed from the group leaving the group without an owner

Owners may be considered to have abandoned their group if absent as above, even if there are active (non-owner) moderators. The Mentor Team can decide to promote any or all of the remaining moderators to owner.

3. DEFINITION OF OWNER

A volunteer who has Owner moderating privileges on Modtools, or one who held that position in the 4 weeks before these procedures are required to be implemented.

4. DEFINITION OF CARETAKER

A caretaker of a group can be:

• a Mentor looking after a group within the guidelines of http://wiki.ilovefreegle.org/Caretaker_Groups, or
• anyone looking after a group for an absent owner

‘Temporary owner status’ for Caretakers means they will run the group as it is, not make changes in local rules, settings etc. Geek help can be sought to make sure the modconfig the previous owner used continues to be in place to use.

5. CARETAKER OWNER IN PLACE

If a situation arises on a local Freegle group where only a caretaker remains after the most recent owner is considered absent, then that caretaker can do one of the following at their discretion:

• Step in after a week (as above) of non-moderation to take on temporary ‘owner status’ to sort out the situation.
• Arrange promotion of one or more of the existing local volunteers of the group to owner status

or

• Recruit a new volunteer team including at least one new owner, for the group.
  • The email address of absent owners must retain moderator privileges.
  • After six months an absent group's owner and/or moderator(s) can be demoted to member.
  • The procedures detailed in the Caretaker Groups Guidelines (http://wiki.ilovefreegle.org/Caretaker_Groups#Passing_over_Caretaker_Group_to_new_team) will apply.
  • If a group's absent owner should return, he/she should be given the opportunity to work as part of the volunteer team.

6. CARETAKER OWNER NOT IN PLACE

If attempts in the timescale described above to contact the group's owner have not resulted in acceptable response, or if there isn’t any local volunteer with owner status, the Mentor Team will do the following depending on circumstances:

• Step in after a week (as above) of non-moderation to take on temporary ‘owner status’ as a Caretaker to sort out the situation.
• Email the group's owner at least three times offering help in 5 day intervals. The second email will include information about the Abandoned Group procedure if no reply has been received.
• Post on Central to ask for ways to contact the missing group's Owner and follow up any leads.
• Phone the Owner if the correct number is known.
• Check online, including social media to see if a message can be sent via Facebook etc.
• Send one final email informing group's owner that if a caretaker is on board a new volunteer team will be promoted, or, if no caretaker is on board, that a recommendation is being sent to the Board, who will be informed that the group is now considered abandoned and a new owner will need to be added. This will not be before 3 weeks of non communication and/or non activity by the group owner.
• If a group's owner responds during the above process to the Mentors emails or directly to the Mentor team, the Mentors will monitor moderating activity and continue communication. If there is evidence that Best Practice is not being followed adequately, the Mentor Team will, at their discretion, decide if the group is effectively abandoned and continue this process.

6. THE BOARD WILL:

• Acknowledge promptly the receipt of the recommendation from Mentors.
• Ask further questions if necessary to satisfy themselves that the recommendation is appropriate.
• Inform the Mentors, GAT and Geeks within 4 weeks from receipt of recommendation whether they accept the recommendation or not.

7. NOTES

• Modtools auto approves messages after 48 hours, so the maximum delay for posts is 48 hours.

• Modtools has function that identifies who to mail when a moderator stops being active (also when someone changes from being a mod/owner to member status, or there is no owner on a group):
  • 1. First choice is people with owner status on the group, who are set to be active mods, who have been actually active within the last month.
  • 2. Next choice if there are none of them is the same, but who are set to backup mod status.
  • 3. Next choice if there are none of them is people with mod status, who are set to be active mods, who have been actually active.
  • 4. Next choice is the same but who are set to backup mod status.
  • 5. Next choice is Mentors.

Links and Info:

• Our Aims
• Mentor Team Remit
• Caretaker Groups
• Contacting Groups Procedure
• Glossary
• Document Approval Policy
• Previous Freegle UK document Abandoned Groups
• Amended most recently 25.4.21, to take account of experience in practice - mostly to shorten time taken to implement procedures.