Discourse moderation and privacy

Discourse overview

Moderation

Usually very little moderation is required. There are moderators, but by default, moderation is switched off for new posts and replies in all groups except Announcements.

Discourse doesn't have separate moderators for each forum - there's just one set of moderators across the site.

In addition to Moderators, there are more powerful Admin users who can change all site settings. Admins and Moderators are together called "Staff" in Discourse. There's also an "Announcers" group who can post Announcements alongside Staff (see below).

• List of Discourse admins and moderators

Behind the scenes, Discourse has 5 trust levels, though we don't really use them. By default, all volunteers are on level 1 and can post topics and replies. In exceptional circumstances - for example, if an account has been hacked - a moderator can put a user onto level 0, meaning their posts must be approved before appearing.

Contacting the moderators

Anyone can contact the moderators by emailing volunteer-support@ilovefreegle.org - a separate mailbox, unconnected with Discourse itself.

If you have concerns about a specific post, you can "Flag" it for the moderators' attention.

There's a private discussion group for Discourse Moderators called "Discourse Mods" (Discourse admins can see all posts in there). There's also a private "Staff" group for admins and moderators, though this may not be needed.

Private messages disabled

Private messages could be enabled for users, but since admins would be able to see all of them, they're disabled to avoid confusion. Moderators can still send private messages to each other and to users, though this isn't recommended, to avoid extra channels that admins can see but ordinary users can't.

Privacy

The Discourse discussion forums are only visible to Freegle volunteers with a ModTools (MT) account - quite a few people, so please don't share anything confidential.

Please avoid sharing members' personal details on the forums - use their numeric user ID rather than their email address to identify them, and don't share personal details outside the forum.

Your email address and the groups you moderate are visible to other volunteers on Discourse.

Admin users can see all activity on Discourse, so private messages, private groups and teams aren't generally used, apart from the moderators and staff groups described above.

In line with our general Terms and Volunteer Agreement, we won't pass your email address on to anyone else.

Freegle doesn't use adverts on Discourse.

The Freegle system automatically updates everyone's Discourse bio overnight, since most people won't remember to keep it current. It lists the groups you're active on, based on where you've approved a message in the last 60 days or so.

Special notice announcements

Moderators and announcers can send a special notice by posting a topic to the Announcements group. You'll be notified if you're in Mailing List Mode or watching that group. You can't reply to announcements, but you can switch off these notifications in your Preferences.

There's only one Announcements group, so there aren't per-group special notices.

Impersonation

Admin users can impersonate any non-admin user on the system, including Moderators, to help that user. Every impersonation is logged by Discourse and visible to any Admin, though actions taken while impersonating aren't specifically logged. A user can't see if they've been impersonated, but a log of all their own activity is available to them.