This page contains information about how to post a message, the site’s moderation policy and the discussion rules.
Discussion rules
By registering with this site you agree to abide by the following rules.
These are standard web discussion rules that are designed to ensure participants feel safe, keen to take part and the discussion meets its objectives:
- Debate should be lively but also respectful.
- Stay on-topic. Please don’t post messages that are unrelated to this online forum.
- Stay relaxed – though this deliberation is important and influential, taking part should be a positive experience.
- Don’t incite hatred on the basis of race, religion, gender, nationality or sexuality or other personal characteristic.
- Don’t swear, use hate-speech or make obscene or vulgar comments.
- Don’t break the law. This includes libel, condoning illegal activity and contempt of court (comments which might affect the outcome of an approaching court case).
- Please don’t post personal information addresses, phone numbers, email addresses or other online contact details either relating to yourself or other individuals.
- Don’t engage in “spamming”. Please don’t add the same comment to more than one forum.
- Don’t advertise. You can mention relevant products and services as long as they support your comment.
- Don’t impersonate or falsely claim to represent a person or organisation. Please don’t mislead other users by abusing our registration procedure.
- Don’t post in a language other than English. We hope in the future to be able to support translation.
- Avoid being party political – this site is about consensus-building, not party political point-scoring.
- Under 16? – If you are aged 16 or under, please get your parent/guardian’s permission before participating in this online forum. Users without this consent are not allowed to participate or provide us with personal information.
If a comment contravenes the discussion rules it will not be published or removed from the forum.
Posts may be returned to the participant by email, along with a reference to the broken rule(s). The participant will be invited to make appropriate changes in order that the post can be reconsidered. However, if a participant repeatedly breaks the rules that participant’s user account will be suspended and may be permanently revoked.
Moderation policy
Will Communities and Local Government policy officials be participating in the discussions?
Yes, relevant Communities and Local Government representatives intend to regularly visit the forum discussions and where appropriate submit posts to encourage discussion.
What is moderation?
‘Moderation’ is the practice of:
- facilitating online consultations to ensure that everyone can take part in discussion, get their views across and that the consultation meets its objectives;
- maintaining the flow of the discussion by checking all posts in relation to the terms and conditions of the site.
What does a moderator do?
‘Moderator’ is internet jargon for somebody who is responsible for making sure that the forum discussion rules are respected.
A moderator is:
- Similar to a chair of a face-to-face meeting;
- There to encourage debate by asking questions but will not offer opinions;
- There to make sure everyone feels comfortable and equal in the online discussion.
Who are the moderators of this forum?
This forum will be moderated by the Communities and Local Government webteam, with quality control and occasional support from the Hansard Society. Moderators are concerned with the quality of the discussion not the interests of one individual, group or idea over another.
The Hansard Society is an independent, non-partisan charity promoting political awareness and participation. The Society has been developing and evaluating online consultations for nearly a decade, and is recognised for providing moderation of interaction between citizens, elected representatives and political institutions online.
The Hansard Society moderators always aim to be fair, objective and independent. All have had extensive training and experience of moderating a wide variety of online consultations. They are coordinated by Ross Ferguson, Director of the eDemocracy Programme.
Direct communication between the participants and the moderators can take place via email. The moderators’ email address is webteam@communities.gsi.gov.uk.
What form of moderation will be used in this forum?
There are two types of moderation available:
- Pre-moderation… where all posts are checked against the terms and conditions before they are published;
- Post-moderation… where all participant posts are checked against the terms and conditions after they are published.
This forum will employ a pre-moderation strategy. This means that posts will not go live instantly; they will first be checked by the moderators. Moderators will be monitoring the site between 9 – 6 Monday – Friday.
During the week all posts will go live within 24 hours of submission. Posts made during the weekend will go live on the following Monday.
Forum spaces are readable at all times and you can submit a post at any time.
How to post a message
This quick step-by-step guide explains how to post a message in the discussion space:
- To post in a discussion, you must first log in. You can log in from the home page.
- When you registered with this site you were issued with a unique username and password. Enter these details into the correct fields; press ‘Log in’ and you will be taken to the ‘Forum’ page.
- Next, by clicking on any of the discussion topics the page will change to reveal the introduction to the selected topic and the participants posts to date.
- Posts run in reverse order with the newest post top of the list. Do take the time to read back through topics to get a grip on the discussion.
- To reply or add your contribution, please click on ‘add new comment’ (in bold).
- Simply fill in the ‘subject’ and ‘comment’ boxes for your new message. You may choose to reply to an issue raised by someone else, highlight a new point to encourage discussion or simply add a post about your own experiences or views.
- There is a word-limit of 1000 words on each post. Be thorough in your posts but try to also be to-the-point, and people will be more likely to read your contribution. It is wise to draft your posts offline before posting them to the forum.
- Avoid excessive use of grammatical characters and capital letters. It makes posts look odd and can warp the tone of your post.
- Please click on “Preview comment”. At this point you can still change anything.
- When you are satisfied with your post, click on “Post Comment”
- After posts are published they are checked against the broad rules of the discussion. More information on the moderation process is available on the ‘Moderation policy’ pages.
Problems?
If you experience any problems with posting messages on the website, please email the Hansard Society at edemocracy@hansard.lse.ac.uk. Explain the problem in your email in detail, and let us know if you wish the message to be posted on your behalf.
Please note that the site has been extensively tested and the Hansard Society is unfortunately unable to help with IT-based problems at the participant’s end.
General queries are also welcome via email at edemocracy@hansard.lse.ac.uk.
