Hey all,
In light of recent events concerning one of our communities (/c/vegan), we (as a team) have spent the last week working on how to address better some concerns that had arisen between the moderators of that community and the site admin team. We always strive to find a balance between the free expression of communities hosted here and protecting users from potentially harmful content.
We as a team try to stick to a general rule of respect and consideration for the physical and mental well-being of our users when drafting new rules and revising existing ones. Furthermore, we’ve done our best to try to codify these core beliefs into the additions to the ToS and a new by-laws section.
ToS Additions
That being said, we will be adding a new section to our “terms of service” concerning misinformation. While we do try to be as exact as reasonably able, we also understand that rules can be up to interpretation as well. This is a living document, and users are free to respectfully disagree. We as site admins will do our best to consider the recommendations of all users regarding potentially revising any rules.
Regarding misinformation, we’ve tried our best to capture these main ideas, which we believe are very reasonable:
- Users are encouraged to post information they believe is true and helpful.
- We recommend users conduct thorough research using reputable scientific sources.
- When in doubt, a policy of “Do No Harm”, based on the Hippocratic Oath, is a good compass on what is okay to post.
- Health-related information should ideally be from peer-reviewed, reproducible scientific studies.
- Single studies may be valid, but often provide inadequate sample sizes for health-related advice.
- Non-peer-reviewed studies by individuals are not considered safe for health matters.
We reserve the right to remove information that could cause imminent physical harm to any living being. This includes topics like conversion therapy, unhealthy diets, and dangerous medical procedures. Information that could result in imminent physical harm to property or other living beings may also be removed.
We know some folks who are free speech absolutists may disagree with this stance, but we need to look out for both the individuals who use this site and for the site itself.
By-laws Addition
We’ve also added a new by-laws section as well as a result of this incident. This new section is to better codify the course of action that should be taken by site and community moderators when resolving conflict on the site, and also how to deal with dormant communities.
This new section provides also provides a course of action for resolving conflict with site admin staff, should it arise. We want both the users and moderators here to feel like they have a voice that is heard, and essentially a contact point that they can feel safe going to, to “talk to the manager” type situation, more or less a new Lemmy.World HR department that we’ve created as a result of what has happened over the last week.
Please feel free to raise any questions in this thread. We encourage everyone to please take the time to read over these new additions detailing YOUR rights and how we hope to better protect everyone here.
https://legal.lemmy.world/tos/#80-misinformation
https://legal.lemmy.world/bylaws/
Sincerely,
FHF / LemmyWorld Operations Team
EDIT:
We will be releasing a separate post regarding the moderation incident in the next 24-48 hours, just getting final approval from the team.
I believe I made a position clear to you elsewhere. While reading through the thread I couldn’t help but be amused at your statement here clearly complaining about something you yourself are doing - and advocating for.
Thus: pot meet kettle.
Oh so you are the eminent vet nutritionist with published literature reviews in this case. My apologies. It’s good to meet you kettle. I thought you were just a random asshole without a particular point.
Lashing out like you are is unbecoming and honestly is a bad look. If you can’t handle criticism I suggest you stop injecting yourself into topics you are ill equipped to discuss.
Haha. Yes, I should focus on responding to the erudite point of “you’re not very smart” that you originally raised with me huh? I’m sorry for devolving the conversation from your lofty heights. Obviously you have real issues to raise here and are not about shitposting.
There’s a time and a place for it. This isn’t it. Further: are you really going to try walking the failing argument back as an attempt to shitpost? My guy, the hole is deep enough already.
Ah, it seems my sarcasm was lost on you, unfortunate, though not exactly surprising.
Based on the general reception to your comments it would appear you need to work on your delivery, eh?
Yes, I’m greatly wounded by not meeting the sensibilities of you and whoever if out to satisfy their moral outrage about specially formulated vegan cat food. I might not even make it into the next presidential debate at this rate.