Moderation & Community Management

General Guidelines

Moderating entails keeping the comments on posts positive and constructive by answering the argumentative ones, hiding or deleting comments that are too bad or negative, and engaging with trolls or people being rude, to get them to follow the rules, or finally to ban them.

On our social media pages and accounts, we suggest that you moderate with a light touch generally, but harder if required - you could have a zero-tolerance approach to swearing to create an inclusive safe space for all and hide all comments that include swearing.

💡 Answering comments is great for building your community as social media platforms tend to show your posts to more people if they generate engagement (likes, comments, shares).

Debate and criticism of the movement is welcome both from the general public and from within, so don’t delete critical content. As social media accounts moderators, We attempt to maintain a regenerative space and do not believe in censorship as we learn and grow from debate, criticism and reflection.

You can hide comments that are rude, offensive or ad hominem attacks. You should ban anyone who makes abusive and rude remarks (i.e death threats, threats of harm to others etc), or anyone who spams the pages (continuously) with irrelevant links or material, or anyone obviously trolling.

What should we be saying to commenters?

Make short positive comments either in response to comments, or to start a conversation, or to explain something to someone.

For example, in response to someone saying they support XR, you could reply:

• ‘Thank you, are you involved in your local group?’ or:
• ‘Check out the map of local groups at joinxr.uk/local’ or:
• ‘Thanks for your support - it means so much!’ or:
• ‘Get involved here’ and link to the Action section of the website.

Negative comments can be either ignored or engaged with. They may be deleted later by a moderator if they are plainly rude or abusive, but comments critical of XR are not deleted if they can be explained or deflected.

Be careful when engaging with negative comments. Be polite, factual, brief, and importantly take care of yourself. If it doesn’t feel right or safe to answer then ask for support from someone else in your group, or ask for the group's wisdom.

For detailed guidance read this chapter: Comment threads: how to engage the public on social media

Facebook Groups

Facebook has built a set of tools to help admins and moderators of groups manage posts and members. We suggest that you set up some ground rules, as well as questions for people who'd like to join in (this is a good way to filter trolls out, especially if your group is a private one).

Suggested Group Rules

1. XR Principles: We strongly encourage group members to adhere to Extinction Rebellion’s (XR) core demands, and their principles and values (available at https://rebellion.earth and under the “who we are” link there).
2. Focus of group: This group is specifically for XR related news, actions events and solidarity shout outs, and to grow the XR community. It is not a space for general news, petitions and discussions. (this rule can be amended for whatever your group’s focus is).
3. No hate speech, shaming or bullying: Everyone is welcome. Bullying of any kind isn’t allowed. Antisemitic, derogatory and or undermining comments about race, ability, religion, background, culture, sexual orientation, gender, or identity will not be tolerated.
4. Extremism: The climate crisis is an existential threat so passion is to be expected, but XR will not tolerate extremist posts and are strictly non-violent.
5. Be kind and courteous: We’re all in this together to create a welcoming environment. Treat everyone with respect. Aggression of any kind will not be tolerated.
6. Language: This is a community space so swearing is discouraged in comments and disallowed in posts. The moderators reserve the right to delete content that transgresses this rule.
7. Privacy: Please respect every group member’s privacy. What is discussed between members in the group should remain in the group.
8. Responsibility for posts: XR [insert group name here] does not take responsibility for what group members post but will moderate according to these guidelines to the best of its ability.
9. No spam or self-promotion: Self-promotion, spam, and irrelevant links & other content are not allowed and may be deleted.
10. No Ad Hominem attacks: When discussing posts and comments, please focus on the facts of the argument you are making and not on the poster or commenters in a personal way.
11. Adherence to these rules: The admins and moderators reserve the right to delete content or remove people who breach any of the above rules.

Examples of group joining questions:

• Question 1: Will you abide by the group’s rules as laid out in the “rules” section?
• Question 2: Do you agree to abide by the demands and principles of Extinction Rebellion as laid out on their website?