Announcement New forum "The Oasis"

Kevin

Code Monkey 🐒
The community moderators are always listening. Always. ;) When a member posts their feedback, whether it be in the feedback forum or by reaching out to us privately or even the occasional 'report' option, you can be sure that it will likely result in a conversation by the moderators.

A topic has recent come up within the community the sure has generated some feedback. Thank you to everybody who has given their input and a personal mahalo to those who been calm in their words & actions.

The topic that led to the recent wave of feedback has resulted in the following question:

How, as a community, should we handle content that does not break any current rules or guidelines but at the same time may be a sensitive issue for some members? 🤔

Making the topic even more difficult is when some members conflate "sensitive topics" with "political topics" which, of course, are clearly against the community rules. Once we get beyond that the problem still remains, there are topics that may be sensitive to some members but they aren't breaking any rules. If we allow the content then some members will be not happy. If we decide to block the content then some members will not be happy.

After a lot of thought we believe that there is a compromise that is achievable. 👍

The Oasis is a new forum for content that does not break any community rules or guidelines but some members be sensitive to it.

All content posted in The Oasis must still follow the community rules and guidelines. It is *not* a place where content can be posted and the moderators will give some leeway.​
All members are able to 'opt-out' of The Oasis! A new option has been added to the members account Preferences screen, Opt-out from viewing The Oasis. If you click that option then you will not see any content from the forum. Members can opt-out and opt-in on their own as they choose. Please note that after changing your option it may take up to an hour for you to see a difference. An automated task runs on the hour to process the opt-out/in requests.​
Members who are in the 'supporters' group are still able to use the "Ignore Thread" option on threads in The Oasis. That means if you choose not to opt-out from viewing the entire forum you can still choose to "Ignore Thread" any individual threads in the forum you prefer not to see.​
All members, who have not opted-out, are able to post in The Oasis. Use your discretion, if you are posting something that you believe follows the community rules but other members may not want to see it then post it in The Oasis.​
The moderators team, at their discretion, may move threads into The Oasis. Members are welcome to let us know if there are any existing threads that may be a good fit for The Oasis; use the 'report' option if you prefer to privately submit it for moderators review.​
The Oasis is viewable only to community members who are logged into their account and have not opted-out of viewing it. This is the result of a concern that was raised about being associated with the sensitive content. [EDIT: Yes, this means that Google and other search engines will never see the content.]​


This compromise should touch upon all feedback we've received. Content that does not break the current rules is not being blocked. Content that some members may be sensitive to can be opted-out of. There is not public visibility to the content for it to be associated with any members.

As always, this is not the ultimate-set-in-stone-final-response on the topic. If additional feedback is received, or if we think that the changes are not working as expected, then we'll revise as needed.

Thank you. :)

- Kevin
 
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