When using these forums it's good to know that we all want to create an online safe space for LGBT students. This would make it a good centre to seek help with personal questions, find fun and make friends. Partaking in discussions always seems to turf up new insight into what's happening in the world and ideas different people have, that might not have even been thought of before by users. Being part of something that makes people happy can feel pretty good in itself, but to make sure we can run it as ideally as possible there are a few standards we try to stick to, which the committee/moderators are chosen to try and enforce.
Conduct on the forum...
1. No posting of any material which is knowingly false or defamatory, inaccurate, abusive, hateful, harassing, threatening or invasive of a person's privacy.
Name-calling, abuse or harassment of any committee or other member can result in as much as an immediate termination of use without warning or explanation.
2. No Bigotry of any kind. That includes :
character judgments about anyone's sexual history,
disability discrimination (physical or mental)
victim-blaming,
sexism,
racism,
classism,
homophobia,
ageism,
sizeism,
any other -ism which keeps this from being a fully safe space for any members or committee
If you can't manage to find it in you to be compassionate towards our users, at least recognise that it is exceptionally poor form to be name-calling or discriminating against the very people keeping the society going: You are entitled to think whatever you like, but when participating here, you're required to help keep the space emotionally safe for everyone.
4. No deliberate disregard for general usage guidelines, such as posting as a general user on a thread headed with "[officers only]"*.
This is very important when perhaps the only reason someone has come forward for help is that they know no-one else will reply, the general guidelines themselves are all about making sure people feel comfortable.
GENERAL USAGE
Non-Welfare Boards, On non-welfare boards like Events, Chat, Sketchbook, News & Current Affairs, LGBT Assembly etc... descriptions are pretty visible. Generally, posting things in the right board and keeping with the above guidelines is all you really need to worry about.
Welfare Boards (Men's, Women's, Bi & Trans)- On welfare boards you can discuss aspects of International, L, G, B or T welfare with other users; issues from sexual health to the handling of relationships. You can ask for personal advice, share experiences, or just seek out something you want to know, but it must be specific to the individual board.
Asking welfare questions:
Make sure you ask the question safely! It's very possible you may need to give a number of personal facts up in order for people to help with a welfare question, so remember to post anonymously when unsure and be careful with how specific you are. If we feel someone's post puts them or another member in danger we'll move the thread as quickly as possible away from public visibility, messaging them with advice and an alternative way to address the problems and maybe try to repost the question anonymously if that's enough to make it safe.
*You can request committee only replies. This is done by writing [officers only] with the square brackets in the title of your topic. This is for those among us who may be less likely to seek welfare help if it means that any member could be replying, sometimes we feel more comfortable knowing we're only exchanging with maybe one or two committee. It can feel a lot less threatening. General users mustn't post there.
We hope to make content on here as good as possible, but don't accept responsibility for the accuracy of what's posted on these boards in any capacity, Complaints about the running of the society/site should be addressed to luu.lgbt@leeds.ac.uk so that they can be properly addressed, a dialogue can be started, and mudslinging can be kept away from the safe space which is the forum.
