Hey all,
We’ve all noticed that tensions have been high on the forum in the last couple of weeks. There’s been a lot of very heated arguments and discussions that we’ve had to end up closing.
You’ve told us that there’s too much fighting and negativity on here at the moment. And that’s pushing some folks away from posting on the forum, or in some cases even leaving altogether.
That’s partly on us. We can and should be doing more to proactively be here for you and keep conversations constructive.
To fix this: we’re going to be hiring another community manager in a junior role, to help us out with extra cover on the forum and across all our community activities.
There’s also a few things we’d like to remind everyone of, so we can help make this a great place to be together:
1. A reminder of the Code of Conduct
The Community Code of Conduct is the gold standard for behaviour on the forum. We use it to moderate topics so they’re always positive and constructive.
In particular, we strongly enforce this section:
We avoid:
- Name-calling.
- Ad hominem attacks (criticising a poster personally, not their post).
- Responding to a post’s tone instead of its actual content.
- Replying in a confrontational manner when we see a post we think needs attention (use the flag feature to report it instead).
- Deliberately derailing threads, or other forms of trolling.
- Posting low-value content that doesn’t add to the discussion.
- Repeatedly making the same arguments, instead of moving on. We’ll lock threads that end up going in circles.
Please don’t take it personally if we get in touch with a warning about one of your posts breaking the Code of Conduct. We’re not trying to censor anyone or shut down legitimate criticism.
We have some very passionate voices here, and we think that’s a great thing. It just becomes an issue when that leads to full-blown arguments that we have to shut down.
2. Using flags 
We use flags on the forum as a way to let you alert moderators of posts you think need special attention. So if you see something that breaks our Code of Conduct, flag it!
That’s almost always a better option than trying to confront the poster directly. And it means we (Monzo) take the heat, rather than you.
However, we don’t tolerate abuse of flags as a way of harrassing other users. This can mean flagging posts that don’t deserve it, or using them in retaliation to posts you’ve had flagged yourself. “Flag wars” like this aren’t fun for anyone, and take time to deal with fairly. So use them sensibly.
3. The Coral Crew
The Coral Crew are volunteers on the forum that have repeatedly shown that they make helpful, constructive posts on our forum. In return, they get some admin permissions like the ability to split and merge threads.
They’re not staff members, and they don’t represent Monzo. They’re always welcome to their own views, pro-Monzo or not! But we never tolerate attacks on them simply for defending us.
But they’re also not here to create a Monzo echo chamber. They have their own extra Code of Conduct with extra values we expect them to uphold as examples for the rest of the community. So we hold them to a high standard and take appropriate steps when this isn’t met.
We’ll always take a fair, unbiased approach to moderation that treats everyone fairly.
That’s everything I wanted to cover today. Hopefully we can clear the air on a few things and make this a really positive place to post.
I’m always open to chat by DM if you’d like to discuss this in private. Or feel free to post your comments below and we can keep the conversation going.
It’d be a shame if we had to lock this topic too, so please keep it civil and - in particular - avoid calling out anyone else by name.
Thanks!
