Wd can get busy so here it is . Cheers.
In this announcement, we dig into how we think these changes will impact our members and what members should prepare themselves for.
As of Monday November 28, 2022 we will be making changes!
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Freedom of Speech Remains a Core Value
We believe strongly in the premise that free speech is the lynch pin to a valuable community. Stockhouse is not the arbiter between truth and fiction, and we will not be taking sides on discussion and debate. The community can collectively decide what topics are worth discussing and which aren't. The overall community knows the companies and the investment opportunities the best so we encourage every member to express their views and sentiments about those opportunities. Our expectation is that the community will welcome all sides of the discussion and debate because there may be information out there that could shift your perspective on a company or stock even if it's something you wouldn't have previously considered.
Our Community Policies are designed to provide guidelines on how that discussion takes place, and not what the discussion is about. We expect members to adhere to these policies in how they write and present their views and points of debate. If a member violates a Community Policy then, regardless of the merits of the post, the post will be removed. A member will be informed what text in the post is violating our policies and they may elect to repost the same content after adjusting it to remove the violating text.
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Policies are Equally Applied
Our policies are applied against all posts and comments without bias or prejudice on who the member is. If a post is reported for abuse or a post is flagged by our internal processes, it will be reviewed by a human Community Specialist. The post content, the thread it belongs to, and the history of the members reporting and authoring the post will be reviewed. The Community Specialist will review for a violation of any policy and not just the policy that it was reported against. Any post found to be in violation of one or more policies will be removed.
Posts or comments that are in reply to a post that violate one or more Community Policies will also be removed, regardless of whether it is in reaction or frustration over the post being replied to. We encourage members to report an abusive post as opposed to reacting to it. The quicker we can remove it from site, the better. However, we don't consider any 'justification' in whether a post violates our policies; we just look at the tenor and post text itself.
There is no need to send multiple abuse reports about the same post or user profile. A single member sending multiple reports on the same post will not escalate or change our review of the post content; it's just basically wasting your time. If you send it, it will be reviewed. Please don't send frivolous reports as that just takes time from our review of other more eggregious posts.
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Action Expectations
All abuse reports from the Community will be reviewed. It does not mean that every report will be actioned upon. The Community Management team has a set of guidelines they use to determine if the post is in violation and will act accordingly based on the perceived violation, the frequency of violation from a member, or the lack of violation that is found. If we remove a post or take action on a member's account we will inform the member via 'My Messages'. We will not provide feedback to the reporter of abuse regardless of the outcome of our review.
A post being left on site does not mean that Stockhouse in any way supports or condones the subject or opinions within the post. It simply means that we did not assess the content of the post as violating one of our Community Policies.
Feel free to report any perceived abuse, however, if the complaint is about something someone has opined on that you don't agree with but doesn't violate any of our stated Community Policies, then that post will not be removed. It is up to Community members to discuss and debate different perspectives and viewpoints.
As we move forward, we will continually evaluate our Policies and we will tweak them to cover text that is troubling for the Community. We view this as a process and not an a single event in time that the changes on Nov 28 will fully resolve. Our Community Specialist team is human and will be doing the best they can to consistently and objectively apply all policies; if you feel we are failing we hope you will reach out to us at community@stockhouse.com and let us know how we can do better.
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Linking to Off-Site Content
Members want to know what off-site content has to do with their interest in a Company Bullboard before they visit it. If you are going to provide a link off-site because you feel it contains relevant details and information that will help the discussion on Stockhouse then we strongly encourage you to choose a relevant subject for the post and provide some context in the post by describing what the off-site information is about. Without this, members are less likely to follow your link because it's indistinguishable from advertising or promotional links being put on site.
In addition to members not wanting to follow the link, our Community Specialists may not be able to easily identify the relevance of an off-site link and they may treat it as Advertising and remove the post.
We also do not support the promotion of content on competitive sites. Do not link to generic information on other forum sites or just place links without context to posts elsewhere. We do have other forum sites trying to promote themselves via our Community and we do not allow that. Links to other forum sites will be removed.
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Defamation - Clarity
Defamation is a grey area to most members, so we'd like to highlight what it is and what it isn't, because it can have a legal impact on you. We are not providing legal advice but we are warning you that your are responsible for the content you post and there can be legal consquences to you.
Defamation is a legal standard that exists to protect individuals from having their reputation damaged by having false statements communicated about them to a third-party; in this case to the Stockhouse community.
For Defamation to apply, we look for (at a minimum):
- A recognizable name of a person or entity in the real world being discussed. The person or entity may be explicitly named or inferred from an obvious connection made (e.g, the CEO of xyz company); and,
- A false statement that cannot be supported by publicly available and credible information; and
- A clear injury to the reputation of the person or entity stated
If Defamation is claimed against a post it will be reviewed by Stockhouse. If the above criteria are met then it will be removed for that reason. Removing a post for this reason protects you as a member; it's not being pro-company. You are legally liable for any dafamatory statements you make and an anonymous account online does not necessarily protect you. So:
- Do not make false or misleading claims against a company or any person associated with a company
- Never make a claim of criminal behaviour unless you can corroborate it with information in your post
- Never make a claim that someone is breaking security regulations unless you can corroborate it with information in your post
- Do make yourself aware of the legal liability of posting statements on any internet forum or discussion board
Stockhouse is currently an anonymous site from a member's perspective because members do not know the true identity of other members. Defamation therefore never applies between members because there is no recognizable person involved so there can be no legal injury of reputation.
We understand that the online reputation of your account has immense value to you and we will protect that through our other policies. With the introduction of the Bullying policy it is more likely that if a member is repeatedly insulting or trolling you then the post(s) will be reviewed and removed under this policy.
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We Need Your Help
We'd like to reiterate in this announcement that we need your help too. We can't review every post, therefore, you're part of the solution in helping us weed out that undesirable content. You can:
- Familiarize yourself with our Community Policies
- See something, say something. Use the Report Abuse button when you see content that's questionable. If you report it, we'll review it.
- If you choose to use our Ignore User function, please also Report Abuse on any content that may have lead you to making that choice
Thank You!
Our goal is to provide a better experience for every member on Stockhouse and will be working hard to do that. Should you ever have any feedback, questions or concerns about how the Community is managed please reach out via email to our Community Management team at community@stockhouse.com.
Our next communication on this topic will be on November 28, 2022 when we roll out our new Community Management practices.