Social Media

Haddenham.net is the community website for the village of Haddenham in Buckinghamshire UK, with direct links to two social media platforms: Facebook and Twitter.

Administration & Moderation Policy

for the Haddenham.net Community Facebook page

The Haddenham.net community Facebook page was established with the following primary aims:

• To disseminate news and information relating to activities and events of interest to residents of Haddenham and its very close neighbouring villages
• To complement the Haddenham.net community website by highlighting and pointing to longer reports or news items that are too detailed to be published on Facebook (this policy statement being a good example)
• To provide a forum for the sharing of ideas and views, in a mutually respectful style, about the village of Haddenham
• To offer a communication channel for residents to seek recommendations of good local service providers, on the basis of direct personal experience
• To provide a platform for the loss of pets and personal items to be communicated in the hope of re-uniting them with their owners
• To assist those who are relatively new to the village to seek helpful information and practical help

What the Facebook page is NOT:

• It is not a commercial platform — no commercial Ads are allowed. (Minor exceptions to this occur when commercial organisations are involved in charitable activities, which moderators judge to be deserving of publicity)
• It does not cover events and news items that relate specifically to Thame or Aylesbury — these towns have plenty of communication channels of their own

The Role of Moderators

There are three moderators — the editor of the community website plus two others. All three monitor the Facebook page as volunteers, and maintain a part-time 'watching brief' to ensure that all initiating posts (new threads) are suitable for publication.

It is not practicable or feasible for moderators to monitor all secondary postings (i.e., those in response to new threads) in real time — to do so would require them to be permanently fixated on their PCs, laptops, tablets and smartphones. They have lives to lead like everyone else!

We do not want to act as censors — we may not personally agree with some postings but we would like to maintain a platform for free speech as far as possible. However, there are limits (see below). Very few postings have ever been blocked — the total is in single figures since the FB page was created

Permitted Postings

When the Haddenham.net community Facebook page was created, it was assumed that the local community would maintain friendly dialogue and would be happy to exchange ideas and views in a mutually respectful manner, even when strong differences of opinion existed. In the main, this expectation has been (and continues to be) met. More recently, however, the moderators have become concerned about the tone of some contributions.

With an emphasis on initiating threads, the following postings have always been on our 'to be blocked' list.
Those which are:

• Profane
• Obscene
• Defamatory
• Racist
• Seditious

Moderators also block obscene or vulgar images.

Approximately one-in-every-two adult residents of Haddenham is linked to our Facebook page and we would like to maintain an open forum which encourages even greater levels of participation.

However, some recent postings have not maintained a level of civility that the vast majority of users seek. There are also some "wind-up merchants" who delight in generating a potentially disproportionate response from others. Unfortunately, not everyone spots this kind of input, and so the blue touch paper can be lit!

Going forward, those repeatedly posting threads or comments that are judged by moderators to be inappropriate will be blocked from using the Haddenham.net Facebook page.

What do we mean by 'inappropriate'?

Here are some guidelines:

• Profane, obscene, sexually explicit, spiteful, discriminatory or other inflammatory language
• Comments that harass, threaten, abuse or criticise others in a personal manner
• Personal attacks on any FB contributor or moderator
• Personalised criticisms of individuals who are acting in an official capacity on behalf of village organisations
• Party political viewpoints
• Snide, vitriolic, malicious, mocking or overtly sarcastic comments that seek to denigrate others
• Comments expressed in aggressive language that is disrespectful of those who hold different opinions

As mentioned above, the moderators are all volunteers. They will have to make judgement calls that (hopefully, on rare occasions only) will lead to some contributors being blocked from using the Haddenham.net community Facebook page.

If you wish to comment on this policy document, please feel free to email the editor here:

haddenham.net@hotmail.com