A few reminders

Hi everyone,

I hope you're all as well as you can be, despite the difficult start we've had to 2021.

Some of you may have noticed that the community team weren't online as often as usual over the Christmas and New Year period. We were working reduced hours during this time, but we're now back to covering our usual shifts. This means that at least one member of the team will be available from 8am to 8pm every weekday, and from 10am to 6pm every weekend. 

I'm sure many of you have felt, as we have, that there seems to have been an increase in conflict on the community recently. We understand that this is an incredibly challenging time for you all, and some of you might be feeling particularly unsettled or worried, but it's more important than ever that we all pull together to support each other. The vast majority of threads demonstrate your ability to offer support and advice to each other with great kindness and without judgement, and I think this is what we all need more of moving into 2021.

If you're struggling to cope with the new lockdown, or there's anything else that you're finding difficult, please feel free to reach out to the community team. You're welcome to email us on community@scope.org.uk, and we'll do our best to help. 

If you see a post or comment that you believe breaks our community guidelines, please report it using the 'flag' function so that a member of the community team can review it. We can then take action if necessary. You're never obligated to respond to something a user has said, so please feel free to step away from a thread if you don't feel as though a constructive conversation is being had.

I also wanted to briefly address the topic of incorrect information on the community. The community guidelines state that all members should:We sometimes get requests to remove comments, or parts of comments, that contain inaccurate information or advice. Although we do remove incorrect information on occasion, we also believe there is sometimes merit to leaving these comments up. So long as the information is corrected by at least one of you, or a member of the community team, we think that those reading the thread in the future might find it helpful to see that a piece of information has been debunked. That being said, we do ask that all members do their best to check that the information they are giving is correct, avoid presenting opinion as fact, and provide evidence from a trusted resource where possible. 

Cher posted this on another discussion, but I just wanted to highlight the following section from the Things to keep in mind post: 
We'll be dealing with individual situations as soon as we can. In the meantime, please refresh yourself on the rules outlined in our community guidelines.