Guidelines to help moderators are below. They are a guide.
With new online protection, you will find that the platform, Facebook acts faster than we ever could on many things. Please remove hate speech, bullying, and being nasty in any form. Much action is automated so the moderators need to do little.
Please start a chat, or encourage those who do. Encourage pictures.
We have many cruise groups, approaching 100,000 members and maybe a thousand posts a day. We cannot, and should not read them all. The members run their own sites.
The actual rules for the chat sites are here:-
Click here for Chat Site User Guidelines
Facebook are fast and we work with them to also ensure that there is no bad language or pornographic images, which rarely happen though some bikini shots have been known to fall foul of the rules. Facebook often remove these before us.
Facebook also have rules and online systems that stop rumours and wrong advice with regard to health matters. We try and always post a link or source when posting COVID information.
Tell me words that appear in nasty blogs that we can use to ask Facebook to act on.
We encourage users to use the three dots to HIDE items they do not like. It will then vanish from their page. They can use these dots to report items to us or to Facebook.
The moderators, therefore, only need to react to the members who police their site. We ask you to read the blog and see if the reporter is right. Sometimes they may be the trouble.
The other general rule is don’t incite violence, or allow it to grow. That is a broadcast rule. Allowing these things to grow can get out of hand. The dress code is an unnecessary argument as it is a contractual matter made by the company, we put links to the company’s dress code on our site, and on the EVENTS page (when we can). It is fair to say the dress code can be less strict than many like, and stricter than a few understood. It is a factual matter from the holiday/contractor. These arguments can be closed with the link.
We operate a non-moaning site, and if someone shouts ‘the cruise was rubbish, never again’, we understand that they have decided not to need that ship’s chat site and remove the blog and block the owner. They said never again. That is extreme, we allow someone to say a constructive comment in a way that helps others. Opinions are a tough one, we all have them, they are all different, and again that is where arguments start.
As all our 20+ chat sites are linked, if a blocked person tries to join another group, the moderators are warned by Facebook that this guest was previously blocked, if they ever get that far.
For example, I am blocked by some other cruise sites as they class Doris Visits as competition. We do not allow other sites to blog on our sites unless they ask and work with us. These people work with us and we use them as experts.
- David at How To Cruise
- Peter Solo Cruisers
- Jean Heard – Doris Visits YouTube channel of port guides
- Emma Cruises
- Gary Bembridge – Tips For Travellers
- Weather Widget
- Get Your Guide (a wonderful worldwide resource that allows research or what there is, though we always remind guests that the ship excursion has many reasons to consider it first. Looking at the list of local tours is great research).
- Google Maps
- Cruise Crime Investigator novels – they are mine (Amazon links)
There are others. If I have forgotten your blog, tell me and I will add it to the list.
Doris Visits has a main Facebook Page, then, 20+ chat groups. A website listing over 350 ships and about 1000 ports, plus a YouTube channel; port guides you can refer to. A Tweet page I sometimes use.
The List of Doris Visits Chat sites can be found:-
- Here on the Ships menu page in a black box.
- Here in a blog form
Our Moderators, like all who work on Doris Visits, are volunteers who love cruising. In line with any other organisation, none of them should be subject to abuse so any guest doing that will be removed and blocked.
The reason we have moderators is to keep the sites clean, abuse free, nasty moaning free, and so some chats don’t get too long. Long chats can annoy the many members once they get repetitive, so if the question is answered a moderator may stop further commenting. Great answers are sometimes pulled out to be used elsewhere and sometimes on the main web site www.DorisVisits.com
The moderators are asked to do all of the below without using their own personal stance, but to take a stand of ‘live and let live’. To watch for the reported message and check the reporter is not the one at fault, and then deciding on an action which may be as simple as to stop further commenting or remove a comment. Or, in many cases allow it.
These are the goals of a moderator and how they look to deal with them
- To stop arguments from breaking out on the site. This can happen on inflammatory subjects like smoking, norovirus, tipping and dress code. Give the official answer.
- Remove anything offensive, and possibly remove the member, possible block the member. Racism, sexism, nastiness will not be accepted. Even terms like, they are just not British are not allowed when used to refer to others who are not. These things are normally obvious and unacceptable.
- A removal and BLOCK is a harsh tool. Removal and disallowing the member to post by adding a post-approval to their name is a better way to gauge future trends.
- If it is a violation that looks nasty BLOCK the offender, which then becomes groupwide.
- Remove all non-cruise and off-topic blogs, like jokes, fundraising, recipes and others.
- To remove all selling and offers or tours, unless they are informative and a positive post, then allow once and never again. Obviously, Doris Visits pages are allowed.
- If someone answers with another websites answer and DorisVisits has its own answer, you can remove and replace it.
- To allow new members. This is normally done by Facebook as an auto feature.
- people looking for love or life partners of joining the site to learn English are generally removed/declined.
- To read reported blogs and figure out what is going on. Keep a note of the reported blog and reporter.
- Remove all nasty Moaning – simple, remove it, remove the user if worried. We are deliberately different to other sites. We stress if you have a moan take it to the company, we can do nothing about it. This site is for those who love the ships or cruise line, and those who find a need to complain do not belong on the site.
- Remove bullying or revenge blogs. Maybe remove the user.
- To answer questions with a Doris Visits blog or film if we have an obvious answer. Encouraging people to use the main site saves repeated questions. How to find it, go to www.DorisVisits.com and either use menu or finder (Magnifying Glass)
- To like good answers from other guests when they have answered a question well.
If you do just one of these you have performed a service. We do not expect moderators to be across the site all the time.
If in doubt, direct message one of the other moderators. You should never have to take abuse for doing this job. As we are all at sea a lot, don’t panic, screenshot and save and share with either Stuart or David when they are on land.
DORIS VISITS NOVELS
We write the Cruise Ship Crime Novels. Obviously, we allow those posts and encourage others to talk about the books if they have read them.
If a guest has been declined or wronged, they can go to the website www.DorisVisits.com, and contact us and resolve the matter.
