Footprint Friends VIP forum is a moderated site, giving peace of mind to its members, teachers, parents and group leaders who encourage young people to sign up as a VIP.
We have three main methods of moderation.
System moderation - Human moderation - User moderation
System moderation
Our system has a predetermined set of key words, phrases and acronyms which have been identified as inappropriate for the age range 11-18 years. This list of words is generally agreed to be the definitive but as language continues to evolve, especially with the advent of short text for mobile phones and instant messaging, our list continues to develop and evolve. Our system automatically detects these words and will not allow them to be posted on to the site.
Human moderation
We have a team of human moderators who physically read each post. Each of our moderators has been CRB (Criminal Records Bureau) checked to work with children and has been trained. Each moderator is specifically chosen and appointed by the Footprint Friends Board of Directors and are not out sourced to a third party. If you are interested in becoming a moderator please contact us.
We operate a three strikes system. In the event that a user seriously breaches our terms and conditions or our Guiding Principles they will be notifi ed - If this is repeated to a maximum of three breaches the user will be banned.
If a user is in minor breach of our terms and conditions or our Guiding Principles they will be notified either via the forum or via email.
User moderation
Our VIP’s are able to discuss and debate all environmental issues. Part of the beauty of like minded people debating is the ability to discuss freely. The topics will naturally meander and the users and the moderators will keep debate on topic and appropriate.
Any VIP can “flag” a post by reporting it as “abuse”. There is a clearly visible link on every post for VIP’s to alert our team marker “report abuse”. This will then be quickly dealt with as per the training given to our moderators.