Better Century aims to build a collaborative society that makes the best use of all the resources it has, and does its utmost to create an environment for all life to thrive. That means we have to start here!
To do this we encourage trust between people so they:
- Share experiences of living sustainably, stimulating peer support and recommendation.
- Learn about why to act, and the costs and benefits of doing so.
- Act through peer advice and recommendations.
Community discussion should be supportive not judgement, and encouraging not dismissive. Passionate views will be welcome so as long as they’re not personally derogatory. And in by being compassionate people will be welcomed from all backgrounds so we can collectively find solutions.
A Supportive Place
Treat this discussion forum in the same way you would a public event. We tackle a range of difficult subjects, and people are in a place of learning, in fact none of us know all the answers. Treat this like a shared community resource — a place to share skills, knowledge and interests through ongoing conversation.
Encourage Discussion
Encouraging the discussion means we’re improving use of our human resource to help achieve our mission. By liking comments or responding positively we’re being supportive, and if you’ve got an opinion, question or new information then chip in. Help us make this a great place for discussion by always working to improve the discussion in some way, however small.
One way to improve the discussion is by discovering ones that are already happening. Spend time browsing the topics here before replying or starting your own, and you’ll have a better chance of meeting others who share your interests.
Be Agreeable, Even When You Disagree
It is expected that some posts will be controversial and will stimulate debate, especially if about evidence and recommendations. You may wish to respond to something by disagreeing with it. That’s fine. But remember to criticize ideas, not people. Please avoid:
- Name-calling
- Ad hominem attacks
- Responding to a post’s tone instead of its actual content
- Knee-jerk contradiction
Instead, provide reasoned counter-arguments that improve the conversation.
Your Participation Counts
The conversations we have here set the tone for every new arrival. Help us influence the future of this community by choosing to engage in discussions that make this forum an interesting place to be — and avoiding those that do not.
We’ve got tools that enable the community to collectively identify the best (and worst) contributions: bookmarks, likes, flags, replies, edits, and so forth. Use these tools to improve your own experience, and everyone else’s, too.
Let’s leave our community better than we found it.
If You See a Problem, Flag It
Moderators have special authority; they are responsible for this forum. But so are you. With your help, moderators can be community facilitators, not just janitors or police.
When you see bad behavior, don’t reply. It encourages the bad behavior by acknowledging it, consumes your energy, and wastes everyone’s time. Just flag it. If enough flags accrue, action will be taken, either automatically or by moderator intervention.
In order to maintain our community, moderators reserve the right to remove any content and any user account for any reason at any time. Moderators do not preview new posts; the moderators and site operators take no responsibility for any content posted by the community.
Always Be Civil
Nothing sabotages a healthy conversation like rudeness:
- Be civil. Don’t post anything that a reasonable person would consider offensive, abusive, or hate speech.
- Keep it clean. Don’t post anything obscene or sexually explicit.
- Respect each other. Don’t harass or grief anyone, impersonate people, or expose their private information.
- Respect our forum. Don’t post spam or otherwise vandalize the forum.
These are not concrete terms with precise definitions — avoid even the appearance of any of these things. If you’re unsure, ask yourself how you would feel if your post was featured on the front page of the New York Times.
This is a public forum, and search engines index these discussions. Keep the language, links, and images safe for family and friends.
Resolving Conflict
When conflict becomes an obstacle to wider participation, it may be judged as ‘disruptive conflict’. The situation for this could be pestering an individual, using personal language that alienates others, bringing up unresolved and unrelated discussions from other threads. If it is, a moderator will seek to improve the situation by seeking compromise so that all participants can stay in the discussion.
Continuing to be disruptive may result in the community manager threatening suspension and eventually suspending an individual. If there are repeat offences an individual may be banned from Better Century for a longer period.
Keep It Tidy
Make the effort to put things in the right place, so that we can spend more time discussing and less cleaning up. So:
- Don’t start a topic in the wrong category.
- Don’t cross-post the same thing in multiple topics.
- Don’t post no-content replies.
- Don’t divert a topic by changing it midstream.
- Don’t sign your posts — every post has your profile information attached to it.
Rather than posting “+1” or “Agreed”, use the Like button. Rather than taking an existing topic in a radically different direction, use Reply as a Linked Topic.
Post Only Your Own Stuff
You may not post anything digital that belongs to someone else without permission. You may not post descriptions of, links to, or methods for stealing someone’s intellectual property (software, video, audio, images), or for breaking any other law.
Powered by You
This site is operated by your friendly local staff and you, the community. If you have any further questions about how things should work here, open a new topic in the site feedback category and let’s discuss! If there’s a critical or urgent issue that can’t be handled by a meta topic or flag, contact us via the staff page.
Terms of Service
Yes, legalese is boring, but we must protect ourselves – and by extension, you and your data – against unfriendly folks. We have a Terms of Service describing your (and our) behavior and rights related to content, privacy, and laws. To use this service, you must agree to abide by our TOS.
This guidance will be reviewed three monthly alongside a group of >3 month active users.