House rules
Thank you for taking the time to read our House Rules. Whilst we know it won’t be the most exciting part of Clic, it is important.
Clic is an online community where everybody should feel safe and comfortable, so having these guidelines helps us to ensure that this is a safe space for all users.
Keeping Clic safe is everybody’s responsibility, so it’s important that we all follow these rules and look out for others too. If you see something that you believe goes against the house rules, please flag it so our moderators can review.
We have a zero-tolerance policy to any form of bullying, harassment or victimisation. On Clic, this includes all users and Mental Health UK moderators.
These rules apply to all areas of Clic, including our Clic communities.
As a Clic user, I agree to:
- Look out for other users’ mental health and wellbeing. Clic is designed to be a safe space for peer support. We want to cultivate a supportive online community where people can connect with others and thrive.
- Think before I post. Are you comfortable sharing this information? Remember that you can always delete your own posts if you want to. If you feel overwhelmed in a conversation don’t feel pressured to respond immediately. You can always come back to a conversation. You can also always leave a conversation.
- Consider how other users may react to your post. We want Clic to be a place where people can share their experiences, and recognise sometimes that can include details others may find upsetting or triggering, e.g. details of abuse, violence, self-harm, eating disorders or attempted suicide. Please be mindful of other users and try to avoid posting anything that may be triggering to other users. Some tips for how to do this are listed below.
- Be kind and respect other users. Be polite and treat others how you would like to be treated yourself. Help our moderators to keep Clic safe. Flag anything you see that you are worried or concerned about so our moderators can review it.
- Respect the moderators and any decisions they make around removing posts, content or users. They are people just like you, doing their best.
As a Clic user, I agree not to:
- Give advice or instructions on topics like medication or recovery. Please feel free to share your personal experiences, but recognise that everyone is different and what worked for you might not work for somebody else. Decisions around the care somebody receives are for that person to make in partnership with their GP or other professionals.
- Use hateful language, or post anything hateful, racist, homophobic, sexist or transphobic.
- Post anything of a sexual nature.
- Harass or abuse other users and moderators.
- Share any personal information that somebody could use to contact you outside of Clic, e.g. mobile numbers, email addresses, social media profiles.
- Promote any commercial services
To ensure the safety and comfort of everyone using Clic, we have a team of moderators who are responsible for reviewing posts on Clic Chat and Forums to ensure they are in line with these House Rules.
Our Clic moderators agree to:
- Moderate Clic Chat and Forums (including on Community sites) between 8am and 10pm, 7 days a week to ensure Clic is a safe and supportive online platform.
- Review everything that gets flagged or reported to us and respond in line with our moderation guidelines and procedures.
- Remove any posts that break the House Rules or that we believe may be triggering and negatively impact other users. We will endeavour to provide you with feedback via email on why your post has been removed and signpost you to more appropriate support but are under no obligation to do so. If your posts continue to breach the House Rules, we will implement our disciplinary process which may result in you being suspended or permanently excluded from using Clic.
- Respect your privacy. We will never share anything you have told us unless we believe you or someone else is at serious risk of harm. In this instance, we will implement our Safeguarding Procedure.
- Review and respond to technical issues as soon as we can.
Our Clic moderators agree not to:
- Pass on your details to anyone else, unless we are concerned that there is a safeguarding issue or immediate risk of you causing harm to yourself or somebody else. In this instance we will implement our Safeguarding Procedure.
Further Guidance
Posting on Clic
We hope you will write openly on Clic so that others in the community can benefit from your experiences. However, we ask you to be mindful of how other users may react and recognise that some topics can be upsetting or triggering. Below are some tips to help if posting about sensitive subjects such as abuse, violence, self-harm, eating disorders or suicide:
- When discussing thoughts of self-harm or suicide: avoid explicit descriptions, details of methods and details of suicide notes. This level of detail may be harmful to someone experiencing suicidal thoughts.
- Please don’t post any images relating to self-injury, these could be upsetting for other users.
- When discussing thoughts and feelings about food, eating and drinking: avoid numbers of calories, measurements, images of weight loss or weight gain, details of methods.
- When discussing illegal drugs or alcohol: try to avoid specifics about quantities or illegal drug use.
- Consider putting a Trigger Warning and the subject at the start of your post so other users can avoid your post if they believe it may be upsetting to them, e.g. Trigger Warning: Eating Disorders.
Our moderators will remove posts that they believe go too far and may be upsetting or triggering for other users. This is so that we can ensure Clic remains a safe, supportive environment and will be done in the best interests of all users. We are not obliged to offer an explanation for why any post has been deleted.
Reporting abuse
If you have been upset or offended by another user’s post and you believe it to be against these House Rules, please flag it to us. Our moderators will review the post and remove it from Clic if we deem it inappropriate.
We have a zero-tolerance policy towards any form of bullying, harassment of victimisation on our page, be this to other users or to Mental Health UK moderators. Any negative comments directed at another person are ‘flagged’ and removed.
We appreciate that difficult subjects may arise, and there will be a variety of opinions and experiences. Therefore, if you do not agree with another user’s comments and you want to explore this, please be mindful of challenging the opinion not the person.
If you feel that another user is using this page as a way to bully, intimidate or makes you feel uncomfortable, please do not hesitate to flag it to us. Our moderators will look into the issue and take the appropriate actions.
Removing content
Regardless of content, any post that is flagged as inappropriate or against the House Rules is taken down for other users and reviewed by our moderators.
Following review, it may be approved and put back on Clic. Or it may be deleted from the platform.
If your post is deleted, we will endeavour to contact you via email with our reasons for doing so, referring to the relevant section of these House Rules but are under no obligation to do so.
Users whose posts continue to breach house rules will be temporarily suspended from Clic or permanently excluded from the platform.
Where necessary and appropriate, we will seek to provide users with a warning that they are at risk of suspension or permanent exclusion to encourage behaviour change around use of Clic. However, Mental Health UK is not obliged to provide a warning. Depending on the circumstances and actions of the user, may proceed straight to a suspension of permanent exclusion.
Suspension from the platform is at the discretion of our moderators. Decisions around permanent exclusion will be made by Mental Health UK in consultation with our moderators.
Users may appeal a suspension or permanent exclusion by sending an email to [email protected]. Mental Health UK reserves the right to not engage with users regarding our final decision.
Safeguarding and signposting
Clic has been developed as a safe, supportive mental health platform to facilitate peer support.
Neither our moderators nor other users are trained to provide support to people who are experiencing a crisis and would therefore urge you to contact the below:
- Call Samaritans on 116123
- Text “Shout” to 85258
Alternatively, consider contacting your GP or mental health team if you are already receiving support.
If your life or someone else’s is in imminent danger, call 999 or go to your nearest Accident and Emergency (A&E) department.
Visit our signposting page for further national and local support organisations.
At Clic, we take our safeguarding responsibilities seriously. We understand that our users may, on occasion, post content that is concerning.
If our moderators believe that there is either a safeguarding issue or immediate risk of that user causing harm to themselves or somebody else, they are trained to contact emergency services to request a welfare check. We will pass on your contact details that you provided on sign up to enable emergency services to carry out this check.
Mental Health UK reserves the right to permanently exclude any user who is found to have provided false contact details upon signing up to Clic.
Updated: November 2022