Moderator Manual:Coronavirus
Contents
Change of focus
Freecycle is a global community, and right now our community is under threat from a global pandemic. While we remain committed to reducing waste and keeping items out of the landfill, our main concern is the health and well-being of our members. The Freecycle platform offers an opportunity to refocus our local groups in service of our communities, by:
- serving as information hubs and help centers for local communities
- allowing essential/basic necessities, things that would save a person from a trip to the store
- disallowing nonessential items
- disallowing transactions that require person-to-person contact
Community information
Following are some examples of crisis info and updates:
- local testing sites -- WANTED: where can I do a drive-thru virus test?
- shopping restrictions
- critical info for your community -- OFFER: info on where new tent hospital is, ADMIN: list of emergency info
Basic necessities
Please allow items which are essential/basic necessities, following local and national guidance. All pickups/deliveries should be made following social distancing guidelines.
- OFFER: we have extra masks and TP (porch pickup)
- WANTED: we could use canned soup for our grandmother
Putting your group on Emergency Full Moderation
In order to restrict posts to basic necessities, the first thing you should do is put your group on Emergency Full Moderation. The button for Emergency Full Moderation is on the Info and Options Page. Using this button sends every post to moderators for approval. The EFM period normally lasts for 3 days, but this is being extended to 2 weeks for the current crisis.
Some moderators may opt to not allow any posts at all for a period of time. We get that, and respect that, and we have your back if that's your choice locally. However, we do feel that by doing a bit more, with *great* care, we may be able to save lives, improve local well being and help to protect the local community.
For more information
Click here for a list of links to national/state information resources
If you'd like to do more
We are temporarily relaxing our one group per mod rule. Please reach out to your GOA and find out if you can take on a second nearby group to moderate on a temporary basis.
If you need help
Finally: are you too overwhelmed with other things right now and unable to moderate at all? Please reach out to your regional Group Outreach and Assistance volunteer and we'll help find someone to fill in temporarily moderating your local group.
