Hi all
Firstly, let me start by saying how important forums such as this one will be during this hugely difficult time, not just for information but for socialisation, which will be crucial as more people self-isolate or are at least minimising how often they go out.
As you can imagine, we are currently being inundated with calls and emails about COVID-19 and are doing our best to get back to everyone, as people struggle to get through to their healthcare teams to get answers and the advice is changing so rapidly. In order for us to do this, we are having to prioritise, which is the reason for this post.
In 'normal' times of operating we would encourage people to report any posts or comments that concern them, but at this time, please can I ask that you ONLY use the 'report' feature where absolutely necessary, as investigating reports can be time consuming and pulls members of staff away from other services. The same also applies to private messages to admins.
To give you some examples, these are 2 of the most important reasons to report a post or comment:
1. The person appears to be at risk and you are concerned about them (for example if they seem very depressed or suicidal or have indicated other risks such as being in need of urgent medical care, being abused etc.
2. Someone is posting incorrect or misleading information.
3. Spam: This may not seem vital, but we wouldn't want people to start taking advantage and promoting their companies thinking that they won't be dealt with quickly. Spam posts (i.e. people posting commercially rather than as an individual) are often some of the quicker, easier reports to deal with.
I hope that you will all find comfort in having this forum here and in being able to communicate with this community. Please be mindful that you won't always see eye to eye and some of you will be from very different backgrounds, have different opinions, different ways of expressing yourselves etc, but hopefully if we are all mindful of how we post as individuals (you can only control how YOU post) we can keep this site the lovely, supportive and friendly space that is much needed at the moment.
Many thanks for all you do to keep this community going.
Victoria
NRAS Publications and Information Resource Manager