Our Policy Regarding Gossip

[Emily]

In our view, gossip is talking about someone with the sole purpose of causing other people to see that person in a negative light. It is an extremely damaging trend which can cause a lot of pain for those involved. Additionally, gossip is all too often based on half truths, or even lies, formed from hearing one person's side of a story. Every so often, we hear from people that there is gossip floating around on the forums.

Why is gossip such a concern to us, and seen as such a damaging trend?

Gossip has been a recurring problem on CS since we started to become so large in membership. Time after time, we have seen both members & staff hurt deeply by attacks on their character, actions, or even their faith. It is something which, as a staff team, we will not tolerate here. We want to do everything we can to move away from this trend, and to foster a much more loving, accepting environment for everyone here!!

What’s your responsibility regarding gossip?

If you hear gossip from other members, it is your responsibility to make the right choice and ask that person not to talk to you about that. Listening to gossip is just as much a part of the problem as being the one to actually spread gossip, yourself. If the person gossiping to you won’t respect your boundaries regarding gossip, please know that our doors are always open here to help you to resolve the matter.

What if the gossip is about staff?

If you have questions or problems with anything that we have done, we would appreciate it if you would give us the courtesy of coming to us with your feelings, and giving us a chance to work through it with you. We have a system in place that allows you to bring problems to us, by posting privately in our Member Concerns & Resolution Place forums. (where only our senior staff team will be able to view your thread.) If you will notice, we do no less than that for any of you when we deal with problems on the forum : We don’t talk to other members about it, or say things that may be unfair or untrue to others. If we have a problem, we bring it directly to you, in private, and do everything in our power to resolve it.

We would ask that we, as a staff team, would be afforded the same courtesy by our members.

Please do feel free to contact us if you have any questions, or if you encounter any problems with gossip with which you feel you need help or support. Any contact you have with us will be kept confidential.