Morning, everyone. Thanks to all of you who reported threads and posts that were concerning you here.
We understand that discussions around benefits can be emotive ones, especially for those who are in the position of needing to use that system and cope with all the frustrations that go along with it, on top of having disabilities that already make life more difficult than it should be.
As moderators, however, our role is not to delete based on whether we agree with the sentiment or not but on whether posts are within our Talk guidelines. We will always delete posts that are clearly disablist in tone or content but often posts that might be perceived to be ableist or benefits bashing don't actually break our guidelines. We do allow posters to express critical opinions on public policy or personal experience so long as those posts don't become too personal or otherwise cross the line into abuse or discrimination.
Context is always important, too. While we might allow people to express their frustration at the benefits system, for example, we would probably not allow posts that targeted individuals or were generally discriminatory or dehumanising in tone, and we would look at the path a discussion has taken before making a decision.
We do understand the frustration it can cause when you have taken the time to report and a post is then not deleted but we will always try to explain why and you're always welcome to ask about why a decision was taken. Hitting the report button and letting us know that you're concerned a post is discriminatory should take only a few seconds and we usually don't see problematic posts unless they are reported to us so it really is worth doing. It also helps us to build a picture, particularly if there are 'bad actors' at work, whose posts may not individually break Talk guidelines but, with reports, we can begin to build up a picture of their posting pattern.
We hope that helps at least give a clearer picture of how things work.