Hi,
In my community, at least a couple of times a month, a relatively new participant begins to post in ways that raise concerns. Before suspending or silencing their account, we like to reach out, explain our community standards, and ask if we are on the same page or not.
Most of the time, we’re able to adjust and everything works out.
But occasionally, there is a divergence in understanding and the person does end up, unfortunately, being silenced or suspended.
The community is a bit ‘at risk’ in the time between “initial red flag” and “clarity about our community standards”.
A feature that would be incredibly helpful during that time is an “Under Review” setting. A moderator could apply this setting to a participant’s account. The participant would not receive a notification that their account is marked this way. At that point, all of that person’s posts would go into the Review Queue before being published. When attempting to post, the participant would receive the standard message the community has for posts caught by the watched words feature.
If everything is good, then it is a simple matter to approve their posts, they’re never silenced or suspended.
But if the person does not intend to follow the community’s terms of service, then their behavior can be preemptively stopped.
This would also be a great feature for when someone has been silenced or suspended, but petitions to have their posting abilities re-instated. They could go into a “probation” status with the “Under Review” flag on their account. This would allow moderators to see if the person is abiding by the community standards before granting them full rights to participate in the community again.
Thank you for your consideration.