How to Moderate a Community

Creators and community admins have the option to moderate a community in Heights Platform: this includes approving or blocking posts from students and adjusting moderation statuses. Learn how to use the community in Heights: https://support.heightsplatform.com/article/14-community

Moderation Statuses

A student can have three moderation statuses:

Pending Approval: if no action is taken from the creator, each new student who joins the community is considered "pending approval" by default. This means that they are able to post in channels and interact with others as if they were approved, but you have the option to review their posts and either approve them or block them.

Approved: a student will have the "approved" status once the creator or an admin approves all of their future posts or approves their first post. Approved means that from now on, everything that this student posts will be automatically approved without the need for review.

Blocked: a student will have the "blocked" status once the creator or an admin blocks all of their future posts or blocks their first post. Blocked means that from now on, everything that this student tries to post will be automatically blocked. When a student is blocked, you will then have to approve each of this student's posts manually before other students can see them.

To see all of the moderation actions in your community, head to the "Moderation" tab in the left sidebar, as shown below:

Here you will be able to see everything that needs moderation and all of the most recent posts you can review.

By default, all new students are in a "pending moderation" state. This means a student's first post in your community area can be viewed by everyone without requiring approval but will appear in your moderation queue for review. If you approve their first post, the student's moderation state will change to "approved," and it will mean this and all future posts will appear automatically without approval.

If you block the student’s first post, the student's moderation state will change to "blocked," and this and all future posts will be blocked automatically. When a student is blocked, you will then have to approve each of this student's posts manually before other students can see them.

To edit the moderation state of each student as well as view all of the community activities for a specific student, go to Moderation > Users as shown below:

From here, you can click on "Edit Moderation" on the right side of every member's name and view their moderation history in detail, change their status to approved or blocked and approve or block their posts.

Community Notifications

You will receive email notifications for any posts you follow or are mentioned in by default. To change your notification settings, head over to the "notifications" tab in the left sidebar, as shown below:

If you want to automatically receive notifications for every post, you can select "follow all new posts." If you do not want to receive notifications, simply uncheck these boxes. Even if you don't receive email notifications, you can always stay on top of what is new by viewing the unread and moderation sections of your community from the left sidebar.

You can also customize your email notification settings per channel if you prefer. Each of your students has the ability to customize their own notification settings in the same way.

Locked Channels and Posts

As a creator or community moderator, when creating a new post in your channel, you can select " locked", which means no students will be able to leave comments on that post, or "pinned," which means the post will always appear at the top of the channel.

You can also head to "Edit Channel" if you want to make any changes to your channel or select the " locked" option for the entire channel, which means students will not be able to post in that channel. As an example, locking a channel is useful if you want one of your channels to serve as an announcement or rules channel.

To format posts, you have the option of using markdown, adding spoiler tags, at-mentions, and URLs which will auto-embed. You and your students can also quote a post or comment to reply to a specific comment.

Learn more about creating channels and posts in this article: https://support.heightsplatform.com/article/14-community

Moving a Post to a Different Channel

You can move a post to another channel in your community. This can be done by clicking on the post you want to move, and selecting "Edit Title & Location" underneath the main post title. You can now select the channel you wish to move the post to from a dropdown, and click save.