About Gabbin

How it works

• Five kinds of post: deals, events, lost & found, local notices and recommendations.
• No account, no email, no password. Just a one-off check that you're local.
• Posts are anonymous. You get a short handle like a4f that stays the same, so people can tell when a few posts come from the same person.
• There are no replies. You can't comment on a post and nobody can comment on yours. That won't be changing. It's what stops this turning into an argument about parking.

Everything gets checked twice

First an automatic check, then a person. The automatic one looks for the obvious things: abuse, scams, anything that names an individual. It can turn a post away outright if it's clearly over the line, and it flags anything it isn't sure about so a human looks harder. Then a person reads the post before it appears.

It means your post won't be live the second you write it. It's how the feed stays decent without anyone having a row in public. The automatic check involves sending your post to outside services, which is set out in Privacy.

Posts don't stay forever

Everything fades eventually. How long something lasts depends what people make of it. Every heart keeps a post up one more day, and each one shows how long it has left, so you can see what you're doing. A notice starts at a fortnight, a good recommendation at a month, and nothing can last more than twice as long as it started with, however popular. An event goes when it's over. If you gave an end date when you posted, that's the day it goes whatever anyone thinks. There's no way to vote something down — if a post is a problem, report it. There's no archive and nothing to scroll back through.

Gone from the feed isn't the same as gone from the server. Posts that were removed or reported, and the record of moderation decisions, are kept so decisions can be explained and repeat problems spotted. How long, and what's kept, is in Privacy.

House rules

The short version: be a decent neighbour.

• Don't name individuals. Businesses are fine. "The bakery does great sourdough" is the whole point. People aren't, and that covers "the bloke at number 40", a car and its registration, or anything else that narrows down to one household.
• Recommend, don't warn off. This is for "she was great", not "avoid him". If a local business has done you wrong, this isn't the place to settle it. Naming a business to recommend it is the point, including a sole trader trading under their own name. Using the business as a way to get at the person behind it isn't.
• No contact details in posts. No phone numbers, no email addresses. Every post is anonymous and the board is public, so anything you put here gets scraped. Say where something can be picked up or dropped off instead, like a shop or a pub.
  Lost & Found is the exception, because a lost cat needs a way home. That type has its own box, and whatever you put in it is published with the post and stays with it. If you've found a pet, a vet will scan it for a microchip and find the owner for free, which is quicker than waiting for them to see this. A shop or the Post Office works for anything you can hand in. A number is fine too if that's what it takes — it just won't be private.
• Links go on deals and events. Those two have a box for one, and it comes out as a tidy link showing where it goes. Everywhere else, say it in words and people can look it up. A web address typed into a post isn't something anyone can tap, so it does nobody any good.
• Recommendations have to be independent. Only recommend somewhere you've actually used. If it's your business, you work there, or you're connected to it some other way, don't post it as a recommendation. Don't pretend to be a customer, and don't post one because you were paid, given something free or offered a discount. Fake reviews are against the law now, not just against the rules here.
• Businesses can post their own deals and events. You're welcome here, that's genuinely useful stuff. Just tick the box to say you're connected to the business and the post gets marked From the business so people know where it came from.
• Lost & found is for things and animals, not people. If someone is missing, at any age, ring the police on 101, or 999 if you think they're in danger. They can act on it and a noticeboard can't. Posting here would only slow down the thing that actually helps, so those posts are turned away automatically.
• Post the thing, not your programme. One event per post and not all of them. There's a limit on how much you can post in a day so make them count.
• Only post photos you took. Not someone else's work, and nothing showing an identifiable person, a child, a number plate, the inside of a home or anyone's paperwork. Flyers, posters, shopfronts and a crowd at an event are all fine.
• Banter's fine. Pile-ons aren't. Get reported enough and you're gone.

Reporting something

Tap the flag on any post and pick a reason. Three reports from three different people takes a post out of the feed until it's been looked at. Nothing is deleted automatically. It's hidden pending a look and it can come back if it turns out to be fine.

Illegal content doesn't wait for three reports. If a report says a post may be illegal, or that someone is being targeted, it comes out of the feed on that one report while it's looked at.

If something needs dealing with directly, or you're not local and can't use the flag, email hello@gabbin.co.uk. That includes anything you think might be illegal.

Who runs it

Gabbin is run by J Honeyford in Cheltenham. It's a personal project, not a company. Email hello@gabbin.co.uk and you'll get a person, not a form.