Folksy Community Policy

Our community policy outlines the rules for Folksy’s social spaces. This includes our forum, the Folksy Clubhouse group on Facebook and the comments section of our social media posts (in addition to the specific platform’s own policy).

We want our social spaces to be a place where everyone feels welcome and supported. Everyone should feel they can ask for advice and share opinions without judgement or criticism. We understand that, for many people, working for yourself can feel isolating, and we want our sellers to know they’re not alone. Our aim is to create a friendly place where you can talk to others that are in a similar situation, whether you need advice, want to connect with fellow makers or just to have a little chat.

Our social spaces are mainly a place to talk with the rest of the Folksy community. Although the Folksy Team may participate in discussions, if you have an issue that you specifically want to be answered by Folksy, please email support@folksy.co.uk.

We don’t want to strictly moderate our community, however, without any restrictions, online discussions can easily turn negative and create an atmosphere that people want to avoid. In order to keep our community a positive place that users are proud to be a part of, we have the following rules that we ask all members to follow:

Be welcoming, considerate and respectful

We believe that different opinions, viewpoints, interests and experiences are valuable and that hearing from people outside our own “bubble” can enrich our lives. We therefore ask that you engage in conversations with an open mind, empathy and a willingness to listen to another perspective.

Act with care and patience towards other users. You may not always agree with what someone has posted, but be kind and considerate in your response, whether talking to or about other sellers, the Folksy team, buyers or anyone else.

Please consider whether your words could come across as unkind, even if that is not how you intend them, as tone is not always clear online.

Remain respectful in your responses and allow others to share differing opinions. If you disagree with someone, it’s ok to criticise the idea but not the person.

What kind of topics are ok to post

Everyone in our community should be able to share freely and talk about topics that interest them, without feeling inhibited by others.

Not all discussions on our forum or Facebook group need to directly relate to Folksy.

The Folksy community is a place to find support or advice on all sorts of issues that affect you as an artist, maker or small business.

Remember this is a public space. What you post here could be seen by potential buyers and can reflect on your shop. Think before you post. If it is not something you’d be comfortable saying in front of a customer, it is probably not something you should be posting.

Only offer feedback if requested. Then be constructive, specific and thoughtful with your comments and critiques.

Do not derail threads

Do not deliberately try to take a thread off topic to suit your own purposes.

If the subject you want to talk about is not relevant to what’s currently being discussed, a new thread should be started, rather than interrupting and derailing an existing discussion.

Do not publicly call out other sellers

If you believe someone has broken our terms of use or done something you do not agree with, do not publicly name them or give details that allow them to be easily identified.

If you think an item or an entire shop is breaking Folksy’s terms, use the report button on the item page to let Folksy know the details. Give clear information on why you think the item/shop breaks the terms and include links where relevant. Please refrain from being overly emotive or using this space to berate Folksy.

Even if you don’t believe a seller or a certain type of item should be on Folksy, remember to be polite and respectful in your comments.

If you think someone’s post breaks our community policy, please flag the post to report it to Folksy.

These are not matters for public discussion on Folksy.

Do not promote alternative selling sites

Although we welcome discussions around selling online and offline, we do not allow promotion or recommendations for our direct competitors, i.e. other e-commerce platforms.

Discussions around places to sell in person, such as craft fairs, markets, shops or galleries, are encouraged. However, if you have had a negative experience with a particular vendor or organisation that you want to make others aware of, please remember to share your experience without making defamatory comments.

Do not spam

Do not use Folksy’s community spaces purely to promote other websites or services.

We do not allow unsolicited promotions, for example, promoting a product or service off Folksy, a political party or campaign.

We do allow users to make recommendations and share links where it’s relevant to a discussion, but this should not be the only contribution you make to the community.

Only post content you have a right to use

Text, images and any other material you post must be your own work or something that you have permission to share. Content you post must not infringe on anyone’s copyright or trademark.

Do not post private information

Respect the privacy of others and do not share any information that is not publicly available.

Do not defame others

Do not intimidate, insult, name call, intentionally embarrass, humiliate, use slurs or threaten anyone.

Do not make defamatory comments about other people or organisations.

Do not make defamatory comments about the Folksy team.

Do not share false information about Folksy or bring Folksy into disrepute.

We welcome constructive comments about Folksy, but please consider the effects on our team and other forum users of repeated and persistent criticism. If you have a problem with Folksy, please explain the issue clearly without making derogatory comments. Do not state assumptions or opinions as fact. Including phrases such as “I think” or “in my opinion” helps avoid misinformation spreading.

If you feel someone has insulted you, do not respond. Instead flag the post or report it to us at support@folksy.co.uk, including screenshots or links to the comments.

Do not troll

Trolling is when someone posts or comments to deliberately provoke an argument or emotional reaction, or to get attention. A troll may also urge others to join in, which can lead to a “pile on” and cause someone to feel bullied or intimidated.

Trolling can also include someone continually abusing the flag system to try to shut down another user, when there is nothing in the posts against our rules.

If you feel you are being trolled, do not reply to the comments or engage with the user, as this gives them more attention and raises their visibility.

Don’t share publicly that you are being trolled or identify the person you believe is targeting you, as this spreads the content and can also provoke both further abuse towards you or sympathy for the troll. Instead report it to us at support@folksy.co.uk, including screenshots or links to the comments.

You can also ignore the user so you don’t have to read their comments while we look into it.

Trolling Folksy with negative comments across multiple social platforms is not tolerated and comments will be deleted. If you have an issue that requires a response from Folksy, please contact support@folksy.co.uk.

If you have opinions you’d like to share with the community, this is best discussed in either the forum or Clubhouse group, and we remind you to keep the comments constructive and respectful.

Do not post hateful, derogatory or vulgar content

We do not allow any hateful or discriminatory language, including but not limited to racist, sexist, xenophobic, homophobic, transphobic, agesist and ableist comments.

We do not allow hateful, abusive, offensive, threatening or unkind comments.

We do not allow pornographic content.

How to report posts, ignore another user and mute a topic in the Folksy Forum

There are features you can use on the Talk Folksy forum to give you more control over your feed, designed to help you to use the space in the way you feel is supportive, safe and enjoyable.

If you believe someone’s post has broken our rules, you can flag this by clicking the three dots directly under the post and then the flag icon. You will be given a list of reasons to choose from, and if these aren’t specific enough, you can select ‘something else’ where you’ll be able to type in more information. The Folksy team will then be alerted to the post to review it.

If there is behaviour continuing over multiple posts and threads, where simply flagging a post isn’t enough to get the full picture, you can email the details to support@folksy.co.uk.

Please only flag posts that break the rules, if it’s simply something you personally disagree with, it should not be flagged, and repeatedly flagging a user’s posts without a valid reason is considered trolling.

If you find a particular user is ruining your enjoyment of the forum, but they’re not breaking the rules, we have an ‘Ignore’ feature you can use to stop seeing their content. Click to see their profile page on the forum, click the button that says ‘Normal’ and select ‘Ignored’ from the drop down menu. The user will not be notified that you’ve ignored them.

If there are particular conversations you don’t want to see or be part of, you can use the ‘Mute’ feature. If there is a certain thread you don’t want to see, click on the thread and look for the bell icon (usually under the scroll bar and at the bottom of the thread under the final reply button). Click on this and select ‘Muted’. The thread will no longer show to you on the list of threads and notifications from the thread will be muted.

If there is a whole category of threads you don’t want to see, go to where it says ‘categories’ at the top of the forum, select the category you don’t want to see and tap the bell icon, then select ‘Muted’ from the dropdown menu. You will no longer see topics in this category on your view of the forum, but please note any threads in the category you’ve previously viewed or participated in will still show as they will automatically have been set to tracking or watching. You will need to go into these threads individually to change them to muted.

We will take action if the rules of our community policy are broken, including but not limited to:

  • Giving a polite reminder of our rules
  • Hiding posts (allowing the post to be edited to make it acceptable)
  • Deleting posts
  • Locking threads
  • Giving a formal warning
  • Temporarily suspending the user from the forum for 3 months
  • Permanently suspending the user from the forum
  • Suspending/blocking the user from all Folksy social spaces
  • In extreme cases, a seller’s Folksy account may also be suspended indefinitely

This will usually be an escalating process starting with a polite reminder, however, depending on the severity of the violation, the process may change where we deem appropriate. For example, a user could be suspended on their first offence for a clear and severe breach of our rules, or after repeated smaller violations where they have ignored previous warnings and continue to break our rules.

Any warnings will be given by the Folksy account FolksyAdmin, which all members of the Folksy team have access to. This anonymous account is used to protect the Folksy team from personal attacks and intimidation, which can happen in retaliation for users being reprimanded.