Parents NetworkParents Network

The problem

Communities for parents attract exactly the bad actors you would expect, and discussions involving children carry a duty of care a general forum does not. Safety could not be a feature added at the end - it had to be what the architecture was organised around.

What we built

• Activity feed scoped to the groups a member actually belongs to
• Moderation queue with escalation paths and a full audit trail
• Reporting flows fast enough that people actually use them
• Granular controls over what each group can see
• Data handling designed around children's-privacy obligations

Tools for the people doing the work

Moderation is done by humans, usually volunteers, usually on a phone, usually in gaps in their day. We built the moderator tools with the same care as the member-facing product: fast triage, clear context, and no ambiguity about what an action will do. Poor tooling is the main reason volunteer moderators burn out.

Why the feed is chronological

Within the groups you have joined, posts appear in order. In a support community an algorithm optimising for engagement surfaces the most alarming content - which is precisely the opposite of what a worried parent at two in the morning needs.