What is Misfit Guardians?
[Definition as of March 16th 2025]
Misfit Guardians is volunteer run free service for people who don't feel like they fit in anywhere. The name implies that anyone involved with this project is acting like a guardian angel for the people who feel like misfits in this world. The service has the following components:
1] A membership sign up Google Form. Signing up to the form allows people who don't feel like they fit in anywhere to be added to a private Google Sheet of others who feel the same. Administrators of the Google Sheet can use that information to send people on the Google Sheet communications, e.g. newsletters, or invites to upcoming virtual community meetups. I.e. basically resources that people who don't feel like they fit in anywhere might find useful. We also have an opt-in HubSpot CRM form members can fill in if they want to give permission for volunteers to send information to members, on the project's behalf, using HubSpot CRM. If not, communication is restricted to coming only from the administrators of the membership Google Sheet. The membership sign up form also allows members to optionally share member's preferred social media which allows, if the project has a presence on that social media, the project to follow members on that social media. If members don't follow our account back (usually @misfitguardians) we will unfollow the project's account from that member's account. The purpose of this is a) to have a social media method for sharing resources useful to the community and b) people who don't feel like they fit in anywhere can browse our mutual followers list to see who else also doesn't feel like they fit in anywhere. Effectively this helps people who felt isolated before, feel not so isolated as there now exists a way to find / connect with others who feel the same and/or for a possible community to evolve that provides resources and supports each other. We have various community standards we expect of users to keep this project a safe and supportive one for all involved and they are detailed on the membership sign up Google Form at:
https://forms.gle/mJjxFB5vPRTsyGZe8
2] Because this is a volunteer run project we don't have full-time availability to provide regular virtual community meetups. Community meetups thus need to be driven by the community itself and their interest level and availability. We thus have provided a DIY scheduler Google Form where anyone, not just existing members of the community, can suggest a date / time for a community meetup and we will see if administrators for this project / other community members / volunteers can be coordinated to make a community meetup happen on that date / time. Once a consensus has been reached, upcoming dates for community meetups will be added to form and anyone who meets our attendance criteria can use the form to indicate they would like to attend that meetup. More details about our attendance criteria and community safety and behavior expectations are detailed on the scheduler Google Form at:
https://forms.gle/TZkWTVzKUB7y1Dje9
We are not specifically targeting the service to any particular location, but anyone based in the UK, and anyone outside the UK interacting with anyone based in the UK, needs to be aware of the following terms of use that go beyond the basic community guidelines and processes that are detailed on the Google forms, and take into account UK regulations in particular:
Prohibited content / behavior + guidance in response to prohibit content / behavior.
When using our service (e.g. by taking part in a community Google Meet video call we host, or interacting with us, or other members, on social media, or by any other means) you must not engage in anything which is illegal under the laws in any part of the United Kingdom and you must not use our community service to facilitate or commit any offence under the laws in any part of the United Kingdom.
Of particular note, the UK's Ofcom regulatory body has written guidance on what content / behavior meets illegality thresholds that are the focus of section 192 of the UK Online Safety Act 2023 (the ‘Act’). The Act introduces a new legal concept of ‘illegal content’, which is used in the risk assessment duties and safety duties for service providers. Administrators of the Misfit Guardians project will refer to this guidance when deciding to either a) take proactive measures to prevent the chance of offences happening via our service, or b) deciding whether a user of our service (or a non-user of our service attempting to interact with our community) has met a prohibited content / behavior threshold.
If you are a UK based person using our service, or a non-UK based person using our service likely to interact with a UK based person via our service, we would advise that you read and understand Ofcom's illegality threshold guidance here:
because this is the best way for you to help our community maintain a welcoming and safe space for all our users by understanding a) what not to post (e.g. to the group chat when taking part in a community Google Meet meetup), and b) how not to act (e.g. when browsing our follower list on social media and deciding to interact with our followers yourself), and c) what to look out for (in case any of our users, or people outside of the community, interact in problematic ways with our community, e.g. on social media), and d) what to report (email us at privacy@misfitguardians.org if it's something we can do something about, or contact the relevant law enforcement if it's a criminal matter). Ofcom has additional detail about the context and nature of problematic behavior (how it manifests, where it's like to occur, etc) which is edifying for everyone to read to understand much of the digital threats people face today in its "register of risks" document, that you can read here:
Actions we may take to protect our community from illegal content, include, but are not limited to:
i) immediately shutting down any Google Meet where a guest has posted prohibited content (to limit that contents reach) and emailing attendees why we took that action. We pre-screen all guests by video call to ensure they are not a bot, and that they can provide 3rd party privacy respecting age verification, before they are permitted entrance to our meetups to lower the risk of this happening. Because we have each video call guest's email and contact information for their emergency contact, there are a number of contact points for taking disciplinary or punitive actions if appropriate, and this lack of being able to be completely anonymous from admin is an inherent deterrant that lowers illegal content / behavior exposure risk for our community. If you believe we made a mistake in a meetup shut down decision, or wish to appeal a punitive decision, or wish to report problematic content / behavior that affects our community please email privacy@misfitguardians.org . Meetups will be restarted or rescheduled once any problematic situation has been dealt with and we feel it is safe for our community to reconvene.
ii) blocking social media users (whether they are members or not of our community) who send our social media accounts problematic content or interact with our social media accounts in problematic ways (and reporting those users to the social media platform, or appropriate authority, as prudent). We may advise our community to similarly block / report such users also. While moderation of social media sites is ultimately the responsibility of those social media sites (we are not a social media site, we just have profiles on various external social media sites), please send us any tips (via DM on social media, or via email at privacy@misfitguardians.org) you have of any prohibited content or behavior that is targeting anyone of us in our community over social media and we will take what actions are appropriate and within in our power to assist.
iii) we may sometimes use Google Drive to share useful resources with our community. These shared Google Folders are usually read-only so there is low risk of anyone uploading problematic content to a shared file space. If the community ever needs to collaborate on a Google Doc or Google Folder, access will usually only be granted to trusted individuals and content needs to stay within our community guidelines, never be prohibitied content / behavior according to UK law, and meet Google's own terms and conditions for using their storage space. There should be no situation where anonymous users can upload whatever they want to shared collaboration spaces. Admin, or approved volunteers, will moderate any collaborative space and take appropriate actions to keep prohibited content / perpetrators of prohibited content away from our community and / or reported if need be.
Actions we may take to protect our community from problematic behavior:
i) if we see any user causing distress to another user or engaging in behavior that will likely have that outcome we will enact punitive protocols toward that user depending on the offence.
ii) because problematic behavior may happen outside of systems we control (e.g. people messaging each other in DMs on external social media) we strongly encourage anyone who feels uncomfortable with any interaction related to our community (from members of our community or people external to our community who appear to be targeting our community) to DM us on social media or to email us at privacy@misfitguardians.org to bring the matter to our attention so we may proceed as appropriate and within our power). All our Google Meet meetups do not have any private direct message user to user functions, so all text chats in a meetup should be visibile to the whole group, which lessens the risk of anyone behaving inappropriately in a hidden way.
iii) as you will see from our membership and scheduling Google Forms, much of the text on those forms is about the community standards we expect from members of our community or people engaging with us only for the occasional meetup. People who don't feel like they fit in anywhere tend to already struggle with social isolation and so we want to create a warm, welcoming and safe community where every one of our users can feel like they belong here. As long as the community agrees to maintain that goal, much of the problematic behavior Ofcom is concerned about should not happen. Being mindful of one's own mental health and capacity to interact with groups is important so we hope our community feels supported when we meetup, but is also mindful to not engage with the community if the effort required to maintain a safe, welcoming, space for others is not possible at any given time. Admin or our volunteer team can assist with these matters but we draw the line if behavior veers toward violating UK law and we will take any actions needed to protect the community from harm, or anyone from our community causing harm to others.
Complaints
If you would like to make a complaint about anything happening in our community (or as a result of our community), or about anyone from our community whose behavior has been problematic, or about any decision or action we have taken as administrators, please email privacy@misfitguardians.org with your concern. If you do not believe we have, or can, resolve a complaint to your satisfaction it may be best to seek outside counsel to help you determine what you would like to do. Either way privacy@misfitguardians.org is our best contact email.
Protecting children
No one under 18 is allowed into our community. (See our Google Forms for our age verification process). Not admitting children into our community does not mean we are an "adult content service", it just means we don't have the capacity to be a youth counseling service at this time. If you are under 18, or are the parent of someone under 18, who does not feel like they fit in anywhere please research services targeted for that age range instead of applying to our service. If anyone has resources that are appropriate for that population and would like to share them with us so we can refer people under 18, or parents of people under 18, to more appropriate services than ours, please email privacy@misfitguardians.org.