This was our official 'FAQ' page up until 03/12/2017 when we decided to just scrap it. Since some months beforehand it slowly became more and more outdated, but we kept it up just in case. It was first created after our first major 'scandal' involving some posts and messages of one of our admins to publicly codify what we do, but since then became less and less relevant. Now we are operating on a different set of policies; although the influence of this is evident, it seems that sticking to these principles is ultimately unsustainable on a third-party platform such as Facebook. As such, we dropped them.
Nonetheless, we've left this up here for whoever's interested. Do with it as you wish. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Since the page became popular, we have adopted a set of words for specific purposes. These are as follows:
There is no intended implication regarding any of these word choices; they merely seemed the most practical when we started using language consistently.
Our primary mode of receiving content is through our 3rd-party application on CrushNinja. This allows an author to send in text and/or an image, whereupon we are notified through Facebook. Once we have logged into CrushNinja through our administrator-enabled Facebook accounts, we can read the submission. Other data displayed include a timestamp and a rough geolocation, typically the county or nearest city. We do not receive any uniquely identifying information, such as IP address, random ID number, or associated Facebook account (if accessed through our page's portal).
We also accept submissions from direct messages to the page. Here, we are able to see the name and public profile of the author, but do not publish any of this information on principle. We do save all messages in an archive. Nonetheless, we deal with many such requests every day, and so do not try to memorise names or past interactions.
Lastly, you may write posts on the page's timeline as a guest. These so-called visitor posts are, by default, hidden from the page's audience. If we notice one (which could take a few days), we will privately contact the author and ask if they wish the post to be shared (thus revealing their name), or reposted anonymously. Please only use this method if you want your Facebook account specifically to be shared along with the submission.
Both Facebook and CrushNinja seem to compress (degrade) images submitted through them. For this reason, we suggest that you upload files to a 3rd-party host and then link it to us. We recommend vgy.me and Imgur as suitable hosts.
Our inspiration for the page's creation is unequivocally due to Grudgebridge, which is effectively the University of Cambridge's equivalent of our page. We created the page on 8th February 2017, but left it unpublished until noticing Oxlove's existence (itself inspired by Crushbridge). This spurred us to publish the page. Since then, we have run non-stop, and we do not plan to end any time soon.
Our page picture is a parody of the crest of University of Oxford, created by a member of the administration. The cover photo is an edit of a frequently used image of the Oxford evening skyline, notably used in various University of Oxford pages and various other smaller websites. This was also made by the same member of the administration. We are happy to release it under the Creative Commons BY-SA license in case anyone is interested.
Neither Oxfeud nor its administration endorse any material published on the page.
We receive many submissions of many different kinds. Some of these align with our personal viewpoints; some do not. The same goes for alignment with the viewpoint of so-called general public. We are committed to impartiality and, provided it does not violate our rules, we feel an obligation to publish it. We believe that no idea is above criticism or scepticism, and this extends to matters that some may consider sensitive or close-to-heart. Although we must operate within the confines of U.K. law, we will refuse to stifle a voice simply because it is disagreeable.
If you come across something disagreeable, the choice rests on you to decide your response. Facebook's algorithms cause posts with more comments to be more visible, so please do be aware that attempting to refute a post may increase its viewership. Regardless, we do encourage civil discussion (especially) with those of opposing opinions, and would very highly support that over hurling insults in the comments.
If you are sensitive to any of these topics, please consider unliking, hiding, or blocking the page.
Inevitably, anonymity grants the feeling of power. While, on one hand, it enables truly hilarious submissions to be written, on the other hand it does also provide a font for bigotry. This bigotry has and can take on many forms, including:
We have treated cases where submissions target racial demographics as per the U.K. legal system requires to the best of our ability.
There have been submissions expressing an intolerance for homosexuality, bisexuality, and other minority sexualities. Equally, there have been submissions targetting the heterosexual demographic. Provided that the submission obeys our rules and is not considered a hate crime under U.K. law, we will accept it.
A common form of bigotry that occurs through Oxfeud is that of classism. We have accepted many submissions that generalise those of higher wealth negatively, as well as submissions generalising those of lower wealth. Once again, we judge these issues based on our rules and the U.K. legal structure rather than our personal beliefs about class characteristics.
We have chosen, in line with all other decisions, to hold the notion of gender identity as subjective and open to interpretation. This means that, at times, we do receive submissions expressing doubt over the validity of particular identities. We have chosen to remain consistent and do not exempt such posts provided they are legal. We reiterate that the views submitted are not ours and that content warnings are provided should readers be particularly sensitive to such topics.
Prior to the creation of Oxfeud 2: Political Boogaloo, we received many submissions that purely targetted ideologies rather than the actions undertaken by members thereof. These, at times, culminated in exchanges of insults rather than discussion. The former is a signifier of bigotry, but we allow it (on Oxfeud 2 only now) provided that it would not be considered a hate crime.
etc.
In all cases, we do not consider any specific direction of bigotry worse than another. If we would accept an identically phrased submission targeting one demographic, in the interests of impartiality we allow the reverse to occur.
Both Oxford and the wider world have many differing viewpoints. It would be foolish to self-righteously place our own beliefs above that of anyone else's, and would be a detriment to the page to stifle the wide range of opinions simply because we disagree. Of course, legal restrictions apply, and we will not knowingly post anything that violates U.K. laws. If you think we do, please send us a message so we can resolve it quickly.
Nothing published on Oxfeud is necessarily factual and should not be treated as a news outlet. This includes both value judgements and anecdotes of any kind. Please be aware that the anonymous nature of the page means that fakery could be easily executed.
Since posts should have anonymous targets, there is little way to prove that one is false. However, when writing about organisations, we do delete posts that are libelous. If a post is factually incorrect and is legally defamation, please contact us so we can review it. We appreciate it if some form of evidence is presented, though it is not strictly required.
The first rule implemented was that of anonymity. All submissions' authors are not included when posted, to the extent that we typically adjust submissions in case they are signed-off with name. Moreover, we believe that submissions' targets should remain anonymous to the general public. This does not mean that no information should be given; if there were no identifiers, we would have no content.
Here's an analogy we like to give to help explain it. Imagine that some couple were having loud sex in a certain accommodation block (as happens surprisingly frequently, judging by our posts). The person inhabiting the room below writes a submission about it, referring to the individuals having sex as "the people in Accommodation Block having loud sex". Is this anonymous? One would surely think so, as there is insufficient information to discern the targets' identities. However, other people in that same block could have heard the sound coming from a certain room, and thus work out their identities. Does this mean that the submission itself is no longer anonymous? Again, no, as the neighbours employed additional knowledge to make the judgement.
The administration, of course, does not exist across the university, in every college, and in every social clique; the same can be said for practically anyone. We are unaware of the vast majority of situations causing the submissions to be written. Therefore, when we make judgements, we must make judgements based on what the submission says and that alone.
Another factor we use to determine anonymity is that of plausible deniability. That is, if a submission claims something of an organisation, the target is considered anonymous if members of this organisation can plausibly deny involvement. For example, a reference to a comment a "SomethingSoc member" made is permitted, as each person within that demographic can easily dismiss the allegation to an individual lacking any additional information.
Nonetheless, we do exercise contextual awareness where relevant. For example, smaller colleges typically only have one student for a given joint honours subject per year. For this reason, the standard identifier of "nth year subject college" becomes uniquely identifying, and will require editing. However, once again, we have not memorised all university data; if something is uniquely identifying, it is best to send us a message so we can fix it quickly.
There are presently 3 rules being enforced:
Rules 1 and 2 were first created near the inception of the page. The former exists as an initial defence against the page devolving into insults both petty and otherwise, and preventing hate speech for legal purposes. The latter is so to formalise the page's purpose. Lastly, Rule 3 was created following the announcement of the 8th June 2017 U.K. general elections: the administration determined that cross-party feuding would envelop the page's content, which lead to the creation of Oxfeud 2: Political Boogaloo. We do not have any strict definitions for what is 'political', so responses for this may vary until we do.
When we receive a submission, we make a judgement whether it follows our rules. To determine if it follows Rule 1 when the target is a specific person, we look for reference to a voluntary action. If we are unable to find fault in the target without reliance upon the author's assessment of a subjective characteristic, we typically deem it unsuitable. As for Rule 2, we consider the demographic that the post refers to. If it is suitably large, then we consider it anonymous and accept it. If the submission refers to a political stance without reference to a single person/organisation's actions or statements, then we typically deem it in violation of Rule 3 and either delete the submission or move it to Oxfeud 2.
For example: "stop leaving the kitchen in a mess" is acceptable; "you're a bad person" is not. Similarly: "3rd year College" is acceptable; "3rd year Subject College JCR president" is not. We would accept "stop spamming political posts"; "Ideology is wrong" would be denied.
Of course, the administration is comprised of humans who are indeed fallible. Although we strive to be fair and consistent arbiters, sometimes a rogue submission is published. In this case, when we are made aware of it and re-assess it as in violation of our rules, we will delete the post without warning.
At times, the submission is valid, save for a certain term or phrase. In this case, we will edit out the compromising portion rather than delete the full submission. This practice is also carried out on unpublished submissions if we are able to catch it in time.
For transparency, we record the number of times we have edited or deleted submissions and posts at the bottom of the pinned post which contains the rules.
Facebook employs computerised moderation methods, which automatically flags certain words. Since this is a computer that deals with a large amount of material, it lacks the ability to recognise nuance or context. Certain words are known to trigger this process to report and delete posts without our ability to contest it. When this happens, the account responsible for posting the material receives a post block, whereby the account is suspended from all interaction (besides viewing) of material both on Facebook and Messenger.
To avoid this, we will censor certain words with asterisks (*), whilst leaving the first and last letters so that you can still understand the intended words. Although we are aware of a number of words that have caused issues in the past, but as a precaution we will also pseudo-censor other words that we believe could be flagged in the future.
Swear words (e.g. fuck, shit, etc.) are typically fine; most of the issues come from words that can potentially be used as a racial or homophobic slur, even if that is not always the case.
We accept authors choosing to redact their submissions after submitting or publication. To do so, you will need to present some sort of proof of identity. If you have submitted through direct message, this is easily verifiable by looking at the previous messages. As for CrushNinja submissions, we will make a judgement depending on the time discrepancy between the original submission and the subsequent (still anonymous) request of redaction. Typically there are no issues with this, though, and we will gladly remove scheduled posts before they are published.
We head posts pertaining to sensitive topics with content warnings, demarcated by CW followed by the relevant tags. Currently, we tag the following topics:
If you come across a post that you feel should contain a content warning, please message us and we can see to it. In the past, we did not include content warnings in our posts. Therefore, please exercise discretion when browsing older posts.
If you find any content particularly distasteful, we suggest that you unlike, hide, or block the page.
Although each member of the administration is currently a student at the University of Oxford, we do not and will not divulge any specifics of our identities.
Besides Oxfeud, we also manage Oxfeud 2: Political Boogaloo, to cater for the political (pseudo-)discussion that once dominated the main page itself.
We maintain a friendly relationship with Oxlove and Oxfess, and have exchanged contact details privately. We share no part in their administration, nor they in ours. We are also unaffiliated to the other popular Oxford-related pages, e.g. Oxmeme or The Memeing Spires of Oxford.
We are an independent group operating an independent platform. We have no affiliation with the University of Oxford. We do not represent, nor claim to represent, anyone but ourselves. We are neither endorsed nor acknolwedged by them.
The same disclaimer extends to other businesses and organisations as well, even if singular posts may imply otherwise.
We are currently not seeking additional management positions. If running the page becomes too much hassle for our current administration, we will find a way to keep the page running in our absence.
We are not yet masters at legalese! If you have a suggestion about our rules, we will gladly review it.
If you have any other content or comments you'd like to share with us, do get in touch. If you'd like to remain anonymous, you can use the email address at the bottom of this page.
Thanks!
It varies.
We try to balance our posting rate to avoid spamming your feed (and diluting the attention of funny or intriguing posts). Our ideal aim would be to post everything immediately, but that is, of course, infeasible. We have set the lower limit for the duration between posts to half an hour; that means we currently post 48 times per day. Now that the backlog has been reduced considerably, we are more likely to post your submission sooner. Nonetheless, please allow up to 24 hours!
Although we do edit minorly infracting posts, sometimes it's not just a simple term or phrase. For example, "John Smith of College is an awful human being" violates both Rule 1 and Rule 2, and no amount of editing will preserve the original meaning without still breaking the rules. These submissions will not be posted.
Currently, we have a bit of a backlog. This means that there might simply be more submissions before yours. We can't really help this without either compromising on impartiality (by selecting 'important' posts) or spamming your news feed. Wait a day or so; if it's still not up, send us a message to check! If you have an 'urgent' submission, send us a message too, and we'll see what we can do.
We post lots of stuff, and Facebook's algorithms mean that you won't always see all of them. It could be that we already have posted it, but you just didn't see it. You can either check by scrolling through our page history, doing a search with a few keywords, or asking us directly.
We probably don't, actually!
Facebook's algorithms are mystical, eldritch things, but they are intended to show you content that you are interested in. Note that this isn't necessarily what you want to see, because, to Facebook, if you interact (react, comment, share, even click the 'see more' button) with something, you want to see it. This means that some keywords, such as political topics, social activism, etc., may cause a post to appear on your timeline more prominently. As we do not advertise or boost content, naturally we have very little control over what gets shown to you personally.
If you take a look through all the posts sequentially, you'll notice that there's actually a lot of variance. Either way, we can only post that which you, our audience, send to us. If you think something is lacking, be the one to mention it!
Lastly, we feel it's pertinent to mention that interacting with a post increases its reach. Every interaction has a chance to appear on an unrelated friend's feed, and we cannot control that either. Every now and then certain topics' popularities do spike, but it'll certainly drop off after a day or so.
Each evening, one of us spends roughly one hour scheduling posts for the next 24 hours. Responding to messages, mentions, and comments can typically take up to another one or two hour per day collectively.
Besides a few at the page's inception to get the ball rolling, we have collectively posted 5-10 of our own submissions. We tend not to post about our own gripes out of personal choice rather than any principled reason. When we do write submissions ourselves, we definitely don't give them any special ranking in the post schedule, so don't worry about us monopolising the page for our own ends. 😉
No. We're students.
We don't use Facebook's advertising services, nor do we 'boost' any of our posts for greater publicity. What you see from us is what we're sent, plus the popularity that you, our audience, choose to give it.