Moderation Workflow for Ended Petitions

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Ending Campaigns

When a petition creator is done running their campaign, they can mark it as ended by going to the petition's Settings page and clicking the End Campaign button.

After clicking to end their campaign, a pop-up box will appear asking the petition creator for more information about why they've decided to stop their campaign.

Ended campaigns are added to the moderation queue with the status Ended and must be approved by admins. To moderate an ended campaign, go to the admin homepage > Tasks > Moderation and click the Moderate button next to the petition you want to moderate. This moderation queue shows all items awaiting moderation. If needed, you can add a Type filter to only see petitions.

The top of the modal explains whether this petition was marked as a success (the header will say "Ended Petition (Victory)"), a loss (the header will say ""Ended Petition (Defeat)"), or if it was ended for some other reason ("Ended Petition (Other)"). The header also contains a drop down from which you can choose to Approve the ending of the campaign or Reactivate it. 

This page includes the information provided by the petition creator, including whether the campaign was won or lost and their reason for ending it.

From here, admins can choose to Approve the ending of the campaign or Reactivate it, if they feel it should continue.

If you choose to Reactivate the campaign, it will continue as normal and the petition page will not be changed.

Ended Story

If the admin decides to Approve the ending of the campaign, they can choose if they want to publish the petition creator's reason for ending the campaign. This reason for signing may be useful in a few ways:

• If the campaign was a success, you can use the ended story to celebrate your victory, explain how it happened, and provide inspiration for other campaign creators.
• If the campaign was lost, you can explain what happened, provide supporters with a road map for next steps, and share any lessons learned.

If you decide to publish the campaign creator's reason for ending the campaign, it will be displayed near the top of the petition page. Admins can also edit this ended story by clicking the pencil icon in the moderation queue. If you leave this box blank, or decide not to publish the ended story, we'll use some default text that explains the campaign has ended without providing additional details. An example of an ended, and lost, campaign with default text is below.

If the campaign was marked as won, and you choose not to publish the ended story, the petition page will not be updated with our usual successful petition display. Instead, it will look like above. However, if the campaign was marked as won by the petition creator and you do choose to display the petition creator's ended story, then the petition page will be updated in a few ways:

• The customized success story will appear at the top of the page.
• The petition's timeline will be updated with a story that includes the number of signatures the petition had when it was marked as a success.
• A banner will appear above the petition's signature form that designates the campaign as a success.

Petition Image by Mockaroon on Unsplash

Petition Page for Ended Campaigns

When a campaign is ended, the petition page will be updated.

• If the campaign was marked as lost or ended for some other reason, the petition page will beupdated to include the ended story.
• If the campaign was marked as won, and the petition creator's success story was not published, the petition page will be updated to include the default 'This campaign has ended' story.
• If the campaign was marked as won, and the petition creator's success story was published, the petition page will be updated to include the success story, the successful campaign banner, and the timeline update.

Regardless of the status of the ended campaign, visitors to an ended campaign's petition page will, by default, still be able to sign the campaign.

If you want to hide the signature form, and not collect additional signatures, you can do so from the petitions Admin page > Settings tab. From here, if you expand the Signature Form section, you'll see the option to Hide signature form. Move this toggle to yes, and the signature form will be hidden.

Ended vs. Active Campaigns

When a campaign is marked as ended we will, by default, continue to display the signature form and accept new signatures. (We have seen many issues that seemed to be won or lost, but then something happens and the issue opens up again. If this happens, you'll be able to start running the campaign again quickly, and you'll have grown the campaign's supporter base while the issue was dormant.)

Ended campaigns will also still be included in search results and the site directory (depending on their moderation status).

The main difference between ended and active campaigns is that with ended campaigns, the encouragement emails that we normally send to petition creators are turned off.

If the petition creator chooses to reactivate the campaign after its ending has been approved, the petition will be returned to the moderation queue and given the status Reactivated. This article will give you more information about moderating reactivated petitions.

In addition to the actions of petition creators, administrators can also choose to mark petitions as ended and/or successful from the petition's admin page. Begin by going to the petition > Admin > Admin Settings > Ended and Won. From this section, you'll see the various options available to you.

[If you're following the new CSL admin tutorial, we'll look at spam petitions next.]