Online Kindness

A small but meaningful TSNC feature that recognizes staff for positive online behavior: reporting suspicious emails, helping colleagues, completing training, modeling good habits. Optional, opt-in, and tuned for faith-based communities.

What it is

Online Kindness is a recognition system that surfaces and celebrates positive behaviors rather than just catching mistakes. When a teacher reports a phishing email that protects their colleagues, that's a kindness. When someone helps a coworker recover their account, that's a kindness. We made a system to spot and surface these.

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Why this is different
Most cybersecurity training products are built around fear and consequence: "don't click, you'll be in trouble." That works for a few weeks, then people get tired of it. Online Kindness is the opposite framing: "here's what you did well, here's how you protected your community." Long-term, that builds the cultural habit you're actually trying to create.

What gets recognized

  • Phishing reports — every report earns a kindness point. The bar is intentionally low; we want people reporting freely.
  • Training completion — finishing a module on time
  • Catching simulated phishing — extra recognition for catching the harder ones
  • Mentoring — admins can manually recognize a teacher who helped colleagues with a security situation
  • Streak rewards — sustained good behavior over weeks/months gets badges

The kindness threshold

You set a threshold: how many kindness points per month earns a recognition. Default is 5. Below that, no fanfare; above, a small recognition (a badge, a mention in the weekly digest, optionally a printable certificate).

Adjust the threshold under Settings → Online Kindness. Higher threshold = scarcer, more meaningful recognition. Lower = more frequent low-key acknowledgment. Pick what fits your culture.

The Kindness Badges page

Under Insights → Online Kindness, you see your school's kindness leaderboard for the current month. It celebrates the top performers without shaming anyone at the bottom. Staff see their own page; only admins see the full leaderboard.

For Catholic schools specifically

The kindness framing draws from Catholic social teaching — caring for community, taking responsibility for protecting one another, recognizing virtue. The default badge names for Catholic schools reference saints associated with vigilance and protection (St. Michael, St. Joseph as protector). For non-Catholic schools, the names are tradition- appropriate or generic. Configure in your faith tradition setting.

Disabling Online Kindness

Some schools don't want gamification at all — they prefer pure security training without the badge layer. Disable Online Kindness under Settings; staff still get all the same protections, but no recognition or leaderboard. The toggle is on the Org Settings page, and the change is logged in the Activity Log.

FAQ

Does this turn into a popularity contest?+
It can if you let it. The default settings keep recognition modest. If you notice it tipping into competitive territory or causing tension, lower the threshold so more people qualify, or disable the leaderboard view (keep individual recognition without public ranking).
Can a staff member opt out individually?+
Yes — they can hide themselves from the leaderboard in their personal settings. They'll still earn points and get individual recognition; they just won't appear publicly.
What's the relationship between kindness points and trust scores?+
They're different. Trust score is a security health metric (catch rates, vault hygiene, training completion). Kindness points are a recognition currency. High trust score and low kindness usually means "solid practitioner who isn't flashy about it" — that's fine.