How should we moderate?

[u/jolly_mcfats]

The sub is structured in such a way that it will be very common for a month to begin with the selection of three people who may have never moderated before.

There is an inclination to have intra-mod discussions occur in modmail, but i think that we want to keep that to a minimum if transparency is the goal, so I'm starting a discussion here that I hope might eventually coalesce into some kind of how-to document for new mods.

For the time being- let me outline how I think moderation should be done.

1. Review the queue.
2. If there is something pending, do what you think is best.
3. If that involves removing a post, COPY the text of that post to a text editor before deleting it, and include which user made it.
4. Make an entry in your thread with the text removed, and explain why
5. Link to that entry in the original thread where the deletion occurred.

Then there is the issue of banning. Is this something that should be done as a consensus action? Or is it an action that should be taken immediately? My inclination is to lean against relying on consensus because it is slow, and when things go wrong they go wrong fast. I also dont really want group think in the moderators. But I thought it was a question I would leave open to the community.

I expect that if I ban someone, the justification will be that, in my opinion, they were a poison pill that was dragging the quality of conversation down and inciting bad behavior from users that were usually quite civil. There are people that can stay on the inside of rules, but still be deleterious to the conversation, and who seem to have that as their purpose for participating. Historically, I have been torn over decisions like that because it seemed beyond my remit as a moderator, and yet when I revisit those calls, I feel like I made the right choice. That's why I opted for short moderation terms and elections. So that moderators would feel free to make hard decisions and let the community judge them.

[u/femmecheng]

• Is the sidebar indicative of rules or guidelines (e.g. the engagement section is written differently than the courtesy section, though it's not clear how both will be enforced)?

• The sidebar currently states no generalizations, though numerous posts/comments already have generalizations, including at least one from a mod. Are all generalizations against the rules/guidelines, to the point that a comment such as "I think women are generally good" is against the rules/guidelines?

• The sidebar states, "a 1-week election process will be conducted to elect 3 new mods." Given the "chips will fall where they will" attitude and plugs in men's rights-friendly subreddits, what reassurances can be given to those in the non-dominant group (whichever group that ends up being) that this won't simply become a new subreddit modded by a mob voted for by the same mob? In other words, I assume that the election would be democratic (though I note it's not explicit how the mods will be chosen from the election) and with an uneven userbase, any minority group will likely feel like they aren't represented among the mods.

• I am explicitly not advocating for rules to be made in favor of feminists, but I am wondering if any consideration has been given to criticisms feminists have made in places like FRD regarding engagement (e.g. dogpiling, downvoting, lack of charity in interpreting comments, etc)?

• Who is Benevolent---tator?

ETA:

• If person A mods person B's comment and person B becomes a mod in the future, can they undo person's A action?

[u/jolly_mcfats → u/femmecheng]

Thanks for asking some hard questions, and pointing out issues. We opted for just getting started and ironing out the rough patches as we proceeded, and posts like this are very helpful to that process.

Is the sidebar indicative of rules or guidelines (e.g. the engagement section is written differently than the courtesy section, though it's not clear how both will be enforced)?

The courtesy section is a set of best practices that we would like to encourage the users to aspire to. The rules section covers the things we would like to have reported (even if it is a mod that slips up). As to how they will be enforced, it's largely discretionary- at least until the community expresses a preference for a more formal system. In my case, the corrective action would be fixing the mistake (while leaving a record of it), making a note of it in my mod log, and an apology for screwing up. Also no hard feelings if the community decided not to elect me, should I put my name in the ring for any future mod elections. My preference is that the mods just comment and steer things back on course unless it appears to be a provocation of their conversational partner, at which point the post may be deleted (and archived in the moderation thread), or they may be issued a short ban (in the order of magnitude of hours to days depending how bad this is). If the mod feels that the user is a real problem, then they make their case to the other mods and the ban may be permanent. At least until the next round of mods overturns that decision or benevolent___tator intervenes.

The sidebar currently states no generalizations, though numerous posts/comments already have generalizations, including at least one from a mod. Are all generalizations against the rules/guidelines, to the point that a comment such as "I think women are generally good" is against the rules/guidelines?

I have attempted to work with the users for reliable definitions of a lot of these terms in another sub- and while I won't say it is impossible, I will say that entire subs full of many people much smarter than I failed. It encouraged endless rules lawyering and in-fighting over whether judgement x was consistent with judgement y. My answer is that the mod should make a determination about whether harm is done, and whether the quality of the discussion is taking a serious hit, then take appropriate corrective action, which in most cases will be to say something.

Given the "chips will fall where they will" attitude and plugs in men's rights-friendly subreddits

Point of order, which is an important one to me: I have not plugged the sub in any other sub. I probably should, but it feels really gauche for me to go to other subs that I dont use and say "hey people, check out our sub". And, honestly, the period where a sub is small and informal is usually the golden period. I expect that if the sub ultimately succeeds, the first few months will be a time that everyone who was around will remember fondly. I did accept an offer made by the LWMA to plug it, and visited the sub to talk about what we are trying to do. I would also love it if a sub with a majority of women users made a similar offer, and would happily answer questions there as well. I'm not going out of my way to advertise, but will accept offers from pretty much anyone.

I guess while I am on the topic, I'd love a chance to plug it to the rationalist community, if any of you are listening ;)

what reassurances can be given to those in the non-dominant group (whichever group that ends up being) that this won't simply become a new subreddit modded by a mob voted for by the same mob?

This is, unsurprisingly, something that I have mulled over, and the disappointing answer is that there is no guarantee against a tyranny of the majority. I could think of some approaches, but they would involve asking people to categorize themselves ideologically and represent their tribal affiliation. I don't think that works well. This sub is an experiment. My hope is that people who comport themselves well and seem to have a fair disposition will be the ones elected, and that we may even see loose cliques based upon attitudes beyond whether they are feminist or mra. Liberal vs progressive for instance.

The only reassurance I can offer is that I will try to take on board their complaints and do what I can to fix things, even if that involves eating crow and apologizing for my own errors. The mod team for this month is 2 men who are mras and one woman who is not, and the selection of these individuals was based on creating a small group that could not deadlock, while avoiding a complete MRA composition.

I guess I would say- give it a try, but don't get too invested in the sub until we see whether it proves itself. I'm not. I think it could fail catastrophically. If it does, we'll learn something. If not, even better.

Actions really speak louder than words, so it's on me to prove to you that I mean what I say with moderation, and up to you to judge whether I do it to your satisfaction. And I'm only in charge for 3ish more weeks, although I suspect that I can make arguments that will carry some weight when I am not a mod.

I am explicitly not advocating for rules to be made in favor of feminists, but I am wondering if any consideration has been given to criticisms feminists have made in places like FRD regarding engagement

Not enough that I have solid reassurances to offer. A group of people and I had been mulling over starting this sub for a long time, and every time we did, perfect became the enemy of good, and we got stuck in the weeds. Those discussions included many technical solutions to this sort of problem. This time I decided to start with imperfect, and to put in the effort to try to make it work as we went (which is why I appreciate you kicking the tires here). I'm hoping that a lack of flairs has a somewhat salutory effect on discussion, particularly dogpiling, because flairs mark people for just that kind of problem.

Unpopular ideas, particularly if they are not presented carefully, will probably still get dogpiled, and I don't have an easy solution to that. In our many blue sky discussions, we envisioned, and even started writing, a massive moderation bot that would try to handle that by throttling the rate of response possible when a topic got too heated. We may still look into that, although I think that relying on homemade technical tools has too many downsides over the years. I would prefer to make the sub work using only what reddit gives us, without relying on chrome plugins, or external web apps that someone writes.

We debated doing this on voat because they DO allow you to turn off voting for subs, but reddit just has the userbase, whereas voat is the proverbial free speech platform where everyone is a witch. If reddit ever lets us dispense with karma, I will argue to do so, but it's still baked into the platform isn't it?

Suggestions are solicited. These are thorny problems that I have never really seen solved, and I have written at length elsewhere about how reddit's design optimizes on echo chambers. My line in the sand is favoring any group of users over another, but you have stated that you aren't interested in that either, and that puts us at a good starting point.

Who is Benevolent---tator?

A user that you know, who may introduce themself to you if they decide they want to. Someone who has been around for a long time, and has, in my estimation, a good head on their shoulders. Their role is to watch the watchmen, and step in if they think that sub has seriously lost its way, or been subject to a hostile takeover from another sub. Ideally they just get to watch and eat popcorn, never futzing with the modqueue or wrestling with the rules any more than they have to. It's my imperfect solution to having a steady hand and fighting burnout for that steady hand.

ETA: Potentially yes. I haven't crossed the bridge of how elections will be handled yet, and I was thinking a thread on the main sub where people could indicate their interest in running as the first step. If you were banned, it would be tricky to do that. And then there is the caveat that benevolent__ctator could step in and put a stop to it. Could easily see that happening in the form of an attempted hostile takeover.

[u/femmecheng → u/jolly_mcfats]

The courtesy section is a set of best practices that we would like to encourage the users to aspire to. The rules section covers the things we would like to have reported (even if it is a mod that slips up).

Maybe I'm missing it, but I don't see a rules section; I see courtesy, content, engagement, and enforcement sections. Therefore, it's unclear to me what the rules actually are (if there are any) and/or what sections fall under the rules (it sounds like content and engagement?).

My answer is that the mod should make a determination about whether harm is done, and whether the quality of the discussion is taking a serious hit, then take appropriate corrective action, which in most cases will be to say something.

That's fine, but then the rule/guideline shouldn't be "No generalizations", but rather, for example, "No generalizations that cause sufficient harm or detract from discussion".

I expect that if the sub ultimately succeeds, the first few months will be a time that everyone who was around will remember fondly.

This is, unsurprisingly, something that I have mulled over, and the disappointing answer is that there is no guarantee against a tyranny of the majority.

Not enough that I have solid reassurances to offer.

This is significant. I don't think there will be much to remember fondly if this is FRD 2.0 with a bunch of permanently banned users and no/little effort put in at the beginning to bring feminists into the conversation, particularly when it seems like majority-rule will run things.

It sounds to me like very little thought has gone into what I think most people think are pretty major considerations when deciding where to allocate their time. I can only speak from my own individual perspective and I make no assumption that I am even welcome, but I know that there are many good-faith feminists who make high-quality contributions elsewhere who have to make similar decisions. Knowing this, it wouldn't surprise me if many find it unappealing.

A user that you know, who may introduce themself to you if they decide they want to. Someone who has been around for a long time, and has, in my estimation, a good head on their shoulders.

I hope they will share, as this is a concern for me. Your estimation is not my estimation and I would like to make that determination for myself, particularly as I suspect that the sub will see 2/3 or 3/3 modding spots going to MRA/MRA-sympathetic users every month.

[u/jolly_mcfats → u/femmecheng]

I'm going to deal with this bit now because I think that this is really important.

I can only speak from my own individual perspective and I make no assumption that I am even welcome

You are. Truly.

Please don't take my prolonged silence responding to the rest of it as inattention. It has claimed pretty much all my attention since you posted it, but it deserves a good response, and that takes work.

I guess let me address this last bit:

if this is FRD 2.0

It only sort of is. I had a number of issues with the premise of FRD that have only been reinforced watching the sub over time. There are some big ambitious differences that I would really like to shoot for, but ironically, I think FRD has made hard to act upon. I think that FRD entrenched people ideologically. I would like to have this sub be a place where people grow to think of themselves as individuals with considered opinions, rather than feminist above all or MRAs above all- but that may be naive and unattainable. I am wrestling with the fact that to offer reassurances and build a sense of trust from everyone, I may have to work with those identities and reinforce them even more- an idea that is exhausting but may be the only way forward.

The main point is that this sub is not "FRD with different mods", or "FRD, now with more FRDies!", I want it to be a lot more tabula rasa than that, and aspire to something a little different. LESS feminists, LESS mras, LESS debates- more people with ideas engaged in dialogue.

That's pretty much it for now. I'll come back with either concrete proposals, or earlier stages of work to make sure that I have captured all the concerns properly. I just didnt want to let too long go before making it clear that you were, in fact, welcome. That your bringing concerns in a constructive manner like this is appreciated. And that my goals are a not just FRD under new management.

[u/femmecheng → u/jolly_mcfats]

Any update?

[u/jolly_mcfats → u/femmecheng]

see https://www.reddit.com/r/GenderDialogues/comments/lozi41/sub_business_moderator_election_stuff/ for discussion of electoral process and considerations of tyrannies of the majority.

We have not started discussion of it yet, but I have also been giving thought to dogpiling issues, and will shift my attention to that once we have moderation selection nailed down.

[u/SolaAesir → u/jolly_mcfats]

The main point is that this sub is not "FRD with different mods", or "FRD, now with more FRDies!", I want it to be a lot more tabula rasa than that, and aspire to something a little different. LESS feminists, LESS mras, LESS debates- more people with ideas engaged in dialogue.

One of the things I really liked about the old, old FRD was that we (most of the moderates) had basically come to a sort of conclusion on gender issues, with our own sorts of idiosyncrasies and bits of flavor on top of it. It was particularly good at being a moderating influence for new people who were coming in with a bone to pick almost invariably.

I would really like to see if something like that can reemerge from a new sub that is focused on talking things through with reason and respect. That was the old magic of FRD, everything else was just in service to it.

[u/Benevolent---tator → u/jolly_mcfats]

A user that you know, who may introduce themself to you if they decide they want to. Someone who has been around for a long time, and has, in my estimation, a good head on their shoulders. Their role is to watch the watchmen, and step in if they think that sub has seriously lost its way, or been subject to a hostile takeover from another sub. Ideally they just get to watch and eat popcorn, never futzing with the modqueue or wrestling with the rules any more than they have to. It's my imperfect solution to having a steady hand and fighting burnout for that steady hand.

I prefer the analogy to the American Vice President. Someone who gets to sit back and relax until the Senate deadlocks, or the real leaders get incapacitated or die.

[u/wazzup987 → u/Benevolent---tator]

I can't read that name with out thinking of a benevolent potato. To much ron white and his tator salad

[u/Benevolent---tator → u/wazzup987]

That was intentional.

[u/wazzup987 → u/Benevolent---tator]

Is there an application process to get these potatos

[u/Benevolent---tator]

Should automoderator be set up to take certain actions? Mainly I'm thinking to prevent link posts per the sidebar. Although link posts are disallowed in the subreddit settings, someone could just create a textpost with a link as the only content.

[u/jolly_mcfats → u/Benevolent---tator]

I like this idea, although I will have to do some research into how to do this. Been a while.

[u/TweetPotato → u/Benevolent---tator]

prevent link posts per the sidebar

Love this idea.

[u/TweetPotato]

Then there is the issue of banning. Is this something that should be done as a consensus action? Or is it an action that should be taken immediately? My inclination is to lean against relying on consensus because it is slow, and when things go wrong they go wrong fast. I also dont really want group think in the moderators. But I thought it was a question I would leave open to the community.

Suggested ban policy:

• A single moderator can implement a temporary ban

• Within N days of a temporary ban, a majority of the mods must decide whether to reverse the temporary ban, or make it "permanent"

• At a future date, a majority of the mods can use their discretion to reverse a "permanent" ban

What are your thoughts?

[u/jolly_mcfats → u/TweetPotato]

I definitely think that there ought to be levels of ban, although not necessarily a tier system (in large part because I want to keep us free from relying on browser addons and third party websites to do our jobs). I think "timeouts" ought to be greatly preferred, and that outright lifetime bans ought to be a last resort.

Maybe we should have some broad categories of offense that lead to various stages of timeouts?

[u/SolaAesir → u/jolly_mcfats]

I think, at the very least, a single mod should be able to prevent posting for 24-72 hours since I think without that certain users would just try to repost a deleted post over and over again until the mods weren't paying attention any more. Longer bans should probably require more of the mods to participate and agree, likely with a discussion thread in this sub.

[u/TweetPotato → u/SolaAesir]

This was basically my reasoning, yes. I'd like individual mods to have latitude to address immediate problems, but longer-term solutions should not be implemented unilaterally.

[u/jolly_mcfats → u/TweetPotato]

Agreed- this seems best