The challenges of forum moderation

[qubit]

Interesting article on what it takes to be a content moderator at the major sites like Facebook and YouTube.

Moderation basics apply to any kind of forum, whether video, text or other, especially where it concerns extremes of one sort or another, free speech and censorship. One thing is clear however: the job can take a lot of your time and be quite stressful, even traumatic at times.

Please vote in the poll - it's anonymous so there's no comeback on you.

www.theverge.com/2016/4/13/11387934/internet-moderator-history-youtube-facebook-reddit-censorship-free-speech

NOTE: This thread isn't about TPU, but forums and online free speech in general and could be controversial, so please keep it friendly people.

 

[natr0n]

Best part about being a moderator is you can always resign.

 

[dorsetknob]

Its a responsibility not to be taken lightly
good moderators can make a site good to be a member of
Bad or Poor choices can ruin a site by driving away Decent members
Be wary of people that crave to be appointed

 

[Caring1]

I used to be a Moderator on a major Australian media site, but that ended when they closed the forums and moved their social media attention to Face Book.
Fortunately for us there is no such thing as free speech in Australia and rules were there and had to be abided by.
For those that chose to sign up and they cry censorship we only had to point out the rules they agreed to upon signing up.

 

[Mussels]

This should prove an interesting read, as a a mod here and admin at GN.

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

I would like to moderate the site i got banned from last weekend.

 

[Mussels]

sounds about right.

you're enforcing guidelines everyone interprets differently, even between staff - and its multiplied between regional and cultural differences.

So there is the never ending dance where one thing is OK and a slightly worded difference is bad, and many people do not care about the difference - or actively argue about it because they want their variant OK too.

 

[Niteblooded]

sounds about right.

you're enforcing guidelines everyone interprets differently, even between staff - and its multiplied between regional and cultural differences.

So there is the never ending dance where one thing is OK and a slightly worded difference is bad, and many people do not care about the difference - or actively argue about it because they want their variant OK too.

^ This right here.

I been an admin on one site and a moderator on a few sites and even if you're the "popular one" it's not fun for the reasons Mussels says. Written text can be interpreted in a few different ways. I've had statements where my intention was self sacrificing but the other person interpreted as me slighting them. As Mussels says, rules are interpreted a few different ways as well so you have to be careful how you enforce a rule as even your fellow staff may see it differently. The most frustrating is some people are just never happy and will always argue.

I used to be an active poster but I have far too many forum battle scars. I'm getting to the point to where I just don't care anymore. I love the information you can get from forums and sometimes they can be fun to interact with people but I'm tired of the forum games. I turned down 2 forum mod jobs about a year ago. When the forum politics get annoying I can easily do something else, but you can't do that when you're a mod. You can't just ignore the problem as a mod. As a simple poster, all day no problem.

Respect your admins and mods, they deserve it. They don't get paid to put up with people's crap. They do it to help the community they love.

 

[patheticcockroach]

Depends on the site and its rules. I would be okay only if I agree with all moderation rules (basically, if there isn't more censorship than strictly required to avoid lawsuits and flood) and if the workload is small (ie if the moderation team is scaled properly). I've only been a moderator once, in this particular case the most annoying part was dealing with all the PMs from strange members...
Being an admin is more comfortable as at least you're sure you know and agree with all your rules ^^

Be wary of people that crave to be appointed

Definitely, that would be mod-picking 101 I don't think any decent moderator would specifically ask to become one, unless they point out there is an obvious "understaffing" that they want to help address.

 

[Mussels]

I've had statements where my intention was self sacrificing but the other person interpreted as me slighting them.

This happened with myself and another staff member here on TPU, where a slight difference in interpreting wording led to them reading it as a personal attack and led to some very confusing conversations.
In that situation we at least had dealt with each other before and it got sorted out, but between two strangers with varying literacy and nationality you're not very likely to figure out the problem and make amends.

 

[remixedcat]

I've been a mod of tons of high friction sites (adult sites, music sites, emotional sites, anime sites, and lots of others)

How I dealt with it was in legal terms and I would often have to put my emotions on the back burner and think from a perspective of a professional PR person and often even on small sites mod like the world was watching.

I'm one of the least biased people and I'm not afraid to call out people on thier bullshit, and I often let both sides work it out thier own ways.... On one of the music sites I worked with I created thier own thread and we had a mod where they couldn't post anywhere else but that ONE THREAD to work it out or they had to "ignore" eachother. One brawl took 4 months and it was great seeing the thread get better. Everyone can see it, but they couldn't post in it... It was wierd but it worked so well. It was over something really punk-ass but whatever.

Music sites are the most aggressive moderation demand forum types... due to piracy control and often genre "reps" had epic battles and anything to do with trance vs trouse vs house is intense AF. The owner was driven so mad by it he obliterated it as well as the owner of the competing music forum. (I modded both of those and they both hated eachother ha ha)

 

[Mussels]

"like the world was watching"

Yes, even as a moderator with a stupid kitty avatar (is that insulting you, or myself? WHO KNOWS?!???!?!!11!!?) people expect literal perfection in our wording, like we're experts in english, mediation, jiu jitsu, and every single piece of knowledge ever.

Even pitching in to offer hardware advice gets more complicated as a moderator, because people are either afraid to argue with us (we're wrong at times, too) or 1,000x MORE likely to argue with us because they expect perfection from our thrones of power.


edit: writing this out i actually had to make a bunch of small edits, because a simple thing as 'i' vs 'we' 'us' vs 'you' or 'your' can totally change the meaning and you simply cant rely on other people to interpret it correctly.

 

[remixedcat]

I've had German people break keyboards bc of me so I'm used to it all... That music site tended to attract angry Germans that would often say the trance scene has gone to shit and they hated Pulsedriver and ATB and MIKE/Push and Wippenberg for some reason, Please note: this is back in 2007... when the scene wasn't near as bad as it is now... this was borderline hay-day of Trance and Hands-Up...

I had a Pulsedriver avatar for his birthday (2.22) since I often would use DJs/Prods I liked's avatars on thier B-Day to mix things up and stir up some discussion...I had Armin's for around x-mas, as well Well one member completely lost his shit bc he hates anyone born on that month even tho Pulsedriver is awesome... Instant banhammer. This guy was fucked in the head so bad.

 

[Ferrum Master]

adult sites

Rather funny, about what clashes occur there

But yeah... there are some crazy site owners mods too. I've had my experiences also with certain tech oriented sites. Well as Twain said...

“It's easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.”

 

[remixedcat]

OMG so much and so many ppl will rage hellstorm on you if you have something bad to say about package size or shape or the clothes someone wore for a shoot or pretty much anything... it's worse than model sites. The sites I worked on weren't even completely hardcore...
These were clothing fetish sites...

 

[GelatanousMuck]

I moderated at Toms Hardware for a little over 3 years I eventually resigned because I found moderating to take time away from what I really wanted to do and that was helping others.

Moderating a website is definitely a necessity and some times a thank less job, very time consuming, that is if you actually do the job you volunteered to do, which many do not that hold the position of responsibility.

Those moderators here that take moderating responsibly, and you do your job, and you know you do!

I would like to Thank You for your efforts!

Ryan

 

[qubit]

@remixedcat @Mussels Oh yes, modding can be challenging all right and I've got a tale to tell too.

For a while I was an admin on a newish tech website, so I had the run of the place. We had a member there from Bangladesh who was a model citizen, really polite to everyone and helped out with our front page putting up articles and press releases for us, which made a real difference. However, there was something not quite right about some of his "political views" shall we say, blaming all the hardships in the middle east on the West and seemed to side a little too much with terrorists, without ever quite admitting it when challenged by me. Site activity had just started to pick up significantly and was beginning to get some momentum behind it and then the awful Lee Rigby murder happened in May 2013.

We all wanted to sound off about it in the General Discussion part of the forum so I used this murder to bait him, really going on about how unjustified this attack was and what sick bastards those terrorists were. Everyone was rallied around this sentiment except him. He came out with statements suggesting that Rigby deserved it as he was a soldier for the West, "who were the real terrorists". I teased out his views a little more, where, shockingly, it turned out that he was actually glad about this murder as a poke in the eye to the West.

And that was it. No way was I having a terrorist sympathiser on my forum regardless of how much he helped us out in other ways so I banned him that very day and told him why. I was especially pissed off at his dishonesty to me too for not telling me up front how he felt on this issue. Unsurprisingly, he was really angry at me and went on a full hysterical rant at me in pm's, but that was the end of him at our forum. Unfortunately the fallout from this incident killed off that momentum, the forum never recovered and eventually closed down, but throwing out this dangerous moron had to be done regardless of the cost to us.

So, while I haven't had anywhere near as much modding experience as the old hands on here, I certainly saw how challenging it could be in the couple of years that I did it. And people take all this on for free on TPU. Respect.

 

[EarthDog]

Other. I am a moderator at a different site. The site is, for the most part INCREDIBLY well behaved. There is an extremely small minority that require intervention and an even smaller population of those that need multiple reminders. But boy, when some of these people go off... dear LAWD do they go off. Some real gems out there in the world, particularly when they are behind a PC screen! Its amazing when you meet those people for the first time and they aren't anything like their online persona...

For a while I was an admin on a newish tech website, so I had the run of the place. We had a member there from Bangladesh who was a model citizen, really polite to everyone and helped out with our front page putting up articles and press releases for us, which made a real difference. However, there was something not quite right about some of his "political views" shall we say, blaming all the hardships in the middle east on the West and seemed to side a little too much with terrorists, without ever quite admitting it when challenged by me. Site activity had just started to pick up significantly and was beginning to get some momentum behind it and then the awful Lee Rigby murder happened in May 2013.

We all wanted to sound off about it in the General Discussion part of the forum so I used this murder to bait him, really going on about how unjustified this attack was and what sick bastards those terrorists were. Everyone was rallied around this sentiment except him. He came out with statements suggesting that Rigby deserved it as he was a soldier for the West, "who were the real terrorists". I teased out his views a little more, where, shockingly, it turned out that he was actually glad about this murder as a poke in the eye to the West.

And that was it. No way was I having a terrorist sympathiser on my forum regardless of how much he helped us out in other ways so I banned him that very day and told him why. I was especially pissed off at his dishonesty to me too for not telling me up front how he felt on this issue. Unsurprisingly, he was really angry at me and went on a full hysterical rant at me in pm's, but that was the end of him at our forum. Unfortunately the fallout from this incident killed off that momentum, the forum never recovered and eventually closed down, but throwing out this dangerous moron had to be done regardless of the cost to us.

 

[Toothless]

I'd like to be a mod to be picky on double posters.

 

[the54thvoid]

I couldn't possibly moderate because I'm always right.

Unless I'm wrong in which case I don't speak.

Free Speech is bullshit anyway - the most overused whiny assed defence in the world. Much like the right to bear arms or specifically,

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed

People misquote, misrepresent or generally through ignorance say they have a right to do x, y, or z when it's not quite correct. Mods have to respect 'expressive' freedoms but then they also are required to redirect, intervene or chastise people for creating nuisance, harm or worse, malicious intent or content.

 

[dorsetknob]

I couldn't possibly moderate because I'm always right.

There is this Rumor that there are shallow Graves near you. "location Secret" that contain the Corpse's of People that proved you wrong

Oops Sorry Cant keep a Secret its Your fault your in the wrong you should not have told me

 

[Frick]

@remixedcat @Mussels Oh yes, modding can be challenging all right and I've got a tale to tell too.

For a while I was an admin on a newish tech website, so I had the run of the place. We had a member there from Bangladesh who was a model citizen, really polite to everyone and helped out with our front page putting up articles and press releases for us, which made a real difference. However, there was something not quite right about some of his "political views" shall we say, blaming all the hardships in the middle east on the West and seemed to side a little too much with terrorists, without ever quite admitting it when challenged by me. Site activity had just started to pick up significantly and was beginning to get some momentum behind it and then the awful Lee Rigby murder happened in May 2013.

We all wanted to sound off about it in the General Discussion part of the forum so I used this murder to bait him, really going on about how unjustified this attack was and what sick bastards those terrorists were. Everyone was rallied around this sentiment except him. He came out with statements suggesting that Rigby deserved it as he was a soldier for the West, "who were the real terrorists". I teased out his views a little more, where, shockingly, it turned out that he was actually glad about this murder as a poke in the eye to the West.

And that was it. No way was I having a terrorist sympathiser on my forum regardless of how much he helped us out in other ways so I banned him that very day and told him why. I was especially pissed off at his dishonesty to me too for not telling me up front how he felt on this issue. Unsurprisingly, he was really angry at me and went on a full hysterical rant at me in pm's, but that was the end of him at our forum. Unfortunately the fallout from this incident killed off that momentum, the forum never recovered and eventually closed down, but throwing out this dangerous moron had to be done regardless of the cost to us.

So, while I haven't had anywhere near as much modding experience as the old hands on here, I certainly saw how challenging it could be in the couple of years that I did it. And people take all this on for free on TPU. Respect.

racist

 

[dirtyferret]

Ban them all and let the Admin sort them out.

 

[qubit]

racist

Who is racist?

 

[dorsetknob]

racist

Who is racist?

IS it Racist to Ban A member who is Exibiting Racist trolling potential support for Terrorism YES as quibit explaind
He was BANNED for Supporting Acts of TERRORISM

and @Frick you just Belittled yourself with that Comment Shame on you