[Meta] /v/Conspiracy Community Discussion on Moderation: Followup

[Meta] /v/Conspiracy Community Discussion on Moderation: Followup (Conspiracy)

submitted 9.8 years ago by Mumberthrax

Hello everyone, your friendly neighborhood Mumberthrax here with a followup on our last community discussion, which was about moderation of the subverse. I want to thank everyone who shared their thoughts on moderation of the subverse. It really means a lot to hear from each of you about how you want the subverse to be run.

Open Source Moderation

Rather than me establish a policy here and now on how things will go, I'd much rather do what I can to ensure that everyone in the community has a say in any major changes that happen here. So to do that /v/conspiracy is "open source"-ing the moderation of this subverse through a github project containing all settings for the subverse, css, sidebar text, rules, and a not-yet-drafted moderation policy document which will cover the topics we discussed in the last post (responsibilities, activity levels, transparency, and how new mods are added).

The next step in this process is drafting a complete policy document based on the suggestions and ideas discussed in the last post, as well as discussions in ages past. The other mods and I will work on this. Once it's drafted, we'll solicit feedback from everyone again, probably have some sort of vote to confirm or deny it. So stay tuned for that. :]

Modteam lineup

I'll not be adding any new moderators at this time for a few reasons:

There isn't sufficient workload to warrant it - no spam or memes, almost no racism to moderate
We don't have an official community-sanctioned process in place to determine how new mods are added

I'll also not be removing any existing moderators at this time, since there is no apparent misconduct going on presently, the active mods seem pretty chill, and the inactive ones (@zenof and @alllie) have been sent a message inquiring about their intentions as mods and intended activity levels. If I receive no response from those two within two weeks, they'll be removed. If I do hear from them, then we'll work from there to figure out what to do.

I'd like to encourage our current mods to keep on keeping on, just as they have been. You guys are cool.

Ideally once we have a formal moderation policy document in place, it will outline what should be done for removing mods and adding new ones.

Miscellanea

A link to /v/ConspiracyMeta has been added to the sidebar. Please feel free to make use of it to discuss any issues relating to the subverse. Feel free to cross-post between both it and /v/conspiracy if that is to your liking.
In the interest of transparency I've been keeping a log of any actions I take as a moderator on /v/conspiracy. https://gist.github.com/Mumberthrax/ca923781f609aff59459
I've created /v/Ideasforconspiracy, sort of like /v/ideasforvoat, but for our sub. This way brainstorming can be ongoing rather than only on stickied discussion posts. It might be redundant what with /v/conspiracymeta already existing, but if it turns out to not be useful then nothing is really lost.
The link to the github project, in case you missed it, is https://github.com/VoatConspiracy/VoatConspiracy - feel free to make any pull requests you like, or to suggest changes here or on /v/conspiracymeta.

That's it for this followup post. Thanks for reading, and for chilling with us tinfoil hat types on /v/conspiracy!

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threesevens 9.8 years ago

This is refreshing thank you. Good mods make a sub great. Bad mods on a power trip or compromised in some way ruin a sub. Users need to feel like the mods have their back and if not satisfied have a say in who is in the mod position. Anyway, keep up the good work. I have high hopes for this sub.

Edit: Question: Shills and disinfo agents will invade the site eventually. Do you think anything can be done about this or is it just something conspiracy sites have to deal with?

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Mumberthrax 9.8 years ago

Thanks! I'm quite excited about our community's future here as well. I think that the fact that a lot of folks are here with a similarly optimistic attitude helps too - because really it's our community's spirit that makes any place like this great.

You're absolutely right that there is the issue of propagandists or marketers, the issue of disinformation and misinformation. Our community is somewhat unique in this respect because of things like Operation Earnest Voice, and the projects like those which Cass Sunstein advocates for. I don't know if it's something that conspiracy sites will always have to deal with - I'm not a prophet - and it is something that they currently are challenged by once a certain level of traffic/attention begins to hit them.

I believe there is cause to be optimistic about the ability of the community to adapt and handle these sorts of disruptive influences. I believe that with the cultivation of effective rules and community guidelines, an emphasis on sorting information and requiring supporting evidence, a focus on community engagement and active participation, courtesy and respect, and education about the kinds of behaviors and habits that disruptive people employ, our community can be strengthened against such things - whether they are paid to disrupt, do it for casual amusement, or do is out of a sense of righteous duty.

I think too that having a culture that is proud of itself and has just cause to feel that way, having high morale, will help to strengthen against such things.

Strengthening the community against these disruptive elements is one of the three foundational goals I've set for myself as a moderator here. The other two being effective information organization and a culture of participation/engagement. They all sort of feed into each other. I think that with time and energy put into them we'll come up with some novel strategies. :)

Bonus rambling - feel free to ignore it!

So because I have a bad habit of writing really long things instead of being concise, here are some ideas I have currently, which I hope will be the first of many such strategies for resolving this challenge:

encourage courtesy and respect - discourage flaming, personal attacks, trolling, bigotry
encourage critical thinking and demanding sources for claims, encourage dissent and discussion
generally study the writings on these sorts of disruptive strategies and actively educate the community about them
be vigilant about not letting people cry shill at the drop of a hat, as that permits caricatures of our community to flourish where someone is called a shill simply for disagreeing.
Focus on actions and behaviors, not unbridled paranoia. In my case, I was under suspicion of being an infiltrator as a moderator. I asked to be judged by my actions - if they are beneficial to the health of the community then so long as I am not doing some subtle harm it doesn't matter where my paycheck comes from. I could very well be a bad guy, but so long as the community is empowered to keep an eye on me and keep me in check, then it probably does not matter.
Vigilance is needed to keep an eye out for disruptive behavior, and communication about these sorts of things should happen regularly. That's part of the reason why I made /v/conspiracymeta.

tl;dr: Yes, I think things can be done to deter it and reduce the harm it causes. I have some ideas and will be working toward them. : ]

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