[Meta] /v/Conspiracy Community discussion: Moderation Policy Document (Conspiracy)

submitted ago by Mumberthrax

A Policy for Moderators to Follow

Hi folks, Mumberthrax here. I have another boring post for you today about... Moderation Policy!

Yes that's right, another moderation policy post. I bet you're getting tired of those and want fun stuff, eh? Well if we have a good mod policy document in place, then mods will hopefully be better empowered to implement fun stuff like AMAs and quality sticky'd topic discussion posts. At least that's the supposition ; )

So I drew up this rough draft of a moderation policy document (based on the suggestions from the previous community discussions: 1, 2, 3) and ran it by the mod team for any critiques. Now we'd like to present it to the community for review.

Here it is!

https://github.com/Mumberthrax/VoatConspiracy/blob/master/ModerationPolicy.md

It is mostly common sense stuff, but I think it's important to have it laid out just so everyone is on the same page, especially for when new moderators are added. Think of it like a constitution that guides your public servants in the manner you prefer - because this document is intended to be part of our "open source" moderation project on github, where anyone may submit proposals for changes to be incorporated into it. Basically, you the community get to help shape the policy that you the community follow when you take on the role of moderator.

Your feedback is important

So if you would, take a look and share your opinion on it in the comments below. Please feel free to be as critical as you like (though offering specific suggestions for solutions is ideal!). There are a few spots where there are unanswered questions relating to the addition of new moderators - these questions are not urgent, and a community discussion on that specific topic is upcoming so they don't have to be answered just yet.

If there's no opposition to this document as it exists currently, then we'll go ahead and make it our official moderation policy for now.

Thanks for your time, and thanks for being a part of our community here at /v/conspiracy! :D

Upcoming community discussions:

  • How we select new moderators: challenges, options

  • Racism and bigotry, Conspiracy theories about specific races or peoples, and how we want to handle these things

  • Subverse rules: updates, possible additions/changes.

Some random things you may be interested in (Please accept this content as an apology for boring meta stuff!):

Edit: Yes, I unsticky'd @AssuredlyAThrowAway's post about /v/nottheonion. Yes, you're welcome to ask about it in the comments here.

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gatordontplaythatsht ago

This guy moderating is the same guy who cherry picked a post of mine to feed an srs sub here on voat. I don't trust him at all and feel like he's going to be a problem for the conspiracy community here on voat.

Here's his post attempting to mock me and other users with lies that weren't even true: https://voat.co/v/TopMindsOfVoat/comments/324662

He's a cancer and shouldn't be modding this sub, do not trust him!

Mumberthrax ago

It's true I posted to the topminds subverse. I was frustrated by you going on a witch hunt against someone with little to back it up. It's people playing fast and loose with the facts that harms our community.

That said, who would you prefer be a moderator here? How would you like to see them selected?

gatordontplaythatsht ago

You already admitted you were, wrong there was no witch hunt, and many voaters found my finding to be true. You are not to be trusted, and are trying to make a mockery of posters on voat.

That said, who would you prefer be a moderator here? How would you like to see them selected?

In a perfect world the community would vote moderators in and out, that's my hope for the future.

Mumberthrax ago

In a perfect world the community would vote moderators in and out, that's my hope for the future.

Alright, so assuming that I am bad and need to be removed, how do we go about that? /v/subverserequest could be used to make a plea for me to be removed. But selecting a replacement would be tricky. There are a few issues I think about in relation to a popular election for the level 1 position:

  1. How we do protect against bad people like me from pretending to be good, getting voted to the top, and then eroding things?

  2. How do we protect against astroturfing, malicious people slandering good candidates and promoting bad ones?

I suppose an alternative to having a single person in the level 1 position would be for moderator elections to be built-in to Voat directly. That's something that isn't yet a part of the site, and would probably take some careful planning to implement. Maybe there is some alternative you've got in mind?

gatordontplaythatsht ago

How we do protect against bad people like me from pretending to be good, getting voted to the top, and then eroding things?

By putting a system in place that gives users the power to change leadership at any time.

Mumberthrax ago

Ok, now we're getting somewhere. So something like an official moderation policy?

Right now only one person on each subverse has the ability to add or remove moderators. This means that someone has to have that responsibility. Who do we trust to do it fairly and according to whatever policy we establish? Is this person allowed to say anything critical about a community member?

And how do we prevent people like obama and bush from getting added as moderators by a popular vote? People who suck big-time, but somehow they managed to get enough supporters to get in? And how do we remove them?

gatordontplaythatsht ago

These are all concerns a good voting system would address. I am by no means a developer, so i cannot answer many questions you have about the system or its weaknesses/strengths. I think this is something we should speak to devs about and see if it's possible, and what type of guards we could add to the system to ensure a vote couldn't be brigaded, maybe by verifying each vote with a time stamped paper listing the username. Like I said I am no developer, I just think this could be done with relative ease.

Mumberthrax ago

Alright, so you're thinking more of doing something mediated by software/technology built into the site itself, not necessarily a vote mediated by whoever is the level 1 moderator at the time?

I agree that this might be a good arrangement (though I know my opinion matters little since I'm an evil SRS person apparently :P ), and I'm not certain how we can do anything about this in the meantime.

Like, ok, I'm willing to help facilitate someone else taking my spot. Seriously. But I want to make sure that I'm doing the right thing. So how do we pick my replacement? If you were in my shoes, what would you do to find someone to be the next level 1 mod?

gatordontplaythatsht ago

Maybe, not necessarily though. If there was an open source, simple software that could be made to tally votes and authenticate voters I wouldn't be against that.

So how do we pick my replacement? If you were in my shoes, what would you do to find someone to be the next level 1 mod?

I'd make a post to the sub asking for advice, I'm not the only subscriber and I'm sure there are a great many tech-minded people on the sub who could suggest/build a concept we're all happy with.

minusthebearplus44 ago

That is sorta what this is.