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!):

• Cryptome.org's collection of various "Gentleperson's Guide to Forum Spies" documents

• An idea for a Conspiracy Theory Rating Scale

• My favorite definition of "conspiracy theory"

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