when moderators go bad's Journal (original) (raw)

firewheelvortex @ 10:28am: Bad mods, worse mods, and bad moderation as policy. Most bad moderation is because of individuals. Moderating a community so that it works is a skill, one underappreciated because it's only noticed when it's lacking.

The best mods moderate by example in public and by email in private. They rarely if ever need to know how to kick or ban someone.

Bad mods know exactly how to kick or ban someone. It's a power trip.

Worse mods use the power a lot, to "enforce community standards." The latter may be true - and there are a lot of people who are attracted to authoritarian standards of community where dissenting voices are not tolerated. However, these insular little communities are rarely very interesting places to be, and the more exclusive they are, the more this tends to be true.

Bad moderation as policy, though, can only happen with a very, very large captive audience, say, on a large ISP/content provider with fora. When it becomes clear that the corporation itself will not allow discussions of ideas, concepts, etc that are contrary to the social and political agendas of the corporation, that is the worst moderation possible.

Of course, it's applied in the small at all times; for example,, persons who have a conflict of interest between being a moderator and profiting from their line of work are often "mods" of fora advancing personal causes. But such folks are hardly a threat to the free speech rights of millions.

Guessing I'm leading somewhere? You'd be correct.

How many people have been kicked from Compuserve or AOL forums, or had unpleasant interchanges with "sysops," having to kiss butt and promise to never, ever do "it" again, where "it" was left deliberately vague?

Current Mood: contemplative