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Moderation

By American Farmer
June 25, 2009

...as in forum moderation, not “moderation in all things”.

My job has a lot of hurry up and wait elements to it, so I’ve had to find ways to entertain myself in the downtime. One of those ways has been an internet forum that I’ve been a part of for about six years now. For four of those years, I’ve been a moderator.

A couple months ago, the owner of the site decided to clean house and basically booted the entire moderating team. Skipping over the irrelevant details, the entire moderating team and ninety percent of the membership up and left for a new site. I am the owner of the new site, and my role as moderator has evolved significantly from my role on the old board.

On the old site, the moderating team operated more-or-less as a democracy. Well, more of a democracy within an oligarchy. Moderating action required significant consensus, and was very slow as a result. In hindsight, I realized that some rules, against trolling for example, were going completely unenforced because the moderating team could not come to a consensus on what exactly constituted a troll. No one was willing to stick their neck out and say “that there is obviously a troll, so I’m going to smack them down”. Everyone waited for everyone else to act, and as a result, the board atmosphere devolved significantly and around election time became actively hostile in some cases.

On the new site, after the drama of getting booted from the old place wore off, people went back to their old ways pretty quickly. The moderating team had recognized the need to change the tone, but quickly their old ways of the paralyzing need for consensus returned as well.

I hesitated for a bit… and then decided that despite all the talk about the board belonging to the community, it’s got my name on it. I feel responsible for it. And if someone needs to stick their neck out to enforce some rules, that someone has to be me.

I started unilaterally disciplining obvious trolls and NSFW vulgarity. I’ve done my best to be even-handed in it, and I think I’ve succeeded.

What surprised me was the community reaction to my unilateral action. I expected the typical reaction to someone stepping outside their bounds and acting as a dictator - resistance and disobedience. What I got was compliance, sighs of relief, and gratitude.

The entire tone of the board has changed. People are nicer to each other, arguments don’t devolve into name-calling anymore, and as another mod pointed out, people are generally behaving better and the overall number of mod actions we’ve needed to take have dropped significantly.

What fascinates me in all of this is that it is a real-life analogy to a libertarian government and a small, powerful, centralized, mostly unaccountable government like that advocated by Mencius Moldbug.

In the libertarian scenario, the government was weak, and people were allowed to mostly do as they pleased. As a result, Gresham’s Law took over, and the bad apples began to crowd out the good. The populace perceived that the lines of unacceptable behavior were vague and unenforceable, so those lines were pushed further and further back until they were virtually gone. The entire environment degraded as a result.

In the small, powerful monarchical scenario, the worst offenders were shut down quickly and ruthlessly, the moderate offenders immediately backed off, and the decent people came out of the woodwork because the environment was now more inviting. That seems to be Mencius’ main argument for such a government - have few basic fair common-sense rules, enforce them vigorously, otherwise leave people alone, and you will get a well-functioning society. I’m fascinated to see that happen here, in a micro-society that is an internet forum. I’m not even seeing much resistance to my new arbitrary standards. With a few exceptions, everyone else seems to understand well what a troll is, and when they know they are going to get called on it, they don’t do it.

However, I also think about how easily it could be otherwise with someone else in charge (pats self on back), and how easily power corrupts. There is one member in particular who I would love to never see come around again. He is rude, obnoxious, and an all-around worthless human being. He tries very hard to push the limits, and then he publicly complains about mistreatment while misrepresenting the story to make himself look like the good guy. Dealing with this person fairly and justly tests me regularly, when I’d just prefer to see him gone.

Similarly, it’s not like I have God-given authority here, but it is clear that it would be both easy and disastrous to moderate in an unfair way. In Mencius’ world, rulers do have God-given power, and their successors are typically chosen by heredity rather than by qualification. The potential to go from a good ruler to a bad one is significant.

Anyway, I’m finding the whole experiment fascinating, and I’m proud of what I’ve built. It’s not for everyone, as it is populated mostly by young males and the typical subject matter reflects that demographic. But it’s my internet home for many hours a week, almost like Cheers, a place to hang out where everyone knows your name.