Thursday, June 25, 2009
Moderation
...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.
Comments
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I learned a lot through the online communities I’ve been involved in, either as a contributor or a leader. (I mean, I pretty much grew up in them, visiting my first BBS at 12).
The key isn’t democratic vs. dictator. The key is *clear* rules that are always enforced. Just like with kids. Or dogs. Or anything else.
Otherwise, it just invites people to test the boundaries over and over and over. Some people test more than others. My son needs *one* tiny time you don’t pull him back, and he’ll test that boundary another 500 times.
A wishy-washy team doesn’t help, either.
silvermine | 6/25/2009 12:47 PM CDT -
It is interesting to view online communities as a kind of laboratory. My experience with group dynamics in a classroom environment helped a great deal (in not being surprised as often how quickly some people will act out/up) in moderating a forum.
The general rule for group dynamics is that every 12 weeks (about) the group will have a tizzy fit about something. Don’t know why it is 3 months, but it is a good rule of thumb.
Unless you do something every 10 weeks or so, to reintroduce the rules, engage in “new and improved” as a distraction, folks will have a tendency to eat their own.
I do think that anonymity has a lot to do with how badly it can get online, but my experience with groups over the same period of time shows that they can get just as rude/boorish in the real world as they can online.
What never ceases to amaze me (because I don’t like it, not because I don’t understand it) is how desperately people want a strong leader (sometimes to the level of a tyrant), or how many people sit on their hands and do nothing when faced with a crisis, witness a wrong doing, or when there is a call for volunteers. This is America: The land of the free, of the independent spirit, of neighborhood barn raising, of not waiting for others to act, etc. For the most part, it’s just marketing. There are a few pearls in the mix, but not nearly as high a percentage as there should be.
Mrs. du Toit | 6/25/2009 01:14 PM CDT -
It’s a little thing called “community standards”. Once upon a time, the members of a given community enforced those standards themselves, by first shunning and then ejecting those persons who violated those standards. And the expectation was that if you disagreed with the standards of one community you could find another more to your liking, or assemble with like-minded persons and form your own.
However, there has come into prominence a class of persons for whom the above is unacceptable. Instead, they insist that communities change their standards to accommodate these persons, and shout down any attempts by the members of the community to self-enforce the existing standards. Shunning does not work, and any attempt to eject them is met with cries of “Fascism!” and “Tyranny!”. So the community, tiring of the struggle, looks to empower specific members to police the community and enforce the standards.
In a lesser degree, it is the sheep/sheepdogs/wolves dynamic at work. And there will always be sheep, there will always be wolves, thus there will always be a need for sheepdogs.
RandyB | 6/26/2009 08:16 AM CDT -
Yeah, that’s the part that sucks, Randy. In America, and the way our system was designed, we’re all supposed to be sheepdogs.
I know that isn’t the case, but that is why we’re going to the dogs.
Mrs. du Toit | 6/27/2009 10:19 AM CDT -
“We’re all suppose to be the sheepdogs” is definitely the Founding Father’s ideal. Human nature being what it is, most people would rather be sheep, even if they don’t recognize it as such. So in the struggle between the ideals of “be a sheepdog” and “be a sheep”, it is the Remnant (to bring us back to Nock, whom I need to read) who chooses the former.
RandyB | 6/27/2009 12:53 PM CDT -
Even the Founders understood that not everyone will be a sheepdog. That’s why there were easily achievable barriers to the vote. A low barrier weeds out the apathetic without necessarily preventing the disadvantaged.
Anonymity definitely changes the moral compass for most people, largely because the average person has never been exposed to and spent time developing philosophical principles. This is not a new situation in humankind, for the vast majority of history we have been ignorant brutes, it’s simply that some disillusionment has set in since we started expecting people to do better.
thebastidge | 6/30/2009 12:48 PM CDT -
Good point about low barriers to entry into the franchise, although suffragettes might have argued about how low the barriers were. On the other hand, there has been good analysis elsewhere of the correlation between the admission of women to the franchise in the U.S. and the increase in government power beyond Constitutional limits, so we can leave that tangent be.
Overall, though, allowing the sheep to run the flock is democracy, which the Founders were generally against; this is why they created a republic instead.
RandyB | 6/30/2009 01:11 PM CDT -
Voting was exclusive to the landed (pre-1826). Today, I’d probably even keep those in condominiums from voting. And the trend toward bigger government also has to include moving from public voting to the secret ballot. It’s harder to support something you know to be morally improper even when it is in your personal interest when you have to do it in front of your neighbors. The problem with that is that once the society is on its way down the drain, as today, reversing course is what is more difficult. That line (the biographical details about which I’ve forgotten) from the NYC woman about everyone she knew voting against Nixon in 1972 comes to mind.
TraitorHater | 7/3/2009 12:51 PM CDT -
Tiny problem with the land ownership model, these days. The irresponsible all bought houses. Many of us who will not sign a contract we know we can’t uphold did not.
The government is handling out houses to their supporters. That would literally buy votes, in that case.
And yea, I have my crazy reasons for living in silicon valley as a renter.
I suppose a change like that would probably finally convince me to move away. Right now all that’s keeping me here is the rather easy homeschooling laws and my parents.
silvermine | 7/4/2009 03:59 PM CDT -
That’s mortgaged land. I mean free and clear. I don’t recall whether that was the rule back pre-1826, but it should have been. Though I do believe I’ve read that borrowing to buy a house didn’t go on until after the Fed was established in 1913, but haven’t verified it.
The cost of property taxes in my area could buy a decent house every tenth year, which is obscene.
But I think you’re right that any protective system could be corrupted, especially by the sort in power these days who are actually proud of their crimes. Recovering the republic looks distant, to say the least.
TraitorHater | 7/5/2009 11:00 PM CDT -
This is such a great resource that you are providing and you give it away for free. I love seeing websites that understand the value of providing a quality resource for free. It’s the old what goes around comes around routine. Did you acquired lots of links and I see lots of trackbacks?
share your optionmike | 7/9/2009 03:06 PM CDT -
I don’t fear a benevolent dictator, but I fear his successor.
I’ve always (for at least 2 or 3 years
) thought that the vote should be for people who a) have supported themselves for at least a year (or are married to such a person and received no aid from anyone but that person).
(Don’t throw me a beatin’, Mrs du Toit...)
Weetabix | 7/12/2009 10:36 PM CDT
