Edit2: the ratio is amazing. I’m exhausted. This has quadrupled my hexbear time for the day and I will be limiting myself for a bit lol. I feel like we got somewhere in a couple of good threads thanks to Hellinkilla and ratboy. Good luck, comrades.
Edit: the rant wasn’t clear enough. In Previous struggles users have expressed frustrations with how mods/admin decisions are made. I would like to discuss how they are made and hear from them. Mods have also stated before that they wish we could be better, I’d like to hear how and know how they think this should be approached.
Rant/effort post coming:
What’s the follow up to the recent problems with how mods/admins have handled recent issues? Did I miss something? Can we get some explanations about how this site is structured and what roles we see for admins/mods generally?
history of struggle session, not necessary but gives context
We had a fairly large and fairly one-sided struggle session a couple weeks ago. Z_Poster was banned (and still is, as far as I know) and the emoji was added. Some users (thinking of @hellinkella, smong others) did some effort to really parse out where the pain points were and who was involved (largely Zionism inherent in some positions, Jewish exceptionalism). Only the emoji and banning occurred with no other promises/ideas from mods/admins.
There then followed a leak of mod logs where opinions were still very different than the userbase. I would encourage people not to open it or ask for it, please, and especially not to share it. But I think a significant amount of us did see messages that, regardless of context, gave an image of admins/mods that think the userbase hates them, disagreed with the userbase in significant ways, and which wants to steer us in a better direction. The mod chat was also absurdly active at the time, but there’s been little talk about what WAS discussed, only discussions about what was missed, where more context is needed, and things that were not done in a timely manner. This was not further discussed. (Personally I’m super appreciative of you all, doing work I don’t want to do on a website I enjoy thoroughly, and don’t hate any of you–including previous ones I’ve argued with, but would like to see some changes which will follow below and hopefully other comrades will add to it/change it for the better).
We had an EM/POC post which was tangential to that, but where there seemed to be large support for the userbase with regards to the ideological differences between mods/admins and the broader userbase. There was also a banning for which apologies followed quickly, but which indicates the structural failure more generally. There were of course other topics covered, which I won’t speak on here. I didn’t see any solutions proposed and accepted, from any of the topics relevant to this post. (Please correct me if I read this thread wrong, don’t want to speak for you, EM/POC comrades.)
Was there a follow up? Is that coming? Is the discussion behind the curtain of the mod chat? I understand you all have lives, so don’t spend all your time working on this, but some knowledge of how you’re working would be good. Otherwise it feels like purposeful pushing back of feedback/decisions so that we will forget the passionate feelings or give up. If that’s the goal, it’s a horrible strategy and should just be explicitly told. “3 months after a struggle session is the earliest we will make changes in processes” is better than nothing.
I would also recommend we have an open discussion about the direction of the site. It seems the mods/admins have indicated to have better ideas for what we can be (I remember this from the “dunk” discussions too), but have not made clear what their position in that is. Enforcers? A vanguard (with our input as leading determinant)? A different vanguard (against our input for but in our interests)? Theoreticians that have the ideas but want the users to take the lead? Knowing this would make clearer how to interact with you, and how to make our experiences better. Maybe we do need growth and improvement, but we haven’t been clear about how, and talking down is how most have experienced that. I already love this place, so when I’m frustrated I don’t think of leaving. But that’s not universal
Yes, the next meta post will invite the user base to discuss updating the Code of Conduct, as well as how moderators are chosen and how they are removed. I will make the post next week, thank you for holding us accountable. Links to doxxing information will be removed from the database using the tools we have available which may be imprecise but are imperative to maintain the safety of our mod team due to past doxxing and death threats.
The structure of the site is as follows.
The users report violations of the code of conduct, moderators receive these reports for the communities they moderate and take action as appropriate. When there is multiple mod actions taken among multiple communities and/or the user has a history of mod actions across the account as well as previous alts as admin may take site action (such as a temporary or permanent site ban)
In the event a user continues to repeat the same actions that broke the code of conduct the admins may use tools such as looking at upvotes, posts, comments and username trends to act on these alts preemptively. In such a case we take effort to unban the account in the event we receive information that our mod actions are incorrect.
The way that moderators are added is an existing mod vouches for them (rare) or they submit a mod application to the admin team, we accept the vast majority of applicants. In the event a moderator violates the code of conduct an admin will asses and demod when appropriate.
The admins take a hands-off approach relying upon community moderators to handle their communities and acting in the event of a wrecker, spammer, or non-local user that is reactionary. Due to the moderators receiving death threats, and doxxing attempts we have anonymzied the modlog to protect our volunteers.
There was a post made by multiple users discussing the meta situation after the emoji request, there was a dedicated post allowing the EMPOC community to discuss the events. Due to the multiple posts on this topic we won’t be featuring anymore, however there will be an upcoming post featured for discussing the code of conduct itself as well as the moderator approval/removal process.
The https://hexbear.net/c/hexbear community is where you can discuss meta topics or mod actions as well as the matrix room linked in that community’s sidebar.
I have maintained that the admins have no goal other than enforcing the code of conduct, there has never been a “growth” mindset for the site nor can we speak to the direction of the site. We have always encouraged the users to take direction and create the community they want to see, the growth of the news mega, trans mega, movie nights, theory/reading clubs are all a result of users working together to create something.
It can be difficult to try and translate vague or unspecific comments into what could be actually changed.
I’m also adding that moderators, just like any user, can at their own discretion and of their own free will chose to delete their account and start a new account for whatever reason they may have. Moderators that have done so have informed us of their intent and the name of their new account so as to ensure there is an easy and uninterrupted transition for them to continue their volunteer work as moderators.
This means that whenever there is a new moderator that seems to be a new account being added out of the blue, chances are it’s simply someone swapping out accounts for personal reasons.
is making reliably good reports a way to apply to be a mod?
The way to apply to mod is to send an admin the mod application.
It’s definitely appreciated at the very least. If I may ask, what comms would you be interested in modding?
I was thinking of less intimidating ways to become a mod that making a job application which is kind of a universally hated thing. I dropped it in a kind of random place just cause it was in my mind in the thread.
Ah, gotcha
scared ya
lolololol
not to be excessively contrarian, but that is a way too broad mandate for a single post
waaaaay too much
1 issue per post!!!
Edited for ablism
Fair enough, I had said the CoC would be next so the mod process can be discussed after that. Thanks! I will respond to the longer comment later
This answer goes very deep into the portion of admin/modding that relates to reporting and banning/deleting. This is indeed the part that makes the biggest shit show, usually, and can be the main task. And it makes sense to anonymize the modlog, I agree with it given historical perspective. But that change also shifted the way that the relationship works, keeping users more in the dark about something that feels like a community instead of just a forum. It’s the equivalent of masking the police (on a much smaller and less drastic scale, but qualitatively functions the same). And it creates this friction where behind the masks things seem to keep being decided and then sweepingly applied, like how to interpret the rules. If that’s happening, I just want to know how and why. How much is user input/pushback considered? Can we voice those opinions on a more productive way that yelling into struggle sessions about it every time?
It’s also wider than just banning/removing:
If I had previously wanted to make a community where exclusively Israeli flags were burned, just collections of that, I would need an admin to make it also. What role does the admin play there? Are they just a checkbox against the rules before admitting/not admitting the community? My point is just, there is at least slightly more to being an admin/mod than just reacting to comments. Tasks which cannot possibly be done as only “and enforcer of the rules”, but with a second, maybe secondary role. It’s a leadership role, not an enforcer role. And that one is what’s unclear