Hey all,
Moderation philosophy posts started out as an exercise by myself to put down some of my thoughts on running communities that I’d learned over the years. As they continued I started to more heavily involve the other admins in the writing and brainstorming. This most recent post involved a lot of moderator voices as well, which is super exciting! This is a community, and we want the voices at all levels to represent the community and how it’s run.
This is probably the first of several posts on moderation philosophy, how we make decisions, and an exercise to bring additional transparency to how we operate.
“Add value and don’t be a dick” goes far as mantra.
Unrelated to this post, but I’m a teacher, and I love telling (high school) students to “stop being a dick.” It always gets a reaction, deescalates, redirects attention away from the drama/instigator, and (I hope) is memorable for the “dick”.
But students just think I’m being inappropriate by calling a kid a dick. (It’s very intentional! … Just like when I “accidentally” swear.)
Teacher here and I do the same. It’s a line to walk - I can’t do it too frequently, but occasionally using language like this is more authentic, descriptive, and effective. My students love it and appreciate the break from sterilized teacher speak.