Moderation and sentimental value in online communities.
2021-03-26 at 11:02In my life I've spent a lot of time talking to strangers and not-so-strangers online. I enjoy getting to know people of different fields and from different countries to gain perspective, have fun together and sometimes to talk about things that we would never talk about in person under the cover of anonymity.
At some point I joined a UNIX community which at first repulsed me a bit, since it contained graphic language and condensed internet weirdness. Though at second look to my surprise, they were incredibly knowledgable about the main topic. Since I often needed help when I started out using Linux, I stayed around.
Then the server owner handed all of the responsibility over to a now very good friend of mine. He started cleaning up, introducing a functioning moderation team and setting up new rules. Everything was going great, but some people didn't like it. Everyone could see the quality of discussion rose almost immediately with more on-topic talk. People started yelling at the new moderation team, calling them out on subjective over-moderating in lots of colourful and graphic ways. They felt like something was taken from them. Someone took their creative outlet for non relevant, derailing and provoking language and imagery and they weren't happy about it. They eventually either left or were banned.
I didn't quite understand what drove the need for it. Maybe the taboo of not being able to say such things anywhere else, maybe the few low effort inside jokes that were formed. None of it was of any particular long-term value. If they really want to, they can go to millions of other online forums to do such.
A year has passed and I found myself talking a lot more in this community. I made a few friends and learned a lot together with them. Our voluntary support channel was off the hook and everyone helped each other in a mostly wholesome way. The community owner elected me for the moderator team and soon after to the administrator team.
People have gotten used to the new rules, but since some people were around for so long they had a kind of "special status" in our heads. A kind of sentimental value, which allowed them to break the rules without really getting punished for it. We didn't realise this was the biggest problem our community had. Every week there were controversies and "what did he do this time" moments. I've had enough. Something needed to change. I didn't feel quite comfortable with ripping out what once was a pillar in our group, but I banned them from our place. They did not fit our community guidelines and it was long overdue.
Oh and how the world exploded. Suddenly I was the person who did wrong. How dare I remove someone who broke basic rules like "no racism" to provoke us. The actual problem is not just the person I banned but the whole toxic friend group around them. Even though they were moderately following the rules you could tell they agree with the not-so-great world views of the banned person.
But how did it get this far? What can I or we do to prevent drama as seen above?
It got this far because people feared getting flak to enforce the rules. Not only that, but also people got attached to each other, even though they aren't fit for the community. People were scared to ban and always tried to find a compromise with warnings and even full-on excel sheets to keep track of them. There is no reason to, because if you notice a new person doesn't fit the community there is no point in trying to change them. It is just a stranger on the internet and it is not our job to play parent and teach them online etiquette. I do not have the time to argue and I'd rather just get rid of the problem, since they can just create a new account anyways and behave the next time they're around.
