The plain and simple of it is that I’m not a good moderator. I have no idea what I’m doing. I wanted a community where people could post conservative stuff without it getting overwhelmed by lefty stuff, and then you could have discussions/arguments in the comment section. Bring to light stories that wouldn’t normally be seen on lemmy. Since that didn’t exist on lemmy, I had to do it myself.
Right now, there’s a lot of toxicity, some straight up telling people to kill themselves. My whole moderation policy was basically “So long as it isn’t a straight up slur, you could comment it”.
You’d think it’d be simple, just ban those who do that. Well, what about those who defend baby murder? I know lefties genuinely believe it isn’t, but I do. How do you tell what is horrible shit, when lefties act like horror movie monsters?
What about those who I’m like 90% sure are arguing in bad faith? I want to encourage discussions and arguments, and if I’m wrong, what then?
Me doing keyword-based moderating was a bad idea, but I am at a loss of how to do better, without breaking what this sub was supposed to be about.
I need ideas.
How should I moderate this community?
I disagree. From my experience moderating on reddit, it’s only difficult if you either a) simply have too large a community for the number of mods, or b) don’t have a single molecule of principle in your body and thus have no goal for moderation. The first is fairly easily remedied by finding people you trust to help. The latter is just a matter of growing a fucking spine. If you moderate on principle, you aren’t going to give a fuck if people disapprove.
I should have said any discussion of good moderation. Good moderation is difficult.
For the sake of brevity I didn’t expand on all the things that make good moderation difficult, but here is a misconception to address: difficulty arises if one has no principles, and the simple solution is to grow a fucking spine.
OP certainly has principles, so much so that he seems willing to make blanket moral judgements about people regardless of circumstances. Simply having principles is not enough, otherwise OP would not be asking for help.
Unless one is blessed with the wisdom of King Solomon, the only way it’s easy to “moderate on principle” is to rely on black and white either/or thinking, with no room for nuance or exception. If you say “The rule is the rule, there can be no interpretation other than the most literal meaning. No ifs ands or buts.” It does make things less difficult. But this is dumb. The reason we can’t rely on bots to moderate is because this system doesn’t work.
OP says “I’m not a good moderator,” and “I don’t know what I’m doing,” and I am saying cut yourself some slack. To be a good moderator you need to be thoughtful, not a bot. You need to be human. That’s not easy. Don’t trust anybody that says otherwise.
I disagree. Moderating based on principle require the exact opposite. A firm understanding of both what and why the rules are, such that you can enforce them based not just on some moronic “technically broke the rules based on their phrasing”, but rather based on the values contained in the rules.
Well, if you have never been troubled by any ambiguity in your life, bless you.