Dan moved, see pinned tootOnline Community Moderation Thread Part 93819: the same story going round and round forever
Been watching this Scott Cawthorn thing play out (the Five Nights At Freddy's guy, who it turns out was secretly donating the game's profits to far-right abusers while publicly donating to useful groups to give himself a veneer of respectability).
If you've been moderating for a while you'll see the same social mechanics play out over and over like clockwork, and you'll feel frustrated at this.
You'll be like, "This only last happened a couple of years ago, don't people learn?"
Remember, your site has new users since the last spin of the merry-go-round. Some of them are in their teens!
The FNAF community is handling their Milkshake Duck situation poorly because they trend so young that for many of them, *this is their first Milkshake Duck.* Their first ever! You remember how much you flailed and how much of an ass you made of yourself during *your* first Milkshake Duck, don't you?
You'll continually go through the same stories over and over until a portion of your userbase is old enough to recognize these cyclic events, and then you'll keep going through them because you have new users, but the old users will roll their eyes and go "Pfft, kids today."
The solution - I'll say it again! - is to list common harmful social mechanisms *right there on your website,* so people recognize and derail them on the fly.
(surfing random waves of algorithmically-amplified emotion is not a healthy thing to do during a traumatic event. A Community Consensus will attempt to form within literal minutes of the news breaking, regardless of whether anyone's had time to sit with their emotions or not.
Of course shutting down a subreddit while it's at the absolute peak of its traffic is unthinkable, because corporate-owned internet wants us to think that numbers going up is good.)
One wrinkle to the "Shut it all down and let people think for a minute" approach is that for a non-zero portion of the userbase, this community IS how they think, how they process, how they identify themselves, and suddenly yanking that away and forcing them to sit with their own emotions would be cruel to them. I'm aware of that.
I said earlier in this thread, "You will have to deliberately hurt someone." That's important to keep in mind if you want to run a community website.
Online Community Moderation Thread continued, red flags for an early ban:
* using "god" or "hero" or "deity" or other wanky self-aggrandizing crap in their username. You'll wanna be up to speed with the semi-obscure names of almost-forgotten gods that undesirables tend to use, including spelling variants (we had a guy who named himself Asmodius who ended up in prison, you can probably guess why but it's actually worse than you think).
A common denominator between many of the folks you'll want to ban from your website is that they all want to see what they can get away with.
More often than not, they treat everyone around them the same way. That includes work colleagues, intimate partners, you get the idea.
Someone who consistently bends the rules will eventually victimize your other users, if they're not already doing so. You'll find out when half a dozen come forward at once.
Ban before that point.
(me, early in Improbable Island days, a twentysomething dumbass who thought he knew better despite being in the internet's Edgy Cringe Is Cool Actually era: "Haha lol I have a cult"
me, very shortly thereafter: "oh shit I have a cult, this is Bad Actually"
me now, a latethirtysomething dumbass who thinks he knows better but at least does know better than he did ten or twelve years ago: "Don't let folks turn you into a cult leader kids, it's Awful Actually")
(lotta Actually going on here huh)
Earlier on I said "If it's make a new rule for one person or ban the person in question, just ban" - I also wanna make clear that codifying your community norms, writing them down as part of your CoC in a descriptive (as opposed to prescriptive) way to remind you and others of what the community is like when it's at its best is Good Actually.
I also wanna reiterate that online community management is tricksy and subtle and sometimes contradictory
Online community management thread part ten billion: hobby degradation
Another awful online social dynamic I wanted to highlight (in case you hadn't had enough of those by now) is the zombie-consumerism takeover of the hobby forum.
It works like this. Rich guy joins the forum and starts posting pictures of their massive collection of gerbil tanks, admin doesn't say "Hey this site is "look how nice I am to my gerbils," not "look at my huge bank account," piss off Richie Rich," trouble ensues.
Many hobby communities end up like this.
If the "I'm rich, look at my stuff" posts are left up then they'll inevitably become popular because folk like shinies. Popular posts set the tone, especially if you've been shortsighted enough to attach visible engagement numbers to posts.
(adding a "high score" to casual social interaction is a really bizarre thing to do with predictably awful results but sites do it anyway for quick dopamine hits)
You'll get more of these sorts of posts.
Thread housecleaning:
This thread is long and unwieldy and hard to process and neverending because the subject is long and unwieldy and hard to process and neverending. If you're intimidated by its length then consider this a taster for what you'll have to deal with as an admin!
This is a stream-of-thought thing where I just toot out whatever comes to mind as I think of it, it doesn't have a table of contents or chapters. I might write a book one day, I might not, consider this a draft.
Thread housekeeping (housecleaning was a brainfart) part 2:
Some folks are asking again if they can turn this into a blog post; by all means link to the thread as it evolves but hold off for now 'cause I'm by no means finished, also be considerate of others replying who don't want that. Check earlier housekeeping posts for my stance on screenshotting etc
Popping this onto the end of the community moderation / admining thread because it's tangentially related and there's notes of responsibility to audience etc.
I'm writing an MotD about COVID-19, trying to encourage those of my players who haven't yet gotten the vaccine to get the vaccine.
This isn't the sort of thing you'd expect a game website to do, and I'm... kind of wondering why that is, and trying to deconstruct my hesitation and figure out why this makes me uncomfortable.
Whether I like it or not, whether I'd normally do it or not, these aren't normal times and if I've got an audience, some of whom could be persuaded to get a vaccine, some of whom wouldn't get a vaccine otherwise, then I've got an obligation to make the best attempt I can.
Next consideration, how many minds am I likely to change... probably not that many, but if it's even potentially non-zero then I've kinda gotta make the effort.
I wibbled around a lot, typed out some very long MotD's and deleted them, and ultimately went with something shorter:
"A rare serious update here, especially for those of us in the USA: the Delta variant of Covid-19 is here, and it's not fucking around.
"If you live in a country where vaccines are available, and you've been putting off getting one, I implore you to ask your doctor about it.
Plenty of folks figured they had a low risk of getting or spreading the disease and were putting off getting the vaccine so as to let the elderly and immunocompromised get first dibs.
"If this describes you, I applaud your patience, but those of us at most risk have all had the jab now and Delta is killing and hospitalizing people who previously didn't have as much to worry about.
Again, ask your doctor, they (usually) know what they're talking about - don't trust me, I'm just a stranger on the internet, and the internet is full of bullshit."
Adding onto the community moderation thread:
I just saw a guy in another thread do the whole Let The Lies Spread argument: instead of banning misinformation and propaganda from your site, allow it to stay up because your users will argue it and show it to be nonsense, and anyone watching will see it debunked and form a sensible conclusion.
If that's a thing you believe is true, still, in 2021, when people are eating sheep deworming paste, then you should NEVER run a social website.
If you let the sheep worm paste posts stay up and put the responsibility of debunking it onto your users, then random bystanders (who would have never thought of eating sheep worm paste) will see two people arguing about sheep worm paste.
They won't think LOOK AT THIS DINGDONG EATING SHEEP WORM PASTE, they will think THERE IS AN ARGUMENT ABOUT SHEEP WORM PASTE.
And they'll be right. Because you hosted that argument. You facilitated it. You paid for it to happen on your property.
Your regular users don't want to argue with weirdos about sheep worm paste, but they will, because they like your website and don't want it to become a rabbithole into the upside-down.
They'll resent you for putting this labour on them. Many will leave and the ratio of normal to sheepwormpastebrain will go in the wrong direction.
"The best solution to bad speech is more speech," bullshit. That's been tried by facebook and reddit and twitter for a decade and it's ruined whole countries.
Community moderation thread continued: I recently saw a messy moderation incident play out in a very public and very cursed way, and in trying to untangle the thread of bad decisions that got to this point, I figured I'd talk a bit about power, because it looks like this is where the whole mess started.
Much much earlier in the thread I said that some people will resent you or treat you differently for the "power" that they think you hold over them.
Now most people don't actually want power, and are (rightly) suspicious of those who do. You made a website to have a laugh with some mates, not to have power.
Well, I've got some bad news for ya, buddy.
Whether you personally think you have power or not is as irrelevant as the distinction between having power, and having a bunch of people THINK you have power.
So while you may think you're talking to someone under your power as a friend, to them it doesn't feel that way. To them it feels more like talking to a boss or a teacher or a doctor or a judge, someone with power over them.
It's very very easy to hurt people from this position.
(this is why I cringe reading guides on how to set up social networks for your real-life friends. This dynamic ends friendships.)
Take this "I have power" dynamic and put it anywhere you need to make a delicate decision. Even though you just run a website, people (especially those in a fragile mental state) think you have power over them, so you have power over them. Offhanded remarks will be taken deeply to heart. Casual banter is ill advised.
Once you're an admin, to some people you're no longer a person, you're a cop. No matter how you act, no matter who you are, Power = Cop to some people.
It's on my mind, both because of the Bad Decision Train I saw unfold on another instance and because of my own experiences lately - mental health and bans.
I recently had a chat with a player who asked me to erase all of their characters. They were having a very bad time mental-health-wise, the Island was making it worse, and they wanted their characters erased because they couldn't stop themselves from logging on.
Anyway about a week later this player turns up again with a new account. At this point, with the conversation about how they hurt themselves with the site fresh in my mind, I issue a permanent ban - both because I don't want them to hurt themselves, and because I absolutely will not consent to them using *my* website to hurt themselves. I may not be able to stop them from hurting themselves elsewhere, but I don't consent to being made a part of that.
And this is one ban that I don't disclose.
The decision about whether, when and how to talk about bans really has to be taken on a case-by-case basis.
If a player is banned because they pose a risk to other players, then we tell EEEEVERYONE, because Discord is, regrettably, a thing.
If a player is banned for cheating or being a general dick, well, that's a maybe - I might mention it in chat but it doesn't warrant a Message Of The Day.
If a player is banned to protect themselves more than other players, then no, that's not a thing we'll talk about. Because of our position of power (whether it's real, imagined, or whether there's really any difference between the two) it would be at best inappropriate for us to do a public announcement about an issue that involves a user's mental health.
Sometimes this starts a rumour mill churning. Which sucks, but the churn's gonna churn. Refer to earlier "ban for lying about mods" bit.
Refer also to earlier "Be thick-skinned" and "People think you're a cop" bits.
Being an admin means that sometimes people will hate you and tell lies about you, and there's nothing you can do about it that won't make it worse.
There's a lot of good times involved in being an admin too, but you have to be prepared for being hated and lied about. This is important. If you honestly don't want that, if you think that would outweigh the good you're able to see and do, then this isn't a job for you.
More for the community moderation thread? Aye sure more for the community moderation thread.
Improbable Island made a grand last month. For a hobby that'd be AMAZING. For a full-time job, that sucks. Especially for a moderator, sysadmin, artist,
writer and developer all in one.
But this is the way it goes, running a website for money. Some months you're rich, some months you're poor.
Some folks don't do well with uncertainty but if you grew up scrabbling then you'll have an easier time!
One of the things that leads to this feast-or-famine kind of situation is the way people support websites.
The overwhelming majority of people will never give a website any money, no matter how politely the site may ask. A very small handful of people are very rich and will think of donating a grand the way you or I might stick 20p in the Barnardo's box. These people are called "Whales" and I've spent a decade trying to work around them, to limited success.
The thing about whales - quite aside from the dodgy ethics of having one or two people be basically financially responsible for the whole site - is that if you rely on whales, your income's gonna be incredibly inconsistent and you're gonna have a nightmare of a time trying to budget both your business and your life.
Improbable Island's donation setup tries hard to discourage whales and encourage instead small, manageable, regular donations from lots of people.
seachangedThis thread of yours is pure precious metal.
Sandra
Esther Payne 
I thought you might have have been subtooting that Lemmy thread. Then I scrolled up on the monster of that thread. Thank you, it's validated everything I think about learning from fandom drama etc. Treat is as online community history. So much this.
@onepict Haha I was indeed subtooting that Lemmy thread :P
But yeah fandom drama, particularly, is incredibly illuminating on how people behave online, and yet this vast treasure trove of drama writeups and analysis gets ignored or written off as... well, Fandom Drama, by new community managers who pull a Surprised Pikachu face when the exact same thing happens on their site :P
I think there's a bit of snobbery about fandom anyway in some tech circles, it feels a little like a naughty secret. But I saw it online, on LJ and on Tumblr. The drama repeats itself and a small fandom is a close knit community. When it scales up it's unmanageable. Stories like MS Scribe and the Bit of Earth saga, show how bad actors can cause strife, in some cases fraud, and definitely reputational damage.
@ifixcoinops
It's also a very different feeling being in a small community where drama happens and being outside pointing and laughing. Which I did as a 20 year old. There's a point where on occasion you do need to leave as the drama comes.
But my on-line empathy and how I try and behave online is definitely experienced gained and from observation.
I think that's because big tech thinks in terms of the technology rather than the soft skills. Those community skills can be hard to quantify when your metrics are based on growth. Plus who's going to take you seriously when you reference your fandoms and also being an avid reader of fandom wank during the early 2000s. That interview would be awkward
Although the most amazing story from that time was Miss Scribe and the epic write up about it. Heck the story about the write up is interesting from the detective work involved. A text book example of a bad actor in a community, gaining power and influence through manipulation and sock puppets.
https://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Ms.Scribe_Story:_An_Unauthorized_Fandom_Biography
@ifixcoinops
It may just be about a Harry Potter community, but the BNFs (influencers) were grown professional adults, they had power in the community. Take the lesson from the intent. Not the subject of the community.
Miss Scribe found the divisions in the community and for want of a better word, performed psyops to gain power. I reread it last year and the write up. Just wow. You should write a book, we need the community management guides.
@onepict Aye too right, folk don't see it for what it is, especially in male-dominated spaces. And even outside of those spaces folk are sometimes afraid to bring it up 'cause then that means talking about the stuff you've seen online, which can provoke the question of "Soooooo... you into that stuff, huh?"
(sometimes from folk who are equally into that stuff but aren't "out" as such)
Fandom in the early 2000s was queer. So not traditional male spaces. You also had the mixture of very young kids coming in. Older folks who were the zine generation and the rest of us in the middle. Fandom is one of those spaces that keeps refreshing and then the kids discover the olds have always been here. We are just tired. We have literally seen it all before. I need the oracle gif from battlestar galactica now.
@onepict (aye that's what I meant, phrased poorly - I meant that young-male-dominated social tech companies don't look towards fandom as a source of info on How Things Can Go Wrong, because they think "oh that's just fandom drama.")
One of my best mods was an old-school fandomlady who only retired from modding because she had to put her affairs in order before moving into hospice care. She was very wise. She died in 2019 and I still miss her.
One other opinion I didn't agree with was trying to separate the software from the politics. When it's the main instance on a fairly new platform no matter how good it is you may not have the momentum in the community to fork.
I don't think you can separate tech from politics, you also can't try and reduce concerns about toxic elements in a community as "its just politics." Software is created to communicate and shape our perception of the world around us. It's for People, and politics is also about how our political systems are in theory about the people. Trying to deny it puts you in the same camp as the management of basecamp. Politics like it or not is a huge part of FLOSS.
Although I also recall politics being a huge deal, I remember I had folks on my flist who were very shy republican as the group I interacted with were democrat and very socialist with it. So there's nothing new about the push and pull with that.