Dmitri | 🇺🇦Nov 26, 2022
Dani — MLT(ASCP)

Reading threads of people brainstorming on how to moderate the fediverse and it's obvious a good 80% to 90% of these people have never had to moderate anything remotely as toxic as social media. Or anything at all.

I moderated a default subreddit. I don't care if you paid me a living wage. I would have burned out the same way I burned out being unpaid. It has nothing at all to do with what you get in return. It is quite literally soul-crushing, and my subreddit wasn't even as toxic as it could have been.

I want things to be the best that they can, but they need to be addressed be people who have had heavy experience with this kind of thing. Also — you are never going to find a one size fits all answer. Is everyone going to have to go with this one solution or get defederated?

I dunno, man. I want a solution, but so far the things I'm hearing that excite people are to me, with the moderating experience I have, not reassuring.

Nov 26, 2022 at 2:36amWeb
Show threadCalamity CaitlinNov 26, 2022
@warkittens I don't know how moderation on reddit worked, but as a moderator on here I don't have to slog through everything myself, users can submit reports and then I can go look at the reports and suspend or limit the user or their instance. I'm hoping staying on top of it won't be too difficult. (plus I asked a lot of folks to help moderate.)
Show threadDani — MLT(ASCP)Nov 26, 2022
@squeevening
It has nothing to do with doing it yourself. It is the content itself.
Show threadCalamity CaitlinNov 26, 2022
@warkittens that makes sense. People are the worst. I read an entire treatise on moderating by the guy from improbable island it was really illuminating.
Show threadDani — MLT(ASCP)Nov 26, 2022
@squeevening
You have your work cut out for you I fear. I have an SPN DM I'm in on the birb and someone was shocked that you wanted to give this a go given the... Behavior of the fandom.  
Show threadCalamity CaitlinNov 26, 2022
@warkittens yeah, well, you should read my terms of service. ;-)
Show threadBrian C. Keegan, Ph.D.Nov 26, 2022
@warkittens the ‘ol “Some reactionary snowflakes are spamming reports but there’s nothing you can do to stop them.”
Show threadDani — MLT(ASCP)Nov 26, 2022
@bkeegan
That and the content itself is fucking awful TBQF. You can only read so many slurs, so many miserable misogynist opinions, so many just plain awful things day in and day out before it's too much and you become even more of a misanthrope than you started.
Show threadPxtlNov 26, 2022

@warkittens this is the part that really worries me.

The front-end and protocol bugs can be fixed. The hosting stack can be simplified so it no longer needs a flotilla of containers. But this? As soon as Mastodon gets any real traction, it's going to be swarmed by scammers and spammers and bots and chuds and predators and even perfectly well-intentioned users that happen to have a disorder that makes them post 500 unhinged rageposts an hour across 12 accounts.

Show threadDani — MLT(ASCP)Nov 26, 2022
@Pxtl
B I N G O. It's exhausting. I don't care how much you pay someone. Moderators burn out at an incredibly fast rate. It's why it is usually a volunteer position or a small part of another position.
Show threadPxtlNov 26, 2022

@warkittens honestly, I don't see any way for Mastodon long-term besides well-moderated instances being pay-to-use, which would both cover costs *and* create a higher cost for being a bad actor. Even a one-time buy-in like Something Awful used might be enough.

Free instances will likely eventually descend into anarchy as traffic goes up.

Show threadThe BirdNov 26, 2022

@warkittens

What we need is community-building, where being cycle out to recover and others take their place. We need a more collective hands-on effort by folks on their servers to help keep the community safe and help one another avoid burnout. Finding folks willing to do this moderation is hard because of how toxic it is and most folks don't wanna see that.

Yet we keep trying to come up with engineering solutions that don't factor in community needs too. I wanna see both met.

Show threadDani — MLT(ASCP)Nov 26, 2022
@Aaidanbird
This is the correct solution. A part time, cycle in/out solution. Not a paid position. Not some group that all instances use. I've heard some crazy, wild suggestions that people think are brilliant and I just look at them and think... You all certainly have no idea what comes thru these queues.
Show threadAlex@rtnVFRmedia Suffolk UKNov 26, 2022

@warkittens @Aaidanbird

for this very reason in meatspace detectives, security guards and bouncers aren't put on shift day after day and are given time off - and folk on here generally tend to be left/anarchist and really do *not* like those kind of jobs but being a moderator (which I have also done over the years) is often a combination of being all three...

Show threadJakeNov 26, 2022

@warkittens I think that's the appeal of mastadon -- if you're too hot for one server, you can probably go find a server with a bunch of your like minded friends and exist in a bubble if you so choose.

I can't imagine the stress loads these admins are having to deal with on the moderation.

Show threadDani — MLT(ASCP)Nov 26, 2022
@jacobwm
It's so tough for them. I want to buy them all a beverage of their choice and a good quality pizza. There's a solution, just nothing like what the big thinkers are coming up with.
Show threadAutisticMumTo3 She/herNov 26, 2022
@warkittens
So sorry.
@mekkaokereke
Show threadTheJenNov 26, 2022

@warkittens

Being a mod SUUUUUUUCKS.

Show threadDani — MLT(ASCP)Nov 26, 2022
@JenWojcik
It's one of the worst things I've ever done in relation to people — and I was a tech lead on a help desk that supported 500k people, carried a fucking pager, and our software dealt with people getting reimbursed for expense reports. I'd rather be back there on a day with 500 calls in queue.
Show threadTheJenNov 26, 2022

@warkittens

Word

Show threadChristopher SchmidtNov 26, 2022
@warkittens This has always been the thing that has worried me most about federated social media at scale, and I have not yet seen anything to convince me to change that concern.
Show threadRant NinjaNov 26, 2022

@warkittens I haven't seen any concrete suggestions for mod improvements but I've done a lot of mod work in my day and could not agree more.

It is hard work and anyone who hasn't been burned by the experience was in a tightly controlled network or just didn't care.

I think there are many simple fixes but they'd *have* to be gamed out by red teams prior to implementation. It's way too easy to put in the work and miss attack vectors for harmful people and/or intentions.

Fingers crossed.

Show threadDani — MLT(ASCP)Nov 26, 2022
@rant
I think one of the easiest ways to help the whole thing succeed is swap in/out positions. It's double the people but it protects from burnout. No one should EVER be a mod that is on permanently.
L0
Show threadRant NinjaNov 26, 2022

@warkittens absolutely necessary tactic for sanity.

For scalability they're going to seriously build out the toolset. There is absolutely no way manual moderation will be sufficient to wrangle tens of thousands of users on an instance if the spammers & hate-spewers set their sights on Mastodon.

I'm sure folks must recognize this but I worry their knee-jerk implementations might cause harm to the effort. It is *not* easy or intuitive.

Stay sane ya'll.

Show threadTom Bellin Nov 26, 2022

@warkittens The fun of the game is delivering toxic content to "normies" who are powerless to stop you.

On Twitter, FB and reddit, etc. ownership jealously hoards power. There's no reason mastodon had to follow that model.

The answer to the moderation crisis is for Mastodon to empower regular users to handle moderation on their own. We should be able to add CW and mute posts and limit users for our server in real time.

Show threadTom Bellin Nov 26, 2022
@warkittens believe me, making that process less prone to abuse is a MUCH easier problem than demanding that server admins and volunteers wade through all the worst things on the internet.
Show threadHeather C.Nov 26, 2022
@warkittens I used to moderate star wars message boards. There isn't enough money in the WORLD and that was small potatoes
Show threadDani — MLT(ASCP)Nov 26, 2022
@badbirch
Good Christ that would be a nightmare. I just did a few million users talking about science. I will take that over even the smallest Star Wars board.
Show threadHeather C.Nov 26, 2022
@warkittens In hindsight I boggle at how long I did it to 'help improve the community' and how long it burnt me out for anything like it.
Show threadRod Van MeterNov 26, 2022
@warkittens it's going to be the make or break issue here, and the people who do the moderating have a horrible job. It's astounding how vile people can be. Moderators are subject to the worst of humanity as a *full time job*, and it must damage the soul.
I have nothing to offer as a solution, but thank you for your prior service...
Show threadMayor McCheeseNov 26, 2022
@warkittens Reddit is an interesting place. Some subs like Learn Finnish and Duolingo subs are full of for the most part nice people. Whereas others are full of really awful, almost feral behaving people.
Show threadDani — MLT(ASCP)Nov 26, 2022

@admin
Now let me precede this with a guess and I could be wrong — you're not a mod, if you are you're lucky but...

Lol. You're naïve. Please try and guess what default I moderated. It was back a while, and I haven't been on reddit in years but I am pretty sure we're still default.

EVERY subreddit gets toxic, vile posts. You, if you're a user, just don't see it.

Show threadMayor McCheeseNov 26, 2022
@warkittens Fair enough, but it could just be that more are let through on some subs than others. It just seems that some of the reddit subs have horrible people as the median user and everyone is allowed the "delight" of witnessing it.
Show threadDani — MLT(ASCP)Nov 26, 2022
@admin
Oh this is absolutely true.  
Show threadIt's Just Jenn 🏳️‍⚧️Nov 26, 2022
@warkittens I feel like community moderation (with Reddit style mods for each server) is the only way something like this can work. But then I also think about how Facebook has to shift their moderators in and out of service from some of the horrific shit they have to view because they develop depression and anxiety.
Show threadDani — MLT(ASCP)Nov 26, 2022
@Tweetfiction
That can be done even on small instances.
Show threadSuzyanalyst1Nov 26, 2022
@warkittens Maybe one partial solution to the moderation problem is trying to not take it personally if we get a post taken down. If moderation labor is going to be widely distributed and/or automated, honest mistakes and odd judgement calls will be made. So hissy fits should presumably be kept to a minimum.
Show threadDani — MLT(ASCP)Nov 26, 2022

@Suzyanalyst1
Well, sure. I mean that's a given.

But then you have poor @chad/@mstdn.ca getting his ass handed to him by a %age of his users because performance is suffering due to exponential growth. He's working his butt of improving stuff with money out of his own pocket and people are still being abusive.

Humans SUCK.  

Show threadNickNov 26, 2022
@warkittens

I’ve seen some worrying posts from an admin whose instance went from somewhere in the hundreds of people to more than 10,000. I felt a little helpless because it sounded like they were heading for a burnout but I’m just a random person who doesn’t even have an account on their server, and I realistically can’t offer any help.

I really wonder if we are approaching this from the wrong end. I get the fediverse needs to be welcoming (I only joined a few weeks back) and there has to be a place where people can take a look around. But beyond a flagship/tryout instance, I wonder if open signups and big servers are the thing that has to go away.

I’m posting this from a personal instance (which I started up as a test — not sure if I will keep it going).

I might let another one or two good friends on here, people I know IRL and whom I trust not to be idiots online. People where my baseline expectation would be that their content will never need moderation. So I should have very little actual moderating to do. (And if a different instance disagrees with my definition of what “not being an idiot online” means, then they can block my entire instance.)

So I wonder if the content moderation problem is a specific problem that big, open-signup instances have. For the rest, should we maybe focus on (a) vetting membership and (b) suspending or blocking entire instances?

We would need (formal or informal) size limits on instances, and it would have to be easier for people to spin up their own. We would need a couple open-signup instances so that people can get a sense of how the fediverse works (and there the moderation problem will continue to exist), but maybe accounts there should simply expire after a month. You get a month to look around and either find an instance that will let you on or start your own.

I know this will *severely* limit the growth of the fediverse. We can no longer boast about tens of thousands of people having joined in the last day or week or whatever. But the choice may very well be between fast growth and sustainable growth.
Show threadDani — MLT(ASCP)Nov 26, 2022

@nick
I don't disagree. There are gonna be people who are totally fine with running instances with those kinds of numbers, and working out moderation for that size. But I think that people are going to need to think about what size and effort they are willing to deal with, and cap ahead of time.

It's obviously no one's fault at this point. No one expected the birb to go down in flames this fast. But many, many smaller instances will make moderation much easier.

Show threadNickNov 26, 2022
@warkittens

Absolutely. It goes beyond moderation, too. There was a very scary thread on the birdsite about the legal/liability implications of running a Mastodon instance. If you’re running a personal instance, it doesn’t matter so much, I guess, because it’s just you and you’re responsible for your own actions anyway. But an instance with thousands or tens of thousands of users … from copyright issues to illegal content, this could cause massive headaches to admins.
Show threadHtaggertNov 26, 2022
@warkittens I find that there’s a lot of commentary from ppl who have been here for 3 days- which says to me they aren’t even yet aware of how things may work- so I’m like ehhhh, sit down friend. I’m mostly an observer - unless you want some advice about how to not infect patients and do a construction project in your health care facility…
Show threadChris LNov 26, 2022
@warkittens I lasted eleven months as a forum moderator, and it wasn't even a busy forum. I specifically don't have so much as a Discord server because I don't want to be responsible for curating and moderating it. It's an awful job and everyone hates you for doing it.
Show threadDavid GerardNov 26, 2022

@potatocubed @warkittens god yes. who the hell wants to be a forum mod.

or a wikipedia admin, lol

Show threadSparkle TeaNov 26, 2022

@warkittens
I like the idea here of the broad strokes being in agreement, but the day to day decision are left to each instance.

Sigh. Empathy for the moderation work! I served as a moderator for 3-4 years for a rock band, pre-FB, pre-BirdApp. Eventually, it devolved; but for a while there, it was a fun cyperplace.

Finding the balance is tricky. How to welcome humor, and the challenge of ideas, without members of the community fighting about where lines are drawn.

Show threadG Dan MitchellNov 26, 2022

@warkittens I've created and moderated online communities since the mid-1990s. Some of the problems, even in well-moderated communities of like-minded people, seem to be endemic to the online space.

A lot has been written about how our boundaries and filters don't kick in the same way online.

When it comes to huge "communities" (so huge that this seems like the wrong word), I'm not sure that there is a "right" balance of moderation. It remains a mystery.

Show threadDani — MLT(ASCP)Nov 26, 2022

@gdanmitchell
It's true. The subreddit I moderated had well over 6 million users at one point. There's no fixing that.

This is why I advocate keeping new instances small so moderation can be a goal. We were able to keep up and keep things fantastic up to about 700k users. These numbers absolutely do not translate to Mastodon, but it's an example that there's thresholds where a team can make the difference.

Show threadJonathan Baker-BatesNov 26, 2022
@warkittens This is probably a naive question, but does the nature of Mastodon's content not lend itself to being filtered in some way? Bayesian filtering and RBLs, etc. work pretty well for email. Not saying it would be a solution, but might help? Eg https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/7703
Ability to run toots through a spam filter · Issue #7703 · mastodon/mastodon

Iʼm not sure about the UI/UX yet, so this is more a thought starter than an actual issue. I recently saw some complaints in the Fediverse that bigger instances suffer from spambot attacks. I though...

GitHub
Show threadDani — MLT(ASCP)Nov 26, 2022

@Gilgongo
I don't disagree but there's a bigger discussion here that I'm not equipped to have. I'm just a middle aged white lady. Sure, I'm queer as hell but I can hide that if I want to.

Black and Brown folks are getting a hell of a time on this platform for just existing in many cases. I think that if you have a look at what @shengokai/@zirk.us and @chanda/@blacktwitter.io have to say on their timelines you can get a better picture as to why some folks want a way to have something like this.

Show threadJonathan Baker-BatesNov 26, 2022
@warkittens Of course - I absolutely don't want to imply that targeted abuse doesn't happens here. Was more wanting to address your point about moderator burnout in terms of volume/amount of perhaps "low grade" bad content generally, and making a comparison to that and email spam which (as of about 2005) has been hugely reduced from what it once was? I'm no expert though.
Show threadDani — MLT(ASCP)Nov 26, 2022

@Gilgongo
Oh duh sorry. I thought you were replying to another post. I am super overtired.  

I mean sure the volume might not be huge for SOME servers, it's the content that burns you out.

Show threadJeffrey GoldbergNov 27, 2022

@warkittens I've run email lists, moderated Usenet newsgroups, and ran a university NTTP server.

I have every sympathy for the moderators. And I am not second guessing them nor pouring over their decisions.

But despite (or because of) my experience, I am not volunteering to help. But they have my support, and I will work to not make their job more difficult.