Moderation is always a fine line. As we review content and users for moderation action, there are some ideals we should always have in mind.
- Free speech principles
- Expanding the Overton Window
- Maintaining a healthy community
We do have our Community Rules page, which provides guidance to our moderation actions, but should be used to facilitate the above ideals. We want to avoid being so rigid with the technicalities of the rules that we harm the above ideals.
When in doubt, err on the side of open speech.
For most of our moderation actions, we will allow the community reporting to lead the way. We can, and should, take action against obvious issues we run across directly, but for the most part, the community reporting will clue us into issues.
Bad information vs. bad behavior can be one of the most uncertain areas of action. Bad information should be met with good information. When you remove bad information, you also remove the opportunity to correct it and to teach others.
For example, someone makes a post about snake venom in the vaccines. Instead of silencing that post, it would be better to respond with the MANY statements FLCCC and others have made explaining the issue. Not only do we educate the original poster, but anyone who searches for that content and discovers it later can also be corrected.
Silencing things like this doesn’t change minds and only leads the users to echo chamber and fall further down bad rabbit holes.
Bad behavior, on the other hand, should be more of our focus. Someone might say something we agree with, but is toxic and hostile to the other users when doing so. Moderator action may help tone this down and let them correct the behavior in the future.
I have many, many tales of communities that went down toxic paths to their destruction. Our goal here is to have a community that is as open as possible, but clear of lethally toxic behavior and content.
Please discuss these items further in this thread. We want to have a clear and consistent manner of moderation that is not dependent on the mood, opinions, or bias of each individual moderator.
Also review the Moderation Tools sticky to become familiar with how to take moderation action. We will improve our guides and training over the coming weeks and months.