Hey all,
Moderation philosophy posts started out as an exercise by myself to put down some of my thoughts on running communities that I’d learned over the years. As they continued I started to more heavily involve the other admins in the writing and brainstorming. This most recent post involved a lot of moderator voices as well, which is super exciting! This is a community, and we want the voices at all levels to represent the community and how it’s run.
This is probably the first of several posts on moderation philosophy, how we make decisions, and an exercise to bring additional transparency to how we operate.
A major problem I encountered on another site was pedantry.
Often, people would make a nuisance of themselves by being deliberately obtuse and fixating on minor details, while not explicitly breaking the site’s rules. Though not overtly hateful or bigoted, pedantic comments could be remarkably exhausting and annoying. It could seem like someone was trolling, or trying to bait you into an argument, while skirting the rules to stay out of trouble themselves.
How do you moderate posts like that? Should they be reported?
Being a jerk is definitely not nice behavior. Most pedantic people are prone to escalation - they’ll misinterpret what you say, assume ill intent, and fire back insults in your direction. This kind of stuff is simply not tolerated. On a more nuanced level, if they’re baiting you or even just trying to prove their point and ignore yours, there’s a level of bad faith going on. If they truly wanted to have a conversation or understand your viewpoint, it’s usually very clear.
Of course, this can get tricky when discussing real world issues with real world consequences but even then, think to a measured debate or discussion on a tricky subject and how the people involved treat each other- humanity and respect is easy to recognize. Think of the nicest person you know, and how they’d talk about the same subject. We can’t hold everyone to that standard, but we can try to hold ourselves to that standard and disengage when we find ourselves failing it.
Be sure to report any and everything you see that gives you pause which hasn’t been actioned or where a moderator hasn’t stepped in. The more eyes we can get on a conversation the better we can tune into whether it’s how we’re personally viewing it versus how others do.
Feel free to report anything you might find questionable or in bad faith. We keep our rules simple and very broad to avoid this exact pedantry and give mods more leeway to interpret situations as needed. If something is riding the line and is reported we may or may not remove it, but we WILL read into it and make a judgement call. Most likely someone would step in and try to steer the discussion into a more productive line.
Thank you! Overly specific rules can encourage people who are trying to break the spirit of the rule, but want to stay untouchable because they aren’t violating the letter. A bit of leeway and room for interpretation are exactly what these situations call for. Thanks again!
Yeah this is a problem everywhere especially on that other site. The more specific you make a rule the harder people rule lawyer it; well the rule says this, but I didn’t do that
Open ended rules like ours for be nice can be subjective however. One person might think telling someone how bad they look is being nice so they can change the look. The person being told they thinks the other is an asshole. But in the spirit of the rule, just be nice. Unfortunately it is a balancing act.
If it was just occasional, then yeah, that would be the best way to handle the situation. Unfortunately, it became so widespread that I’d see it in virtually every popular thread. That’s why I asked for advice. Pedantry severely drags down the quality of conversations.
Most of the time, it was pretty obvious that these people didn’t actually care about the trivial point they were arguing over; they were just trolls who were good with language. I don’t want any kind of troll to feel welcome on Beehaw.
That behavior is often called sealioning and is a very well-worn tool in the cryptofacist’s toolbox. See also The Card Says Moops.
Oh that sealioning comic is a must-see
