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I will say this, from the perspective of someone who has been around online communities for approaching 20 years and moderating in various online mediums for 10

by Bahamut 12y ago

I will say this, from the perspective of someone who has been around online communities for approaching 20 years and moderating in various online mediums for 10+ years - women get harassed online far too much in most communities. The extent some of the harassment goes is mind boggling. One of my good friends had a beastiality erotica written about her as part of a campaign to defame her, where the people involved went as far as taking the ip addresses of the moderators and redirecting them to a harmless image whenever they attempted to load the actual image. The primary reason is because a group of people didn't like how she acted, including dating the founder for a short while of the site the community was based on. Another member of the community was naively coaxed into sending someone else some pictures of her naked, which was then gathered up and used to slut shame her - she was not even 18, which made it distribution of child pornography. I have had to ban countless harassers who would go on a public TF2 server I run and immediately try to harass the women who had the gall to use a microphone - I take a zero tolerance attitude towards this behavior, harassment of any kind is unacceptable. Whatever positive contributions some of these people might have, it certainly isn't worth accepting that sort of behavior as the norm, driving away good people who did nothing wrong.

thyrsus 12y ago
Your individual actions are laudable. Is responsible moderation the only way to create welcoming communities, or are there ways to scale that?
- Bahamut 12y ago
  I'm of the opinion that it always starts at the top - even silence can be the wrong action, especially with behavior that normally gets decried as unacceptable at large. Moderators have such large power to influence the directions communities go - in a way, moderators are like unofficial judges. Bad decision making ruins everyone's quality of life who participates. This is in large part what makes places like 4chan and Reddit not great in my eyes. Some of the moderation policies here on HN are also highly suspect as well, and it is reflected in some of the comments you see here and in some other posts. Communities have often proven bad stalwarts of proper decorum and respectfulness - you can see it quite often in forums or boards of various types and various subjects. 4chan, Reddit, HN, sports forums, video game forums, etc. More community run forums tend to devolve into chaos, where many otherwise good people who would normally stand up to abusive behavior end up leaving since they get drowned in a sea of mob rule. The only way I have been able to see this situation get stopped is by strong moderation, since they have special authority to make or break situations. However, moderation also has to be mindful of the community as well - some actions, even if right, can drive away people. Communities can mold around how a moderator behaves, so one has to be careful not to be too strong armed. It's a delicate tightrope one has to walk as a moderator, and one managing moderators.

by Bahamut 12y ago

thyrsus 12y ago

Your individual actions are laudable. Is responsible moderation the only way to create welcoming communities, or are there ways to scale that?

Bahamut 12y ago
I'm of the opinion that it always starts at the top - even silence can be the wrong action, especially with behavior that normally gets decried as unacceptable at large. Moderators have such large power to influence the directions communities go - in a way, moderators are like unofficial judges. Bad decision making ruins everyone's quality of life who participates. This is in large part what makes places like 4chan and Reddit not great in my eyes. Some of the moderation policies here on HN are also highly suspect as well, and it is reflected in some of the comments you see here and in some other posts. Communities have often proven bad stalwarts of proper decorum and respectfulness - you can see it quite often in forums or boards of various types and various subjects. 4chan, Reddit, HN, sports forums, video game forums, etc. More community run forums tend to devolve into chaos, where many otherwise good people who would normally stand up to abusive behavior end up leaving since they get drowned in a sea of mob rule. The only way I have been able to see this situation get stopped is by strong moderation, since they have special authority to make or break situations. However, moderation also has to be mindful of the community as well - some actions, even if right, can drive away people. Communities can mold around how a moderator behaves, so one has to be careful not to be too strong armed. It's a delicate tightrope one has to walk as a moderator, and one managing moderators.