Call for volunteers: Moderation oversight committee January 6, 2025 7:28 PM Subscribe
The board is forming a moderation oversight committee and you are welcome to volunteer to be on it! Some people have already! But this is the formal ask for anyone who is interested and has not contacted me yet. More details, such as they are, inside.
First thank you to those who volunteered already. We are already a strong committee, but I wanted to be sure people who don't go deep in MetaTalk comments have a chance to join for launch.
This committee is a temporary response that may or may not continue; we're looking at about a 6-month trial. Your feedback will be important on this at that time! The purpose of this committee is to:
1) provide a chamber of "sober second thought" to advise on moderation decisions and, where necessary, to refer decisions up to the Interim Board, and be a place for members who are not happy with moderation decisions to be heard.
2) gather on-the-ground information about how moderation is happening and being received to help support moderation practices on the site. The emphasis on members is deliberate, but I definitely recognize the moderators' historical knowledge and expertise on current practices and continued commitment, and hope that we can communicate together well and that the committee becomes a support there as well if it continues.
Limitations
This committee is NOT designed to replace paid moderation or to provide immediate responses. This is a point of escalation and we will try to be timely, but we definitely won't be turning things around at the rate of paid staff.
The committee will NOT have access to moderation tools or any member information that is not a) provided by that member, b) available on the site. As a part of the intake process the member will be asked if they are comfortable with c) the committee reaching out to the mods.
The committee will hope to influence and recommend; any final decision-making will come from the Interim Board (but hopefully mostly things can be worked out via influence or discussion.)
This committee does NOT replace the BIPOC committee or the site's commitment to it.
What we're asking for now
If you're interested please MeMail me with your interest, before January 13 if possible (although you are more than welcome to email afterwards, that's the date at which I'll consider we're moving ahead); you're also welcome to comment below but you don't have to!
The time commitment is flexible but I would anticipate 1-2 hours a week overall. Being available to drop thoughts in a chat asynchronously on a pretty regular basis will be more important than meetings. I anticipate this will be on a Slack. Please be aware the board will have the ability to veto participants if needed, based on past site activity, or end the committee's work at any time, because the buck stops with them. I don't think that's likely, but that's how we're rolling.
Please feel free to raise your concerns but please bear with us for the the start-up phase
The committee will have to make some decisions before we can answer some questions like exactly how to contact us and so on. So please bear with us. This won't be months and months but it will be a couple of weeks. In the meantime if you have a moderation decision that is current that you do not agree with and want brought to the moderation oversight committee you totally can MeMail me to be on the list. I admit I am curious how often this will happen because we have no idea.
This committee will primarily look at current moderation topics, so things that are happening now/over the next 6 months. There may or may not also be a project to collect historical data.
First thank you to those who volunteered already. We are already a strong committee, but I wanted to be sure people who don't go deep in MetaTalk comments have a chance to join for launch.
This committee is a temporary response that may or may not continue; we're looking at about a 6-month trial. Your feedback will be important on this at that time! The purpose of this committee is to:
1) provide a chamber of "sober second thought" to advise on moderation decisions and, where necessary, to refer decisions up to the Interim Board, and be a place for members who are not happy with moderation decisions to be heard.
2) gather on-the-ground information about how moderation is happening and being received to help support moderation practices on the site. The emphasis on members is deliberate, but I definitely recognize the moderators' historical knowledge and expertise on current practices and continued commitment, and hope that we can communicate together well and that the committee becomes a support there as well if it continues.
Limitations
This committee is NOT designed to replace paid moderation or to provide immediate responses. This is a point of escalation and we will try to be timely, but we definitely won't be turning things around at the rate of paid staff.
The committee will NOT have access to moderation tools or any member information that is not a) provided by that member, b) available on the site. As a part of the intake process the member will be asked if they are comfortable with c) the committee reaching out to the mods.
The committee will hope to influence and recommend; any final decision-making will come from the Interim Board (but hopefully mostly things can be worked out via influence or discussion.)
This committee does NOT replace the BIPOC committee or the site's commitment to it.
What we're asking for now
If you're interested please MeMail me with your interest, before January 13 if possible (although you are more than welcome to email afterwards, that's the date at which I'll consider we're moving ahead); you're also welcome to comment below but you don't have to!
The time commitment is flexible but I would anticipate 1-2 hours a week overall. Being available to drop thoughts in a chat asynchronously on a pretty regular basis will be more important than meetings. I anticipate this will be on a Slack. Please be aware the board will have the ability to veto participants if needed, based on past site activity, or end the committee's work at any time, because the buck stops with them. I don't think that's likely, but that's how we're rolling.
Please feel free to raise your concerns but please bear with us for the the start-up phase
The committee will have to make some decisions before we can answer some questions like exactly how to contact us and so on. So please bear with us. This won't be months and months but it will be a couple of weeks. In the meantime if you have a moderation decision that is current that you do not agree with and want brought to the moderation oversight committee you totally can MeMail me to be on the list. I admit I am curious how often this will happen because we have no idea.
This committee will primarily look at current moderation topics, so things that are happening now/over the next 6 months. There may or may not also be a project to collect historical data.
Fantastic! Thank you, warriorqueen, other organizers and volunteers. Your commitment to solving the moderation challenges is inspiring and Iām considering volunteering.
posted by ashbury at 8:22 PM on January 6 [4 favorites]
posted by ashbury at 8:22 PM on January 6 [4 favorites]
Great idea! Thank you, warriorqueen and other volunteers.
posted by NotLost at 6:01 AM on January 7 [5 favorites]
posted by NotLost at 6:01 AM on January 7 [5 favorites]
I wish I could favorite this post twice.
posted by 1adam12 at 7:09 AM on January 7 [1 favorite]
posted by 1adam12 at 7:09 AM on January 7 [1 favorite]
This is a great initiative. Metafilter is the community I brought up in my very first interview for a community manager role over a decade ago (and I got the job for what it's worth). For all the challenges and issues, how community is handled and moderated here is still my gold standard and something I reference to this day.
posted by slimepuppy at 7:27 AM on January 7 [5 favorites]
posted by slimepuppy at 7:27 AM on January 7 [5 favorites]
Thank you warriorqueen, especially for the crossposts.
posted by 15L06 at 7:42 AM on January 7 [3 favorites]
posted by 15L06 at 7:42 AM on January 7 [3 favorites]
Thanks for all your work in spearheading this, warriorqueen, and thanks to all those volunteering. It feels like a worthwhile experiment and a step in the right direction for a community-supported nonprofit Metafilter.
posted by ourobouros at 9:28 AM on January 7 [4 favorites]
posted by ourobouros at 9:28 AM on January 7 [4 favorites]
I was going to ask this privately, but then thought maybe there are other people who might have a similar question, so here goes: How smart-about-organizations do you have to be, to be on a committee like this?
A lot of the really concrete discussion in the Metatalks comes from people with a lot of experience with, say, nonprofits. Or they've worked as a moderator elsewhere, or something like that.
For people without any of that experience, is there a way to help? What kind of knowledge, experience and outlook makes the best match for a committee like this?
posted by mittens at 9:47 AM on January 7 [7 favorites]
A lot of the really concrete discussion in the Metatalks comes from people with a lot of experience with, say, nonprofits. Or they've worked as a moderator elsewhere, or something like that.
For people without any of that experience, is there a way to help? What kind of knowledge, experience and outlook makes the best match for a committee like this?
posted by mittens at 9:47 AM on January 7 [7 favorites]
Many thanks to all for putting this together! I wish I had the capacity to help directly, as this is my research area, and Metafilter has been part of my daily media for roughly twenty years but *gestures at 2025*. Thanks everyone <3
posted by honest knave at 10:47 AM on January 7 [2 favorites]
posted by honest knave at 10:47 AM on January 7 [2 favorites]
I memailed to volunteer. I do have previous experience with moderation. But that said, everyone starts somewhere, and it sounds to me like this is actually not a bad first moderation experience since it throws you into the deep end with contentious issues BUT you are on an escalation team all looking at them together after the fact, rather than making independent calls as a conversation evolves. I think for me the hardest part about moderating discussions was second-guessing whether I shut things down too early or too late. Without the time pressure I think it would be less difficult. In my opinion, there's no reason not to volunteer if it sounds interesting.
That said, I have no decision-making power or inside knowledge :)
posted by potrzebie at 5:50 PM on January 7 [7 favorites]
That said, I have no decision-making power or inside knowledge :)
posted by potrzebie at 5:50 PM on January 7 [7 favorites]
You are not logged in, either login or create an account to post comments
posted by lapis at 7:52 PM on January 6 [5 favorites]