nine and sixty rules and moderation

[zeborah]

birdsedge wrote:
Who rules?

And who rules the rulers?

And there were a couple of replies there but this may be something we need to discuss more.

[Or should we just create the community already and make it up as we go along?]

Do we want to moderate?

What do we want to moderate?

• Do we want to ever be able, for whatever reasons and under whatever restrictions, to exclude entire people; or do we want to only ever exclude particular topics, or styles, or posts?
• Should it be defined or will we know it when we see it?

Who do we want to do the moderating?

• One supreme dictator, a supreme triumvirate, a group of representatives polling the mood of the tyranny of the mob?

I know what I want but it may well not be what's best for the group so I need to think some more before I actually say anything.

Comments

[julesjones]

Back home with my own connection again, so I can catch up on the discussion.

Agreed that it needs a cabal, and ideally one spread over several timezones. I'm part of the cabal for an LJ comm set up to replace one part of the Rumor Mill, and we had our first real moderation decision today. I was effectively offline, and in bed when it happened anyway, but one of the US timezone mods spotted it and sent out a note to the rest of the mods asking for opinions. If it had been a seriously urgent item, she could have dealt with it there and then.

As Brooks notes, there is a distinction between needing to be a member to make a new post, and needing to be a member (or even have an LJ account) to be able to comment on a thread. One possibility is having a date-pinned open thread where non-members can post a request that someone put up a post for them, although that does involve potential problems if it doesn't happen and they get into a huff about it.