Posted by Kim on July 2, 2021, 9:00am
It's July 2nd, and on the RP Repository, that means Moderator Appreciation Day!This is a holiday we celebrate for all moderators, everywhere. Yes, it's a salute to our extremely hard working site moderators, but I'm certain there are plenty of other moderators in your life, too - moderators of RPR groups. Moderators of Facebook Groups. Moderators of Discords. Moderators of forums. Moderators of LiveJournal groups? Please, take a moment to send a thank you note to the various moderators in your life. They're probably all doing VASTLY more than you know about in order to keep your online experience from being overrun by bots, trolls, and other sea monsters that inhabit the deeps of the internet.
Last month, in June 2021, there were roughly 17,000 forum posts made on the RPR. Some months, that number tops 20,000. And that's to say nothing of image uploads, kudos, private messages, content posted on character profiles and in taglines, guestbook entries, and more!
As social media sites go, we might be on the small end, but our moderators are kept busy busy busy reviewing content and answering flags to try and keep the site feeling as safe and comfortable for everyone as possible. I'm grateful every day for the help they give me in making our community work. There's certainly no way I could handle it all on my own!
Being a moderator can be exhausting and distressing work, as to maintain the best of a community they have to confront its worst. It can be deeply satisfying and uplifting to make a difference. At the same time, those efforts often go unseen and therefore unacknowledged by the majority of the community. With so much handled quickly and quietly, it's easily possible to get the impression that the moderators aren't doing anything at all, and to be cross when something has to be reported because of the imagination that the mods are kicking their feet up instead of scrambling away behind the scenes!
Over the years, we've been slowly training Server to look out for certain phrases or behavior patterns that sometimes indicate trouble, and that's been a big help to us in staying on top of the ocean of content that's sloshing by us on a daily basis. But being just a Server, he can't make decisions what to do with any of the things he auto-flags for us, and can only submit things for human review. In the end, almost all of those flags are closed as harmless; he can't tell the difference between mech pilots climbing into their cockpits before a battle and something that requires quite a bit more privacy. 
Even with Server's help, we'd drown in this ocean of content if we didn't have such an amazing userbase, who care deeply about upholding our community standards and protecting each other.
One of the best ways you can help the mod team is by using the "Request Mod" button on anything you see that isn't right, especially in private areas that we're not able to review without a specific user request, such as inbox conversations. If someone direct messages you something yucky, don't feel shy at all about hitting the "Request Mod" link on the message. It's a point of pride for us to be on top of toxic behaviors, and we can only moderate the things we know about!
Please join me today in thanking our moderation team, and then go out into your online world and thank every other moderator you can think of too!
- Want to know more about how the RPR mods do their work? Check out this article: How Our Mods Work and Mod FAQ
- Want to read more essays about the balancing act of moderating? Check out these posts: https://www.rprepository.com/community/news/tag/moderator-appreciation-day
Post tags: Moderator Appreciation Day
Comments
Ye Grande Mods! They've always been super polite and nice to me and even helped out with trivial stuff like "this link doesn't work as a picture for some reason!" ("It's neither a jpg or png or gif, so it doesn't work..." I copied it incorrectly.)
Anyway, they're very caring and nice and cool, and I'm sure it's probably difficult to be treated differently because you're a mod (maybe?!) but every one that I've talked to seems to be a, ah, a right good soldier about their position! Real stand-up fellas! :,)
So thank you, moderators, for being amazingly cool and helping uphold our community even when it's just us being lunkheads. We really do appreciate it.
Anyway, they're very caring and nice and cool, and I'm sure it's probably difficult to be treated differently because you're a mod (maybe?!) but every one that I've talked to seems to be a, ah, a right good soldier about their position! Real stand-up fellas! :,)
So thank you, moderators, for being amazingly cool and helping uphold our community even when it's just us being lunkheads. We really do appreciate it.
Yey lovely mods of RPR! Y'all are awesome enough that, uh, I've occasionally found myself holding mods in other places more directly accountable for not... quite... handling things fantastically.... I still keep in mind that they are human with their own lives and stresses on top of their unseen efforts to keep a community running smoothly and safely, so I don't, like, "yell" at them or anything. More just, "hey, I'm clearly missing or confusing something because I keep having x issue, and the way you responded when I asked to have something clarified made it feel like you were being hostile and consider me to be lazy and/or stupid."
So thank you for continuing to be such awesome mods here.
And for any of you who are mods in other places: thank you for the work you put in for your community, too!
So thank you for continuing to be such awesome mods here.
And for any of you who are mods in other places: thank you for the work you put in for your community, too!
To all the mod. team on RPR, thank-you so much for all your awesome work! 
You moderators are amazing! And I'm very grateful for all the work.you guys put in!
yall awesome!
It's also the birthday of my best friend's younger sibling. So that's a double celebration. Thank you to all of the mods, and happy birthday to him.
Rinny_Howler
July 2, 2021
9:22am
Thank you, all you beautiful and selfless mods!
Thank u to all u lovely mods!
Thank you to the mods, who are some of the nicest and most supportive mods I have ever seen on a forum website! Thank you for making this place safe and welcoming!
MasterWinter
July 2, 2021
9:05am
Thank you very much, to all of the Mod's of RPR, for helping to keep the site running as smooth as possible.
HelpIranoutofideasJuly 4, 2021
1:33am