Posted by Kim on July 2, 2016, 11:00am
If there's something I'm really proud of in life, it's the community on the RP Repository. We all put our best selves forward on a daily basis. It's a friendlier, kinder, more welcoming community than most any other place I've been online. You, gentle reader, whoever you may be: you're a part of this amazing phenomenon, and you can be proud of it too. Because it takes everyone to keep creating it on a daily basis.But you and I and everyone on the site, we're all also human, no matter how much time we spend pretending to be elves and aliens. Which means we have human failings. We forget the rules, lose our tempers, clam up out of fear when we most need to be communicating, accidentally say something that doesn't convey anywhere near the meaning that we think it does, act without thinking -- the list goes on, and it means that even people acting in absolute good faith, no malice anywhere on the horizon, can sometimes create situations ranging from the mildly tense to downright explosive.
And that's why another hugely important part of the RP Repository's recipe for awesomeness is a pro-active and caring team of moderators.
Every July 2nd, we celebrate Moderator Appreciation Day. On this day, we remember to recognize the staggering amount of volunteer work that goes into creating online communities.
Moderators are the shield that guards the realms of the web. Any corner of the internet where people can come together and express themselves without fear of bullying, there is probably a team of incredibly dedicated moderators working constantly to set examples, rein in excess behavior, and perhaps even counsel individual members in how to work out differences and express opinions without putting down others'.You know our current moderation team as Ben, Copper_Dragon, Darth_Angelus, SeraphicStar and Loki, and I encourage you to take a moment today to drop them a note thanking them for all they do to make the RPR the stellar community that it is. Despite school, jobs, and all the other demands of a busy life, they consistently show up and volunteer their time, energy, and sometimes sanity in service of the RP Repository community.
On past Moderator Appreciation Days, I've talked about how a good moderation team can make the internet a better place, how much our moderation team does on a daily basis that few people ever know about, though everyone experiences the benefits, even how thankless a job it can be and how much thanks we actually owe mods all over the internet.
On this Moderation Appreciation Day, I want to talk about what it is that we ask of someone when we put them in the position of moderating a community, here or elsewhere. Because being given a fancy new job title doesn't mean that a person suddenly stops having those same human failings as all the rest of us -- but most of us stop finding those failings excusable or understandable in that moment. That may even be justified -- It's not just a comic book-ism that with great power comes great responsibility, and a moderator having a moment of misplaced humanity can have a much greater impact on a community than someone else's stumble. But it does mean that when you're doing moderation right, you're not just on some great power trip. More often than not, those new powers requires more humility of you than before, and some days it's an outright macabre psychodrama that you volunteer to not just endure but actively engage with. Maybe this is why there are many more examples of ineffective or outright unfair moderators in the world than there are good ones: doing it right can be more painful than doing it wrong, for the people doing it!
This is my love letter to everyone who strives for perfection despite their human imperfections. Because that's what's at the heart of effective moderation. It's what good leadership looks like. Here's to everyone who volunteers to face their own demons as often as they volunteer to arbitrate other people's disputes.
Being a moderator means throwing your own psyche in the way of behaviors motivated by pain and suffering and rage to shield others from it, and maybe even help to heal the sources of that upset where possible.
It means making deep connections with many of the people in the community you moderate, loving them like siblings, and then having to bring those people you love to task when they slip up and risk the ire of friends who thought that that special connection would mean special treatment.
It means constantly being filled with self-doubt, resisting knee-jerk reactions, resisting what feels good and maybe even justified, and forcing yourself to question every decision you make to try and expose if you may be over or under reacting because of your own human biases about someone.
At the same time it means having to have the self-confidence to stand up to complaints and even outright abuse when you know you've made the right call -- even the best people sometimes react with anger when they feel singled out, even if the violation was so minor it barely registered.
It means understanding that no matter how routine cleaning up f-bombs or tagging images has become to you, it's sometimes a new and terrifying experience for the person being cleaned up after, and letting a 15 second clean up job morph into a longer process of reassurance to the very person you just corrected, so they don't come away with the false impression that they are now hated, hunted, have no reason to follow the rules because there's already a "black mark" on their name -- because moderation is most effective when done with an eye to helping people succeed as part of a community, not merely demanding compliance with the community rules.
It means being more than civil even to people who may have blown up at you in the past for doing your job, who you'd simply stop engaging with in other circumstances; it means finding it in you to be friendly and helpful and to care that that person is treated well by others, too.
It means knowing that every action you take in public is under a microscope, that you are both a normal human being and a role model for how a good community member should conduct themselves at all times, that you can't always express your own opinion in the same way as you used to before you became a mod, and that even a small slip-up can be used as proof of inherent unfairness in the rules and make all future moderation harder (even if another mod addresses the slip up with you!).
On the RPR, it means working with a team of moderators and being willing to accept and carry out rulings that you aren't always 100% in line with what you would have done on your own, in an effort to balance different viewpoints and counteract potential biases.
What we ask of moderators is superhuman. It is a sisyphean task. Some days, it can put a person as much in opposition to themselves as it does to rule breaking.
It is hard. Some days it is heart breaking. Some days I experience feelings of grief or depression even when I know that we're doing the right thing, because getting it right in the long term demands so much from me and from us in the short term.
But it also has incredible rewards. Some days you get it right and everything clicks and you see: we're carving out a place where people can be safe, where things are just a little closer to ideal than elsewhere, and sometimes a little means a lot, and I'm a part of this incredible thing.
This is worth it.
At its core, being a moderator is about being the change that you want to see in the world. It means putting the good of a community before any individual's interests, including your own. And the amazing thing is that anyone can decide to do this. Anyone can choose to start trying to find and understand other perspectives, to refuse to give in to their instinct to attack or defend and instead to employ curiosity or matter-of-fact boundary setting, to take time out of their day to find a way to be helpful to someone else. And every one of us will fail at those high ideals sometimes, and that still isn't a true failure. It's not the end of the journey. You can still choose to own your part, to apologize, and to get up and keep trying.
This is a lot to ask of anyone, but we don't just ask it of moderators: we expect it. So take a few minutes today to let our mods know they've delivered. Let them know that you see and appreciate how hard they work. But don't just stop here! If you're a member of other online communities that are exceptional, remember to tell the mods there that you appreciate them, too.
Happy Moderator Appreciation day, everyone. I appreciate you SO much.
Post tags: Moderator Appreciation Day
Comments
Another good read by Kim! Way to put things in perspective, ma'am! Being a mod is definitely a difficult job, but those who log on almost everyday and endure these demanding and sometimes harsh responsibilities are to be congratulated! So:
*hugs entire moderation team* Thank you for helping to make this community a better place!
Speaking of the community:
*hugs entire RPR community* Thank you all for being so friendly and accepting! I finally have a place I can really call home and people I can call my best friends
I Love you all 
*hugs entire moderation team* Thank you for helping to make this community a better place!
Speaking of the community:
*hugs entire RPR community* Thank you all for being so friendly and accepting! I finally have a place I can really call home and people I can call my best friends
I Love you all
I am not human. You just think I'm human. *makes sure to delete any proof of humanness*
PhantomDrama
July 2, 2016
11:50am
-claps-