Forums » Smalltalk » AMA - I'm an RPR mod

Hey all! I've been a moderator on the RPR for a bit over three years at this point, and I thought it'd be neat to give people a bit of a peek behind the curtain and offer some transparency. Feel free to ask me burning questions you might have, but I do have to make one disclaimer:

Do not discuss reports or cases in this thread, and do not inquire about others' mod cases. We treat these as private and confidential, and any such posts will need to be removed. However, you may still discuss whether or not a subject is something that should be reported, clarification for rules, etc.

Also if you're having any issues with the site itself, please direct your attention to the bug report form, as this is something only Kim can help you with.

All that said, get at me! I'm around all weekend and eager to give y'all some insight.

Question: why are all the mods so gosh darn cute????

Something in the water probably

For all of the "open" calls for moderator applications in a very diverse community, the "newest" account on the mod team is from 2012 and the last ten mods in a row have all known eachother through Furcadia for over a decade. What's up?

Edit 4:50pm EST: Sorry gang, I copied the wrong version so this has been slightly edited from the initial post.

I understand your concern on this one, so I'm going to try and give you as thorough a response as I'm able here.

Firstly, to hopefully dispel a misconception, I personally did not know half the mod team aside from the odd public RPR comment before joining the team. The players I did know were mostly people I'd known, well... back in the late 2000s and not much since (I applied in 2018). I also hadn't really started getting active on the RPR until three years before getting hired, despite having an account from 2010. Playing Furcadia in the past does not mean that we automatically know everyone who plays. Also, one of our last round of hires has never played Furcadia.

I'd like to explain our hiring process to hopefully bring some insight:

All applications are initially read completely anonymously, with each mod scoring them individually. We total up and compare the tallies, and then we pull the few that scored the highest. We do not know who will make the final round of consideration until those few are revealed. In cases of bias for a final candidate, we will abstain from voting entirely.

None of the anonymous applications who didn't make it are revealed to the mod team. So, Kim is the only person who could see who those people were. We have no idea of who is in the pool of applicants who didn't make it to the final round, and thus don't know what diversity we might have missed the chance to add to the team. We focus on the strength of their answers to see how they might handle very real moderator situations that we have encountered. If someone doesn't show the traits and mindset that we look for when forming a team, then unfortunately, they would no longer be considered - new users, furcadia players, and everyone else.

We have, in fact, had extremely new users (as new as one month!) make it to the final round, but again, it comes down to the application itself. We have extensive conversations about these final applications, and choosing takes literal weeks of back and forth before a final vote. It's not a case of nepotism where we just say, "Oh (name) used to moderate a group on Furcadia, so we know we can trust them."

Again, many of us never knew each other on Furcadia, which at its peak had thousands of users online at just about any given time. Compared to the RPR's total population it ends up being at least a third of the amount of people we have, and doesn't account for the actual total number of Furcadia players. Additionally, the RPR initially grew by word of mouth through Furcadia. That could probably help explain why there are so many Furcadia people applying to be mods.

I'm not sure if this will change your impression, but it's the honest answer I have for you.

This feels like a bombshell statement but I don't think it's true. Auberon said most of it already, but as the admin with final call, I feel like I should dip my toes in here a bit too. We definitely have a LOT of former furc players, sure, but it's not everyone and we don't all know each other.

As an example, let's take the last round of mod picks. In our final selection from the top 10, we had Claine who has never played Furc at all, and another member who I think did play Furc though none of us had ever spoken to them before. They had had an RPR account for about a month before applying to be a mod, making it into the top ten, being selected, and starting training. Not a one of us had had a single conversation with them previously, the decision to invite them in was purely application based.

There can be a week or more between people being notified that they were selected and the actual public announcement, and every once in awhile we lose people between being selected and being announced, so they never actually start doing mod work. Unfortunately, that happened this time around, so the final announcement only contained two folks (Claine and Mina) instead of the planned three. But even so, 50% of the announced people had never played Furc, and I didn't know either of them well. Mina especially was a total enigma to me, though I'm happy to have taken the chance.

Given the relatively small size of the site, it's not unusual for at least one person on the team to have some kind of relationship with each of the top 10 candidates. If someone is an active community member, at least one of us has probably talked to them and maybe even played with them, either here or on Furc or on Discord. I'm not sure that that's something that could or should be avoided. I can say that as the person with final say on the top 10 that get pulled, whatever the mods recommend to me -- about half the mod team right now are people I didn't know well or at all prior to them joining the team. Am I influenced when someone can say "Oh, I know so and so, they are always going out of their way to be helpful" or "This person is nice on the RPR but routinely verbally abusive on Twitter, here are some screenshots"? Yes, of course. Those are helpful things to know, when they are available.

Why do we tend to end up with older players making it through into the top ten? My guess is that older folks (off the top of my head guessing mid 20s+?) tend to be able to express more thoughtful views on the anonymously reviewed essay questions, and users that have been here longer tend to have a clearer sense of the ethos that's being aimed for, so there's a noticeably higher proportion of them who make it through into the top ten. For example, there's always some apps that get cut from the first round for explaining how "free speech" means we must allow people to praise Nazis whether it scares other users or not, and I have to imagine most of the people saying this are pretty new here to write that on an RPR mod application. I also strongly suspect users that have been around longer are more likely to apply, and those that have been here longer tend to be old Furc players, seeing as how I built the site when I was a hugely into Furc, it got most of its early word of mouth and actual advertising on Furc, and then I basically didn't spend money on advertising ever again. This means a looooooooot of old furc players in the mix. I'm now curious what the average age/time on site is of all applicants, whether or not they make it past the initial round. I might have to go back and look to see what the percentages are just for academia.

Are there forums that some mods "specialize" on (pay more attention to than others) or does everyone take shifts?

Oh, oh! I've got a question!

What do you like best about being a mod here on RPR? And what do you like least about being a mod?

(Technically two questions, oh well!)

I didn't say any of it was a bad thing, but I appreciate the thorough answers to an unexpectedly freighted question. Maybe Mina can finally go up on the list now that she's been at it a year.

In years past, we used to do weekly sign-ups for various mod tasks, but we eventually realized that everyone was already doing a little of everything because the team had basically doubled in size when I was hired. We all mostly just float around now, but I do like to lurk in Art & Creativity more than the others because it aligns with my personal interests.

The thing I like best about being a mod is absolutely the chance to work for Kim. She is easily one of the best bosses I've ever had. She is extremely level-headed, always gives the most thoughtful feedback, and she checks in on the mods regularly in private to see how we're doing/how we're feeling about moderating still.

On top of that, we have so many automated tools. There have been times where we've been like, "It would be so neat if..." And ten minutes later, Kim has coded us an entirely new feature for mod use that measurably improves our quality of life. It's no exaggeration to say that despite the RPR having a userbase of tens of thousands of people, this is probably one of the easiest moderation gigs I've ever worked.


Oh boy. I really thought about how to word this because some of the worst parts of being a mod really are not forum appropriate, so I'll ask that you not invite me to elaborate on this one.

If we're being honest, the worst part is just the sheer amount of extreme, upsetting content that we have to take in regularly. Every single image that gets uploaded to the RPR (icons and gallery pics), whether to a published profile or a draft one, gets manually reviewed by a human being and is approved, marked mature, or removed. I've seen things wonderful and strange and truly gut-wrenching, and not all of the latter violates the rules, as aside from a few Hard No rules, we're pretty permissive about what's allowed behind warnings.

All in all, mods are less simply authority figures and more human meat shields. Image uploads take up the bulk of our work, and it's often how we catch violations of rules pretty immediately, which can (and often does) lead to us investigating more deeply if we're finding several alarming images. We look at all of this stuff so that none of you have to be faced with it if you don't want to, and so that everyone can stay safe. If you're ever thinking of becoming a mod, be prepared to come onboard with a very strong stomach.

If you see the odd slip, just remember that there's a whole lot more that didn't fall through the cracks. Most moderation is behind the scenes, and therefore people don't get to see just how much work we really do for the site.

Hopefully we managed to answer said question!

As for the list...

It's on the individual mods to make that happen, so most likely Mina just hasn't turned in her bio yet. It's easy for stuff like that to slip our minds when we've been busy, and she is the busiest of bees on top of mod work. It took me months to get mine to Kim after I was hired because I just kept forgetting to do it.

What's it like being a mod on rpr? do you enjoy being a mod?

Your first question is very open ended, so I'll do my best to summarize without too much rambling.

Being an RPR mod has become a pretty big part of my day to day. When I wake up, I peek at my phone and catch up on the mod chat channels to see what's going on/reply to any talk of issues we had while I was asleep. When I finally settle down at my desk, one of the first things I do is head on over to the Mod Center and take a look at the queues. The queues include:

- Unclaimed Flags (this is where user reports appear)
- # of New Members to Welcome
- Unapproved Icons
- Unapproved Images
- Unapproved Kudos

Generally I'll go through the flags first and clear out any easy ones. Then I move on to the other queues and go through approvals. If I have the spoons, I'll try to respond to the introduction threads, but since my actual work hours are in the morning, I try not to tackle anything too intensive for my focus first thing.

Myself and the rest of the team work on checking the various queues throughout the day, tackling what we're each individually up for handling at any given time. We sometimes review literally thousands of uploads per month (I myself have done well over 1k in a month before). I may pop in from time to time to review some stuff between work projects, as I work from home and have the freedom.

Most of the time, if I'm handling a flag, it's in the afternoon/evening. Flags are really a team effort, in general. Almost every single one gets discussed by the group unless it's something simple and straightforward like an f-bomb that needs removing. If a mod is PMing you for disciplinary reasons, then that generally means that the whole team - including Kim - had the opportunity to contribute to our decision and most often helped to write the PM itself. For cases where a user has reported something, I message both the reporter and the person being reported, and then it goes from there.

Sometimes, of course, this can be a deeply stressful process, as people who report things often have very strong feelings and may not agree with our decision. Sometimes people who have been reported push back and treat us in rude or dehumanizing ways because we have to enforce rules that they may not agree with. It is what it is, and it's something I accepted when I signed up for the job. There are times where things go smoothly, though, and people walk away feeling okay with the end results that we have to offer. It's case by case.

That's basically a day of mod work for me, though of course it's not every single day. On non workdays, I try to peruse the forums a bit as well, since I have more spoons then. Mods often take breaks from the job when we need to decompress or we're dealing with other life stuff. Sometimes, we just need some down time to recuperate.

Despite all the stress of having to tackle subjects that may be deeply upsetting to me, and the derision that occasionally gets slung our way, I really do enjoy being a mod. The RPR is really important to me, and I am honored to be able to give back to the community in whatever capacity I can. I love the team that I work with, and I love being able to keep people safe. Being a part of something feels good, and it's worth whatever headaches I have to deal with in the process.

Who's your favorite mod and why is it Ben?

Serious question:

If you think it's doable (it might not be), could you summarize your approach to community moderation into a 1-3 sentence belief or mission statement? What's the most important core belief a moderator holds?

It's 'cause he's so kind and does his best to be an ally to people who need one.

Man... this one made me think HARD on how to be concise. Here goes!

It's important to maintain the community's trust as a moderator, which means maintaining fairness and consistency. Rules should be enforced the same for everyone across the board, but flexible enough to evolve as the times and circumstances of the site change. While upholding community standards and the safety of all involved is of paramount importance, so too is the fact that we need to be sure to listen to the community that we're protecting and really hear what they're saying.

Three very long sentences... How'd I do? (I'd be curious to see how my mission statement summary compares with yours. 👀 )

Awww you're too nice

I LOVE that statement, and thank you for rising to the challenge! I think that's really good, and it demonstrates the compassion and care I've come to expect from you as a mod.

I recorded my fundamental moderation statement in an article on this site, ages ago:

You do not have power; you have responsibility. In every action that you take as mod, you must not consider what is in your power. You must instead ask yourself what action affirms your responsibility to the community as a whole and the people involved in the specific situation.

As an addendum, it is of course ridiculous to suggest that moderators don't have power over other users. It's a stamenet of philosophy and intent, not of fact. But, for that reason, I'm thinking of reevaluating the statement. I'm wondering if the denial is helpful. Hrmm.

It's possible to have power and responsibility. Two things can be true. (I would say that they are both true, especially because Uncle Ben said so.)

Absolutely. They both are true for mods. But I want to change up the relationship. People usually see it as when you have power, you have a responsibility to use it well. I prefer to think of it as: you have a responsibility and are given the power you need to fulfill it when necessary. It's a small but critical difference.

I'll be curious to see how your mission statement evolves, then!