I am completely serious about this as it’s been a fundamental question I’ve had since I joined here.
The modlogs always seem to show only two people from that instance that carry out removals and bans, but there are actually mods for each of those communities that you never see issuing any mod actions.
Serious question:
Is there a reason for this? Am I missing something? I mean, I have my opinions, but I’m shelving them for the purpose of this post to just simply ask, is this purposeful in some way?
Please keep opinions civil. This isn’t to create a flame war, just to ask if there’s a reason for this because i just find it odd. Is there maybe someone from that instance that knows why that can clear this up?
(Though I did check the rules before posting, if this isn’t allowed, I totally understand,)
If the admins are at some point distracted, or otherwise are unexpectedly removed from their ability to moderate for a time, and comms have no reliable moderators, then everything will be… well, unmoderated. Having active users as moderators, even if they currently don’t do much moderating compared to the admins, makes the moderation system as a whole more likely to survive any unforeseen events.
It is surely good to occasionally test whether unforeseen events will cause disruption. Do you know how often such a test is performed?
For example, nuclear weapons systems are tested occasionally, and seeing a failure is probably important information.
Giving moderators practice with moderating will probably improve their performance when they are actually needed.
Yeah, community moderators may also understand the context of the community better. Normal trolls and spammers can be taken care of by anyone, but if there’s a derogatory name for a sports team, for example, you need to know the context to understand what’s happening.
And in that vein, lots of conflicts can be handled without reaching for the ban hammer. Just having a dedicated person that does the handling is good to have.