Community Moderation ‐ Community Moderator Guide

This concept is currently under trial with a small set of volunteer community moderators

Community Moderation - what's it all about?

Traditionally OGS was moderated by a small group of hand-picked long-standing members.

It had to be a small group, because the types of "powers" that these moderators have are extensive, and the burden is high (full moderators have received death threats and other nastiness from outraged or trollish users).

This approach does not scale, so OGS is moving to enable more of the community to be involved in moderation by putting in place tools to give the wider group of people the ability to act on most routine types of report.

With more people involved there's less for each person to do - we hope that "being a Community Moderator" can be a "light" responsibility, rather than "burdensome". A Community Moderator can look at reports as often or as rarely as they choose.

What will I be able to do?

You will get access to a page that shows you reports from users.

A Community Moderator can vote on specific outcomes for reports.

For example, you may be offered voting options on a "Cheating Report" like

• Cheated game: Annul the game and warn the cheater.

• Attempted cheating: warn the cheater.

• Call the game for the winner, and warn the cheater (*)

• No cheating: inform the reporter.

  • note - votes to "call the game" are only available while the game is still in progress.

When a consensus is reached (3 identical votes) the voted action happens.

No further moderation or other human involvement is needed - suitable canned messages are automatically sent as needed.

The "canned messages" take into account whether the reported person is a beginner or not.

You can see the content of the canned messages that are sent for each situation here.

Escalation

Escalation is used where "more serious" or unusual action is needed - actions that typically need an explanation.

You will be able to vote to "escalate the issue". This is an action that will happen immediately if you chose it. You will explain what you think needs to happen and why.

Currently the types of thing that can happen are

• A final warning
• Suspend the user
• Annul the game without warning anyone.

The decision about this will also be put to Community Moderator vote.

Disputed votes

If a report gets split votes, it will be escalated.

What if I don't want to handle a report

Hit "Ignore". Someone else can do it :)