Where moderation steps in

Posted Oct 1, 2025 11:26 UTC (Wed) by josh (subscriber, #17465)
In reply to: Where moderation steps in by paulj
Parent article: NixOS moderation team resigns

One common problem in moderation in general is that many people are very good at "calmly" inciting in a fashion that garners a well-needed negative response and/or call-out.

The net result can often be:

A) "Dispassionate" but toxic statement

B) Well-deserved call-out

Mod) This is getting heated, please stop

That comes across as the problem being exclusively the heat, not the toxic statement, or other toxic comments like people attacking the call-out for being "impolite" (where the implied "polite" would be "tolerant of intolerant/toxic people").

This is one of many patterns where it's important to flag the underlying problem, and not doing do lets people get away with trolling and incitement, repeatedly.

Where moderation steps in

Posted Oct 1, 2025 11:50 UTC (Wed) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link]

> That comes across as the problem being exclusively the heat, not the toxic statement, or other toxic comments like people attacking the call-out for being "impolite" (where the implied "polite" would be "tolerant of intolerant/toxic people").

This highly-relevant comic came across my feed just yesterday:

https://leftycartoons.com/2025/09/26/doin-discourse-with-...

Where moderation steps in

Posted Oct 1, 2025 18:02 UTC (Wed) by ferringb (subscriber, #20752) [Link] (2 responses)

> One common problem in moderation in general is that many people are very good at "calmly" inciting in a fashion that garners a well-needed negative response and/or call-out.

You pretty much nailed it on the head, in regards to the most dangerous version of behavior.

It's absolutely the hardest to keep in line w/ CoC- it never crosses the line blatantly, but the responders all get nailed as problematic or crossing the line in the sand. Eventually you get additions to CoC and moderation to try and address the lawyering, etc. Said additions to the rules just makes things worse, and harder to bring back to the spirit of the communities original intent.

This sort of thing is what I now watch for in communities; if it's left unchecked I just find somewhere else to go, assuming I have any choice in the matter. If I have to consume their code, sure, but even bug reporting is something I'd prefer *not* to do since I just don't want that crap in my life.

Where moderation steps in

Posted Oct 1, 2025 22:27 UTC (Wed) by amacater (subscriber, #790) [Link] (1 responses)

Some people are Olympic class figure skaters - *just* over the line with something then quickly pulling back, then *just* over the line as a pattern of behaviour. That makes moderation and community building hard.
Many communities exist on a barely articulated common understanding that lasts until someone questions it.

Where moderation steps in

Posted Oct 2, 2025 4:26 UTC (Thu) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link]

Once you identify the pattern of behavior, of someone skating on the line like that, you can recognize it as the toxic behavior it is and bounce the person out of the community. As the owner of the platform you don't need to put up with people who troll other users that way, and _that_ keeps the temperature down, conversation civil.