Moderation

Today, I talked a bit about fedi, microblogging and social media in general in a groupchat I'm in. Primarily to talk about how, for lack of better terms, vile it can get.

Microblogging has its own flaws, but I think another thing that is not accounted for nearly enough is moderation.

Not Trust and Safety, no, I mean the people that are actually doing the moderating. Especially on places like Fedi which are technically federated, but socially very fragmented and diverse, in addition to suffering from context collapse. You're posting to a global context where the receiving end will almost never have the same context as you, and as such will often mis-interpret the post when compared to what you initially meant in the first place.

Point is, microblogging is not particularly good at maintaining sufficient context to know wtf is going on at any given time, and it is almost certainly not improved by posting while you're angry.

But now, put yourself in the shoes of someone that has to moderate this. Constantly having to judge, put personal conflicts on the scales and decide how they shall be dealt with. Having to suffer with bad actors, see media they would...rather not have. The usual stuff for someone that wants to moderate a community, especially on fedi.

Now, let me clue you in to something. Did you know that it is recommended for full-time moderators to have mental health counseling?

No? Well, you wouldn't be the first, raise your hand if you're a fedi moderator and you have a therapist, psychiatrist or mental health counseling!

Point is, I think we should design our software to respect this fact about the life as a moderator more carefully, design the software such that moderation is easy, that it doesn't mean you have to stress yourself. Blacksky got something going for that, but from what I know on the software-side it's mostly reminders to take care of yourself. Good, but I want to see more. I'll have to brainstorm what that looks like though.

This affects me, too.

Another thing is how this has been affecting me personally. While I've mostly taken a rest, I still moderate the app.wafrn.net fedi instance, I also moderate the Starlight Network IRC, Wafrn IRC, Poly{phony,proto} Zulip and probably other stuff that I am forgetting.

That + all the projects I work on is gettig quite tiring. Enough so that I can feel myself torn in half between dreading all this work coming towards me, while also really wanting to work on these projects. They are still passion projects after all.

So, take this as the first public sign that I might start temporarily stepping back from all this stuff to focus on other things in a bit.

Like, for instance, somehow getting a job. I've really been struggling with it, both because of the job market lacking entry-level positions, but also personal struggles and having to cope with the reality of all that.

If you happen to be looking for someone to teach a thing or two about devops, sysadmining, community organizing, or moderation, hmu! I whipped up a small "CV" to illustrate some stuff I've been working on recently or not-so-recently that should give some insight into the kind of things I have some experience in. I hope.

So yeah, I guess my next task is reaching out to some of the projects I work on and seeing if someone else can take over for a bit, or if things will go alright if I take a break. I've already taken a break from the TSN No-AI List for may, so, that's something.