Planning for Incivility – Why your online community needs moderators

We’ve seen an upswing in blog posts and articles related to the growing issue of incivility on the internet and in online communities. The most recent article from PC World’s John Dvorak sums it up nicely:

“Nastiness is an earmark of many bloggers, podcasters, and members of the herd; a few insane people; and those who feel that being an out-and-out mean and profane presence on the Internet is cool or funny. The level of nastiness that floats around the Net in various forms, forums, and Web sites is incredible.”

We think that this is not so incredible, but is just the way the world is right now. When you look at other media such as television what do you see? Nastiness. Whether it’s political (Bill O’Reilly, Keith Olbermann), social (Jerry Springer, The View with Rosie O’Donnell), or even legal (Judge Judy) the overwhelming tone is nasty. Why? Because it attracts people to engage with the show. And the internet is the same. Nastiness gives visitors a reason to engage.

Because of this nastiness, some folks like Tim O’Reilly have called for a Bloggers’ Code of Conduct. Okay, that would help the folks that actually blog perhaps. But what it really is, is a set of very good moderation tips for online communities as a whole.

We know from our experience that there are always going to be members who are visiting only to disrupt, argue, and complain. Most of these members only come to attack those who have differing opinions. They do it with strong language and abusive comments. They also are the first members to bring up “Freedom of Speech” and my “Constitutional Rights” as soon as a moderator steps in. When their commentaries and attacks are edited or deleted they attack the moderator and host organization rather than looking inward. Then they enlist their online friends to continue the attack on your organization. You will never please these people.

So you had better have a plan for how you deal with them. And that means having professionally trained moderators ready to deal with this situation. Moderation is a thankless job. Your moderators will never keep everyone happy. But they need to be consistent and strong willed while being able to communicate clearly to all members.

But what about the members themselves reporting violations and problem members? It is a myth that is far from reality. From our experience, here is why:

• Many members don’t like to rat each other out. It’s not their problem, it’s yours.
• One side of the fight will report the other repeatedly (and vice versa) over every comment they perceive as a slight or violation. That means that the same comment will be reported multiple times by a group while ignoring other violations because it becomes a game.
• The average site visitor doesn’t care about violations.
• Most people do not understand copyright law or the fair use provisions. (Just ask YouTube)
• Actual violations will always be under-reported versus actual violations which need to be removed.

Our experience shows that for every legitimate violation reported by members, our moderation teams edit or remove an additional four comments which violate the community’s terms of service. We believe that allowing a community to self report issues will eventually kill the community as the groups start slugging it out, providing a strong disincentive to new visitors to join. Eventually, the fighters will tire and leave your site resulting in a dead community which will not help your organization’s goals.

If you have questions about moderation, best practices in working with disruptive members, or setting up processes and guidelines for your online community, contact us. We’re happy to answer your questions.

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