Forum Moderation, Code of Conduct, Conflict Resolution Policies

#1

For the new iteration of the Voting Theory Forum one of the next steps will be to determine our expectations and agreements for members, code of conduct, and conflict resolution or moderation processes.

Interestingly this topic is also coming up in a number of other groups I’m involved with or connected to lately, so I’ve been putting some thought into it.

Do you have a model you are a fan of? A group you think works especially well? A document or policy you’d like to share?

Here are a few links to kick off the conversation:

Voting Theory Forum draft proposed Code of Conduct:

A code of conduct from Snowdrop which includes moderation policy from another forum:

Snowdrop Conduct Enforcement Policy:

#3

I edited the draft code of conduct to show changes that I “suggest” (as Google Documents treat “suggestions”). I move these as an amendment.

#4

I don’t think so! If that were true, this would be mockery.

1 Like
#5

Some other things potentially worth including:

  • Don’t publicly post another user’s personal information without their permission or threaten to do so.
    (Basically, don’t dox people.)
  • Make sure posts and replies are on topic.
    (Discussions here tended to spiral off topic as tangentially related points start becoming the center of the debate. I will admit to having not been the best about avoiding that. Hopefully the new forum’s allowing nested comments should make this less of an issue. If your reply is likely to be the subject of as much discussion as the original topic a reply-as-topic might be more appropriate but the appropriate moderator response should probably just be to move the reply to a new topic rather than to sanction the user.)
  • If a moderator asks you to stop doing something, stop it even if the rules do not explicitly forbid it.
    (You can’t anticipate every problem that might arise, so mods should be able to make judgement calls at least temporarily.)