Ethical Moderation Series - Part 3
Crafting Clear and Adaptive Community Guidelines:
The Essential Guide
Source www.reddit.com
This series addresses content moderation from a user-generated content perspective, where “moderators” are social media or community managers working for commercial entities. While we reference research from studies about moderators hired by social media platforms, we do not address the many issues they face here. If you’re interested in learning more about social media platform moderators, we recommend starting with this Financial Times article from May 2023.
In our ongoing exploration of ethical moderation, we arrive at a crucial step: establishing clear and adaptive community guidelines. (Read Part 1 and Part 2)
These guidelines serve as the bedrock of a healthy online environment, fostering a sense of shared understanding and promoting positive, inclusive interactions.
Why are community guidelines so vital to ethical moderation? They serve as a vital tool for:
Transparency and Fairness: By explicitly outlining acceptable and unacceptable behaviour, guidelines ensure transparency and fairness in content moderation. Members know where they stand and can readily gauge their conduct.
Minimizing Bias: Clear guidelines help reduce the risk of bias in moderation decisions by providing a consistent and objective framework for evaluating content.
Building Trust: When guidelines are developed collaboratively and reflect the values of the community, they help build trust and confidence among members.
Promoting Self-Moderation: Well-defined guidelines empower members to moderate their own behaviour, taking responsibility for creating a positive community environment.
Protecting Vulnerable Users: By prohibiting harmful content and behaviour, guidelines safeguard vulnerable members and cultivate a safe space for everyone.
By investing in crafting clear and adaptable community guidelines, we lay the groundwork for ethical moderation practices that ensure a thriving, inclusive, and positive digital space for all.
No more ambiguity! We encourage and enable all Areto users to set your community standards within our software, so the software understands what type of content meets or exceeds your guidelines and which miss the mark.
How to develop clear and adaptive community guidelines
Developing clear and adaptive community guidelines requires careful planning and consideration. Here are some steps to follow:
1.Define your community
The first step is to clearly define your community. Who are you trying to reach? What are their interests and values? Understanding your community will help you to tailor your community guidelines to their specific needs.
2. Identify your core values
What are the core values that you want to promote in your community? These values should be reflected in your community guidelines.
3. Consider your platform
The platform that you choose for your community will also influence the development of your community guidelines. For example, the guidelines for a Facebook group may differ from those for a Discord server.
4. Ask questions
Once you have considered the above factors, it is time to start brainstorming specific questions to help you define your guidelines. Striking a balance regarding acceptable sentiment is crucial. While negativity can be detrimental, it's not inherently bad. Openly acknowledging and discussing challenges or criticisms can be healthy for a community's growth. The key lies in distinguishing between constructive criticism and negativity that aims to harm or divide.
Here are a handful of questions you can start to ask yourself and your team:
What types of content are acceptable?
What types of behaviour are not tolerated?
How will violations of the community guidelines be addressed?
How will the community guidelines be enforced?
How often will the community guidelines be reviewed and updated?
One framework you can consider breaks down abuse into 2 subcategories, constructive criticism and unacceptable negativity.
Those 2 subcategories take into consideration the following filters:
Encouraging respectful disagreement and debate.
Setting clear lines around personal attacks and harassment.
Providing channels for constructive criticism and feedback.
Promoting empathy and understanding between members.
Constructive Criticism:
Focuses on specific issues and proposes solutions.
Uses respectful and objective language.
Aims to improve the community for everyone.
Unacceptable Negativity:
Attacks individuals or groups.
Uses vulgar or offensive language.
Aims to create conflict or division.
Looking for help deciding on your community standards? Drop us a line!
5. Be prepared to adapt
As your community grows and evolves, you may need to adapt your community guidelines accordingly. Be prepared to make changes as needed to ensure that your guidelines continue to meet the needs of your community.
Developing clear and adaptive community guidelines is essential for building and maintaining a thriving online community. By following the tips in this guide, you can create guidelines that promote a safe, inclusive, and positive environment for all members.
Our Stance on Ethical Moderation
At Areto Labs, our mission is to make the internet a safer and happier place for all. We've crafted software that ensures no one gets hurt during the moderation process. We’ve built our software to reduce harm not only on communities but also the people responsible for managing–and moderating–digital communities for their organizations. We don't just remove hateful content from the internet, but we also prioritize the mental health and wellbeing of our users. With our software, we take the load off of social media managers and do away with the need for outsourced moderators.
