Moderation: A Thankless Task

We all love social media in it's various forms.

It's the opportunity to connect with people we may never meet face-to-face, the chance to talk regardless of distance, and a way to socialise and debate and enthuse over common interests. The Great Facebook Crash of October 2021 wouldn't have been such a big deal otherwise. It can also be a bit of a mess; everyone knows that. Miscommunication, confusing similar groups with different rules... the potential for misunderstandings and taking offense is limitless.

That's where Moderators come in.

Some Facebook Groups allow posting without limits, and if someone has an issue with a post, they have to actively contact a Moderator or Admin to get anything done about it. Others require moderators to approve posts before they can be displayed. This is especially common in large groups, where someone may post multiple times per day, or multiple people may share the same trending post.

I'm a moderator of a few groups: An Indie Writers Group for Australia and New Zealand creatives; a Harry Potter discussion group; and Vocal Social Society, a group for Vocal Writers to socialise and promote themselves in a limited capacity. By "limited capacity", I mean that writers can post their work under dedicated thread posts, but solo posts are not permitted. (Put a pin in that; it'll be important later...)

All of those groups, however diverse they are, have some rules in common: Be polite/respectful, no personal attacks on other group members, don't be a jerk.

Before I became a Moderator, I thought they were just there to tick boxes. It's both simpler and more complex than that.

As a Moderator, I approve and decline posts, sometimes with feedback, sometimes without. Same with membership requests; the Harry Potter group in particular has a pest problem with Trolls trying to become members to sabotage or report the group to get it taken down. (The perils of disliking a fan favourite...).

I'm lucky to have a supportive group of other moderators that I can talk to for a second opinion if I'm unsure of something. Failure to answer the group questions is an auto-decline for membership, but ambiguous answers can be tricky.

Everyone is famililar with the controversy surrounding JK Rowling's comments on trans people, so one of the questions is an open-ended "what do you think of Rowling's comments on the Trans Community?"

Most replies are along the lines of "don't agree with the comment made". Replies along the lines of "agreed, trans people are predators" will get your membership request declined, but occasionally we get ones like "live and let live". That's trickier, because does it mean that they are supportive of LGBTQ+ communities, or does it mean that they think everyone has the right to an opinion, even if that 'opinion' is actively harmful to vulnerable people?

In those cases, I'll message the person in my capacity as a Group Moderator to ask for clarification, and consult with the Moderator Chat for a second opinion if I don't get a response.

It's similar with profanity alerts. We have an automated alert system for certain slurs and cursewords. Most of the time, those words crop up in tag-groups like "Excuse me, my good b*tch, but what the f***?", which I allow because tag-groups, but sometimes a person gets carried away in particularly heated debate. In those cases, it's another PM asking them to be mindful of using gender-based expletives, and a warning. Usually, that's the only thing required, and the member corrects themselves. Sometimes I even get a polite reply thanking me for the reminder.

But sometimes, things have to be escalated further.

Remember when I said that solo posts aren't allowed in the Vocal Social Society group?

Exceptions can be made for certain things, like when I asked permission to post a link to a charity book I was writing in memory of Tom Bradbury, with the first month of royalties going to a charity he was involved with. Yes, even I, a Moderator, had to get approval from the Almighty Admins for a solo post. That's how things work, and they tend to be reasonable about requests if there's a reason your post should be it's own thread.

Most of the time when someone makes a solo post, it's because they're sharing their work across multiple Vocal groups, and got mixed up on which ones allow solo posts, or accidentally included VSS on a 'share this post to other groups' automation. Again, the Moderators decline the post, and remind the poster of the group rules.

Recently, one member, who already had a history of having his solo posts declined, made another solo post, coupled with a very passive-aggressive text post. The text accused the Admin and Moderation staff of discriminating against him by not approving his solo posts. One of the Admins reached out via Private Message, as per usual, and that's where it really escalated.

The member verbally abused the Admin via text (is there a word for that? Written abuse? Textual abuse?) and threatened to write an article "exposing" her so-called abuse of power, misanthropy and discrimination against straight white men.

After a final warning that group membership rules explicitly forbade threats and uncivil behaviour against other members, which the member laughed off with the claim that he was only being as threatening as the Admin was, the member was removed from the group and blocked from re-joining.

He then went on to write a frankly slanderous and defamatory "article", as he had threatened, whining about people with a 'god-complex' who felt 'threatened' by him and his success, and retaliated by declining his self-promotion posts. The article has since been QuickEdited to remove identifying information, after an outpouring of the article being reported as contining harmful content. To their credit, Vocal responded quickly and acted appropriately, but such a blatantly targeted piece of misinformation and misrepresentation should never have been approved in the first place.

Vocal Admin staff are human and make errors, too.

There is a point to this fairly long-winded semi-rant, of course.

I know that it's easy to feel frustrated when Admins and Moderators decline or delete a post, or make a decision you disagree with. I've been on the recieving end myself. Multiple times, in fact, some well-deserved and some less-so.

However, you should never take that frustration out on the staff themselves. Moderation is a thankless and often unpaid job, done by people who deal with pending posts and admin alerts in their spare time, in between actual jobs, housework and family responsibilities. A Moderator or Admin who is attacked enough has the option to quit, and may do so.

If enough of them quit in the face of abuse, a group cannot run. Groups are built on the back of unpaid volunteer work, and the occasional "thanks" is often all the reward they get.

TL;DR: Moderators and Admins are people, too, and they deserve to be treated like it.

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