Draft Mattermost Moderation (working title)

What is Moderation, why do we need it and who does it? These questions arise with any open chat service. like Mattermost and we have to have guidelines on what is acceptable. Sometimes, posts can get heated and hurt people's feelings, so some sort of feedback and, possibly, corrective action, is necessary. That's what Moderation is all about - keeping the posts within agreed limits of acceptability for all our users.

So, who does it? Well, we're a Self Organising System and, like it says in the Comm's Systems Behaviour Guide: "We owe each other a duty of care to make our presence on our communications platforms a comfortable and beneficial experience." Maintaining good behaviour falls to all of us, and we need to be careful in the manner we start or respond to a post.

Now, there will be times when you may find a post that fails to meet what you feel are acceptable standards. You may, of course, decide to reply to it directly yourself, and explain why you find it unacceptable - possibly suggesting, to the poster, a potentially more acceptable way of making their point. Alternatively, you might bring it to the attention of the channels's Team Admin, by Direct Message - you can find their usernames in the Channel Member drop down list.

However, there will be a need for more formal oversight, particularly with channels like Town Square and Off Topic, where greater numbers of members congregate and more diverse topics are discussed. This is where our own UK and Regional Moderators can help. Their objective is to basically keep a weather eye out for posts which may not be appropriate either in terms of content, wording or subject. Our Moderators are members of XR UK and have previous experience in looking after spaces like Mattermost, so you're in good hands. In order to