Is Strict Moderation Killing Forums or Keeping Them Alive?

Do heavy-handed moderation policies drive users away or maintain a healthy community?

Where should forum admins draw the line between free speech and keeping the peace?

Have you seen forums fail because of too much or too little moderation?

Are ‘ban-happy’ admins the problem, or are users just more difficult to manage these days?

Can a community self-moderate, or do forums always need strict guidelines and enforcement?

What are the best ways to balance moderation with keeping users engaged and happy?

What's interesting is with modern scripts the moderation is built into it in what they call a trust system. When I was first introduced to it on my Discourse site I didn't think it would work. It does. In fact, on most Discourse powered sites, that' how moderation works.

The system is simple. A user registers. As they post they build reputation and trust.This is done behind the scenes by the software. At some point the user will be promoted. It's all about self governed forums. I am a member of some huge Discourse forums. All moderation is done by user that were selected by their reputation from what they posted.

With millions of users on these forums and thousands of posts each day you see a well run forum by moderators that were all picked by the software.

AWS said:

With millions of users on these forums and thousands of posts each day you see a well run forum by moderators that were all picked by the software.

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That's really interesting. I never knew that that was the case with that platform. Then again, I've not really used it all that much. Maybe I need to.

AWS said:

As they post they build reputation and trust.This is done behind the scenes by the software. At some point the user will be promoted

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Is this algorithmic or manual? How is reputation and trust conferred, meaning, is it done by other users giving rep points and likes?

JoelR said:

Is this algorithmic or manual? How is reputation and trust conferred, meaning, is it done by other users giving rep points and likes?

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Algorithm. Software grades each user by post quality and promotes to moderator when they meet a certain score.

AWS said:

Algorithm. Software grades each user by post quality and promotes to moderator when they meet a certain score.

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I wonder how often it makes the wrong decision?