The moderation team act individually and review collectively. It is better to make a quick, reversible mistake than to let bad content sit on the server for want of concordance. Any team member may question the decision of another. When this happens we make a decision as a group, putting things to a vote if necessary. This can mean undoing actions that were taken, or taking actions were none were taken.
A variety of opinion is a strength of value when creating long-lasting communities.
When something feels wrong, it is best to let your perspective be known. "I think x because y". Your perspective is valuable.
User moderation is based on observation of the server rules as interpreted by the moderation team. The rules are deliberately concise. The moderation believe that an exhaustive list of what is allowed and not allowed has not been shown to be necessary where members of the community are acting in good faith.
- Hateful conduct against members or marginalised groups
- Looking for fights against members
- Not respecting boundaries or privacy
- Impersonation
The principles are such that forms of bigotry including those listed, invasions of privacy, and abuse of members individually or collectively are not good enough.
The moderation team will in many cases act individually and review collectively. Any moderation action, from a warning to a suspension, may be appealed. If an appeal is approved the action will be undone. If the appeal is rejected the action stands, but that rejection is not typically an additional strike against the user.
However, if the content of the appeal message is abusive or otherwise indicates that the member is not going to act in a way agreeable to the community, it may be counted as a strike.
When an account is suspended, all content is deleted. The email address used is permanently associated with the deleted account and may not be re-used.
Making a new account to replace a suspended account will result in instant suspension once detected, when the moderation team are satisfied that this is the case.
When a member has required intervention on three or more occasions, the moderation team reserve the right to suspend (delete) that account.
For extreme incidents, the moderation reserve the right the right to instantly suspend an account.
Warnings are issued when a user is deemed to have behaved in a manner which is below community standards. This may involve benefit of the doubt. Though "Warning" may sound very official or threatening, this should be considered as a nudge in the right direction.
Freezing an account keeps it intact but prevents a user from posting for as long as the account is frozen. This may be used to stop fights or generally in a case where the user shouldn't be suspended but they need to stop posting until they can calm down or engage with requests to moderate their conduct. In some cases it may be used to stop fights.
This action can be alarming for users as it may appear that they have been banned, but it is usually a temporary measure. In some cases, the moderation team may proceed to suspend a frozen account on further examination.
When a user repeatedly posts upsetting/violent/traumatising content, especially images, without giving their peers a chance to not look, the moderation team may use the Force-sensitive action to have all media they post hidden and blurred out by default. Ideally a user will be asked to mark their posts appropriately and this will not be needed.
When an account is limited, it's posts no longer appear in the local or federated timelines. It will still show in the home feeds of users who follow that user's account. This may, for example, be used against accounts which appear spammy and show limited or no engagement with the moderation team on this point. Typically an untended bot.
The following are always grounds for suspending a server
- illegal content
- unmoderated hate content
- unmoderated organised attacks on our infrastructure
- organised attacks on members with approval or participation of the moderation team of the offending server
- lack of moderation such that the server is a nuisance to the moderation team or an abuse vector to members of our community
- lack of moderation of abuse or hateful conduct or content, and/or a culture of encouraging the same by the moderation team
- knowledge that a server is a source of hate, abuse or unwanted content such that it would be harmful to our community should it be federated to our server
This action immediately servers any connections between our server and the offending server. Use of authorized fetch on our server means it is no longer possible for posts from our server to be federated to the offending server once this happens. Posts and profiles from the offending server are immediately deleted from our server in this event.
This is a "soft" suspend which doesn't break connections between users, but prevents posts from a server appearing in federated timelines. The posts will still show to those who follow accounts on the server. Users may still follow accounts on that server, though they will be shown a notification about the limited status before doing so.
When a server has been moderated in such a way that trust in that server's moderation is low, but the server is still not deemed a risk to our community. This action is non-destructive and removing the limit is possible upon agreement by the moderation team.