The Role and Impact of the Moderator

Moderating conversations, by participating in them, has considerable benefits: it is faster, more flexible and responsive; and it retains the principle of free speech and opens public spaces for debate. Online moderators have an important role to play as establishing ‘a safe space requires guidance by trained and supervised moderators who can create a community atmosphere that enables friendships to grow, and to establish some form of digital accountability for users’.

Just as is the case offline, personal relationships and friendships are important sources of peer-to-peer learning and friendships often take place in both online and offline spaces. Creating a feeling of community, friendship and social exchange is also part of what makes people feel safe. 

Moderators play an important role in encouraging users to engage with each other respectfully and letting young people know that their opinion is valid, regardless of their gender, sexuality or political and socio-cultural affiliation. By engaging with people who comment on posts, moderators validate that their opinion is important and by asking specific questions on posts and comments, moderators encourage young people to think critically and engage in constructive discussion.

Moderation responsibilities

• Moderators should monitor social media regularly – at least once a day. Engagement keeps a community enthused. If not monitored though, sites and pages can quickly become filled with spam, offensive or negative comments that ultimately drive users away.
•  It is important that moderators are available to manage the distribution of new content – particularly on norm topics – this is to set the tone, keep the discussion on topic and, ultimately, to help the conversation go further. They should work closely with community managers and marketeers and know when content will be published.
• Moderators enforce the community guidelines and ensure the community is safe and that users feel able to join the discussion.
• Moderators teach by example. Challenging unsavory viewpoints and demonstrating how to have robust yet respectful conversations.

The moderators can use a grid framework to understand the impact of their work and assess the success of moderation in relation to objectives and in specific situations.

Below is a snapshot from the grid that can be used to create a safe and secure online environment through moderation:

These tactics and measurements used cannot always be automated and followed all the time but can be developed to support moderators in their work and should be re-thought and updated regularly.

The table below shows some example indicators of RNW Media’s indicator framework, that are related to the measurement of the impact of moderation. Your framework can look similar to this or it can be radically different: what’s important that you set your own goals and understand what you need to measure and why.