So I’m really starting to consider starting a few small communities just to help grow the communities. I have never moderated anything and I am just curious on what to expect. Things such as tools to use or things to look out for?

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I really appreciate you taking your time to respond.

At one point when I first started learning Linux I ran a tiny Minecraft server. I really struggled with always giving way too much benefit of doubt. I felt like I had to build a case to defend my position but keep moving the goalposts on myself. I really struggled with one kid who hadn’t really done anything wrong but just wasn’t fitting the vibe of the community.

So that is something I’m conscientious about now that I am older.

I’m not really worried too much about traffic as this would be an industry specific community. I work in television broadcasting and would love to make a place for other people in the industry to hang out.

[–] IonAddis 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I'm glad it was helpful--I know sometimes people go TL;DR and get annoyed at long posts, lol.

And yeah, re: Minecraft--been there, done that with the genuinely clueless user who just constantly doesn't get it. I ran into it with WoW guilds. It's hard to deal with, esp. when their behavior looks genuinely not-with-it instead of malicious. Like, if you have a player that is a kid (or who hasn't matured mentally) who is always begging for help or gold or items. Esp. if they're being nice or saying sorry or being cute about it--verbal veneers that try to manipulate you into being soft on them (even if they are not consciously trying to be manipulative). It's hard being the one putting your foot down.

Anyway. I honestly don't see a television broadcasting sub with tech nerds inviting too much trouble. (Or anything along those lines...I know you weren't fully specific about niche.) I would guess the most likely routes of bullshit would be straight-up spam bots, or people inappropriately advertising some sort of object or service and clogging up the page with drivel nobody cares about. I guess "low effort posts" might be a thing, too.

You MIGHT see some drama if like...it comes out some CEO or manager or something who is known in the industry is being a dickwad. Or like if an industry professional is let go, fairly or unfairly...lots of hot drama and speculation can come up. Might be worth it to look at existing forums for your niche and see if you can find the past drama, and see what shape it took previously. Might help you prepare a way to deal with it, put rules in place beforehand.

Edit: Had a thought. Are discussions about "censorship" common in this niche? Censorship as it pertains to broadcast television. If so, you might get drama around that, and might need to plan for it sometimes raising its head.