Me too! I looked it up right after posting my comment!
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I have been thinking about what I would need if I were a mod. I think encouragement of the flagging would actually help, plus somewhere to check in with other mods so that I didn’t feel like items that weren’t clear-cut could be dealt with sensitively and appropriately. One day a week would work, as long as it were understood as more of a 24-hour-period and understanding that mods need to sleep during those 24 hours. The forum is most active while I’m asleep. Having a certain number of shifts and a few “bonus” moderators who can swap out for a month (or some useful amount of time) when others need a break would allow rest and avoid burn out. I’d also not expect every mod to deal with every item - some items might need to be passed to the next person because they’re too close for the mod who would normally deal with it based on the time the flag came in.
I also want the rules to be put on trial for maybe a month and mods who were less involved in the design of the rules and system to trial them so that it’s easier to pick up vagueness.
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This is a late to the discussion topic and I hope not veering off topic, but I’ve been reading Dean Spade’s newish book on Mutual Aid, which hugely and helpfully focuses on empowering all community members, preventing burnout and various forms of toxic culture in groups. The groups he’s talking about are purpose-oriented radical groups, which isn’t at all a perfect map onto this community, but it’s a very short and accessible read and to me at least feels like a SUPER helpful perspective on any situation where you are doing the hard work of collectively thriving in a world full of oppressive systems we’ve been deeply socialized in. The book expresses a lot of compassion for the hard work it takes to de-socialize ourselves from things like ableism, sexism, fat phobia, and also has a lot of advice for setting up systems to help support us in doing that work.
Anyway, it sounds like I’m just giving reading homework here, but hopefully my really partial explanation above helps express the kind of ethos I’d like to exist in any group I belong to, and especially this one, which is one I’ve come to value a lot. Having more established and transparent systems/rules in place, delegating responsibilities/empowering more people (ie making more mods. Maybe even rotating mods so no one feels overwhelmed by the commitment and it feels less hierarchical?) would be great places to start.
I am reading some, obviously not all, tensions I’ve seen here lately as signs of various stages of burnout. The book (it’s just where my head is at right now, sorry if it looks like I’m doing zero original thinking here!) has I think a really helpful framing that first asks groups to make structural changes to mitigate burnout, then does also ask individual members to be self reflective and take care of themselves. That burnout is a collective problem, and part of addressing it is individual action. And all of this is something we have to be really on the alert for because of the world we live in and all of the systemic oppressive forces aligned against an ethos of collective care. That whole premise of systemic oppression may not be accepted by everyone here, but I think the desire to be a caring community is, and it doesn’t surprise me that a lot of tensions are coming to a head around a topic of systemic prejudice that consensus in popular discourse is currently evolving quite rapidly.
Also, I appreciate @anomalily and everyone here having this discussion openly and earnestly. Fatphobia in particular is something I’ve been actively thinking about, and something I want to keep educating myself about in community with others, hopefully with this being one of those communities. I haven’t found the right way to join the discussions yet, but I hope we can find a way to make them affirming and hard only in necessary and productive ways.
Finally, when I started reading I put an OMD sticker on my book, so sharing just for kicks.
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Interesting choice of sticker - it feels very metaphorical or symbolic to me, but I can’t quite articulate those thoughts.
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I interpret it as the little free library of cat toys!
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Ooo I am going to see if I can get a copy of it. Also it pleases me that the author’s name rhymes with the book title.
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Might it make more sense for mods to have shifts based on time zones instead of a 24hr period? I’m on US east coast so I could cover hours between my morning and afternoon, and then someone west coast could take over from there, and then someone from Australia, then an EU person then a UK person…etc.
I feel like expecting 1 person to cover 24 hrs might lead to time lapses between something flagged and something dealt with due to that whole human needing sleep, food, uninterrupted Great British Bake Off time.
Also for what it is worth, I volunteer as tribute to mod. Or to apply to mod, however the process shakes out. Lord knows I spend enough time on the forum. Plus I like you bunch of (fellow) weirdos. I want this place to thrive.
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It would be easier for me to do 2x 8 hour blocks or similar. I’ve definitely noticed stuff can blow up and the delay time can matter.
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i’ve been pinged!! i actually have a Little Experience in this field (i moderate discord servers for skool and semi-professionally??) which are different from forums but are also kind of the same? (OMD discord server when?) (Never hopefully tbh)
here are some Thoughts:
-why do challenges live in Toot Your Own Horn? can they please have their own category?
-I would LOVE a graduate level vs. beginner level forums/posts. sometimes people are talking about 401ks and I’m just sitting there going “HOW DO I GET YNAB TO GIVE ME THE STUDENT DISCOUNT”
-would love to have resource lists, they could function as a ‘beginner-class’ type deal - there could be like a ‘resource’ post and then an accompanying forum thread to talk about the article/resource and maybe ask more questions? i sure hope that makes sense as a sentence
also @Marcela had an excellent idea about timezones & moderators
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We do have a discord server! It is very chill.
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I have asked that many times and then done nothing to fix it 
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How do people feel about an ethos of impact over intent? That is the direction we’re being urged to go in at my workplace. The idea is, instead of defending your intent if someone tells you they are hurt by something you said/did/etc., you just acknowledge the impact, apologize, and move on.
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I like this. I’ve been trying to do this and trying to explain the reason why to others in other spaces.
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I think the impact/intent part though means that the burden is always on people to be impacted. Ideally, we’re recognizing when we use language or fall into stereotypes that rely on systemic prejudices even when there aren’t impacted people there to call it out.
I.e. Just because no one was there to hear your joke, doesn’t mean the joke should’ve been made.
(Generally I am a big fan of recognizing that intent ≠ impact)
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I think so long as the forum is small enough to assume everyone has good intent it could work. If bad actors enter into play, any thought or comment can be shut down with the idea that it’s hurtful.
I still have concern that people will feel the need to over-censor in their personal space.
Others may have differences of opinions, and I have different opinions depending on the day and how thick my skin is on a given day, but sometimes I’m fine if a meme in question is merely hidden if it could be construed as __phobic but it isn’t clear if the point of humor is the natural qualities of the person or their controllable actions and attributes.
I’ve been pondering whether it may make sense to have a specific “is this okay?” thread, wherein the content of memes that people aren’t sure if they are offensive, feel could be offensive but aren’t sure why, or memes that have been asked to be taken down can have a place for discussion without takeover of the threads meant to be fun. Specific removed posts could possibly be mod-linked back to the discussion thread.
The issue with such a thread is that it could become an overall toxic thread, and even if not would absolutely not be something everyone would want to read on, even if they wanted to understand and be educated on a specific thread. Maybe the solution to this is to have it be a locked, admin-only-edit thread, wherein an offending meme is posted and the reasons it is __-phobic explained and explains in what way it violates forum rules. The downside here being it is obviously more mod/admin work.
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That thread sounds like hell and maybe just would put EVERYONE in a bad headspace.
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Everything is problematic if you look at it hard enough. Asking the community to pick something apart looking for problems will not go well.
That is what I learned on my brief foray into feminist academia.
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Yeah, it would just likely become a battleground.
I do think the most peacekeeping course of action is to take things down without further comment or discussion. I’m pulled toward “we should educate people!” but this may not be the place for that education. We can tell people “x is wrong” and if they don’t understand, they can a) accept it and continue to participate, trying not to do the thing anymore b) be pissed off people are telling them x is wrong and leave, or put up a fight and be banned or c) seek education themselves.
I’ve seen a few threads where people attempted c through in-forum discussion, truly seeking to understand, in a separate thread so that other threads weren’t highjacked, but still got completely shredded for it because their starting point was so far away from the perspective of those most attracted to/offended by the asking of the question; because of not using quite the right tone, or having an unacceptable starting point, or whatever. I think having it be safe for someone to ask questions that could potentially be “inflammatory” but in good faith, with the perspective of learning, is important. I think this could be in the same section with discussions of fragility, specific education threads… but there should be codes of conduct when it comes to educating people who truly want to understand and don’t have all the vocab to ask correctly.
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Look, it is perfectly OK if some people do not like the vibe of this forum. Really! It is ok!
On one of the fat phobia threads I blathered about my dogs and their weight and their eating habits, but in my tiny mind I thought I was doing ok because I gave examples of bulking up the dogs and my free feeding cat (fat is good!) and refrained from talking about reducing diets for them.
It was my best effort to address a question about working with veterinary staff and stay out of fat phobic territory. But Oy vey, not good enough!
And you know what? That is truly ok. Probably this forum is not the right fit for me.
Not all places on the internet are appropriate for all people. I sincerely embrace that concept.
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I mean, I agree that not all of the internet needs to be a place for all people, but I don’t think doing your best to engage on a topic = not the right fit for the OMD forums! We’re also not a niche forum just about specific types of oppression and we don’t expect people to have all the language for all every conversation. Everyone is at a different place.
Shutting down lines of conversation because people don’t have the right words when they are trying to, or curtailing people’s expression about their own experience on their journals doesn’t feel good and isn’t what OMD is about.
I hope you won’t stay entirely away from the forums, we’re working towards better protocols to make people feel like this is a healthy - and safe- environment for everyone. We want your experience! Having a diversity of life experience means not every thread will be great for everyone, but if everyone was the same the forums would be boring.
ETA @Faux I think your first post on the forums was on the most contested/hardest to manage thread, sorry! Introduce yourself first on the intro thread?!
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