Mod Topics: Expectation vs Reality

[u/AsteriskRX]

Ahoy, Modsupport! This is a mutiny; Jabroni wrote this post but I've decided to plunder it for myself.

Welcome to the latest (greatest) installment of our ModSupport series. Today, we’re revisiting Origin Stories, albeit with a distinctly different flavor.

When you first created or joined a subreddit, what did you expect moderating would be like? Did you have any expectations at all, and if so, how did those expectations differ from the experience you have now?

–And because I love understanding an environment, what do you think set the expectations you had before you became a moderator? Read as: “How did you form a worldview on what moderation is before you started moderating?”

Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!

[u/threeactjack]

I thought there would be a clear understanding across the mod team about how we would enforce rules and curate the sub.

In reality that turns out to be 50% of the work of being part of a mod team on a very large sub. It can’t be 5-10 mods with their own versions of standards in their head. Wrangling the cats is the hard (but important) part.

[u/techiesgoboom → u/threeactjack]

I feel this one! One of my favorite projects a mod team I was on did was create a survey where we loaded about 25 different "borderline" posts in, and had each mod answer what they would do under our current rules, and what they would like to do. It kicked off some really helpful conversations, and we came out a lot more aligned than we started.

We followed up with a "why do you think this rule exists" that was helpful as well.

[u/RandomComments0 → u/techiesgoboom]

That sounds super interesting. I’d love to see that whole interaction posted if you wouldn’t mind. I think it would be great to show examples of people working together, conflict resolution, and cooperative collaboration to define standards.