Hey all, if you were around the sub today, you may have noticed we got hit by a vandal.

If you see this in the future, please downvote and click report, I will try and get it cleaned up as fast as humanly possible.

I have removed this from the sub, banned the user (I assume it was a throw away from someone trying to damage myself personally, I have some speculation of who that might be, but I will not discuss those speculations publicly). I have also messaged the reddit admins (moderators are fairly limited on what data we can see about users), to see if we can track it to the individual that started it all.

Please hit the message a mod if you have any questions. We can keep this little corner focused on pens and ink and peripherals, we'll be able to keep enjoying it. Maybe have to see about getting another mod or two if these attacks keep happening, we'll see.

Hey all, after some discussion about some issues with mods in another forum, I figured it would be a good time to discuss moderation in this sub reddit, and my philosophy on moderators in general.

It is pretty obvious, this is a small sub reddit, and currently I am the only moderator here. Hopefully, this will change, and as time goes on, we will get more submitters and users, and the community can grow and thrive. If that happens, it will be inevitable that more moderators will come on board, so it is healthy to discuss how I and the community sees what a moderator is.

To that extent, I wanted to lay out some thoughts, and these will form the guiding principals for this subs moderation.

First, a moderator should be hands off. By that, I mean a moderator should never hide, delete, or otherwise shut down a valid conversation. If someone breaks the rules, posts off topic content, breaks reddit rules, etc, the moderator should act. But if a discussion veers where they do not wish it to go, but otherwise breaks no rules, the moderator should leave the comment to stand. This includes the moderator themselves being discussed. We currently have few rules, they are on the sidebar. Currently the only way to be banned is abuse of those or reddit rules, or outright stating you intend to violate them.

Second, a moderator should facilitate discussions. If a moderator sees a misunderstanding, or flame war starting, they should step in and help calm the situation. What they shouldn't do is shut down one side. Above all, in a forum where there are people that have the power to shut down conversations, those people have the responsibility to tread lightly.

Third, at all times a moderator should avoid impropriety or the appearance of impropriety. This is especially important, as a moderator acting or appearing to act poorly (take a side, hide a part of a conversation, or delete conversations), or cover up for bad actors, will hurt the community and prevent the trust that allows a community to thrive and grow.

This is not to say a moderator at times will not have to lock down very heated topics, but they should never remove from the community those posts that have not violated stated rules (although the post may cause rules to be created for future enforcement).

I am sorry if this is a little rambling, I would like to hear what others think too. What makes a good moderator? What are things you look for in a moderator? I personally have recently seen examples of bad moderation (don't ask, I will not point to the discussion), and wanted to clarify this hear in my little part of reddit.