Hello users of Hexbear while we are always accepting moderation applications I would like to begin another formal volunteer drive.
Those of you interested in volunteering as a moderator, can send me your responses to the application questions below using either hexbear direct message or matrix message.
The answers may be as short or as long as you feel is adequate.
Application
What is your Hexbear username?
Do you have any preferred pronouns?
What are your thoughts on capitalism?
What are your thoughts on imperialism?
What are your thoughts on Palestine?
What are your thoughts on trans rights?
What are your thoughts on racial justice?
What do think about current and previous protests around the world?
What are your thoughts on Veganism and Animal Liberation?
Do you have any experience with other leftist online communities?
What did those experiences teach you?
What is your approach to moderation, and how do you work with teams?
How do you deal with online drama and people who try to start things for the sake of it?
What current communities would you be interested in moderating?
Would you like to create a new community?
Do you have any ideas for community engagement?
What is your general time availability? (Time zone, amounts, common browsing times, etc)
Element information
Element is a messaging app that lets you talk to people over the Matrix
protocol.
To get started, check out this link, where you can choose to either download Element for your platform or, if on a computer, open it in a browser.
The instructions that follow are for the desktop application and the web application, but the process is similar on all apps:
Press "Create Account"
Fill in a username and password
Hit register, and you're done!
I think only seeking moderators who are willing/able to answer broad essay questions on vague political issue might not be the best selection method. They're each one questions to which many people have devoted their whole lives.
Here's some things I would think to ask about (
eta:
asking broad question like "what do you think of racial justice" invites a superficial answer, and its easy to tell what direction the "correct" answer would be. Do you want people who diverge from the obviously correct direction of answers? Like do you only want vegans as mods? maybe a more pointed question that gets at application of the ideas. This could be improved its just off the top of my head:
Its too many in total. You probably want to have a small number of mandatory questions and then maybe pick from a list of other ones.
I think of your list of ism questions, maybe people choose 1 they think they are strong on and 1 they think they are weak/unsure on.
eta 2: why ask pronouns? It is already a feature of the site. Is there something else that is meant to imply? or maybe it's left over from before.
I think the point of that question is that anti-vegan shit is against site rules. So if someone says "I don't think it matters and vegans are annoying" they wouldn't be eligible to be a mod
ambivalence isn't the same as hostility
moderators aren't allowed to be annoyed?
Here's another question for the above list:
Personally I would recuse myself from moderating anything having to do with "beans".
You wouldn't consider it hostility if someone answered that to one of the topics you think are important? Like, "I don't think racial justice matters" wouldn't be a disqualifying response for a moderator in your opinion?
I highly doubt that.
You equate veganism to anti racism.
CoC says
So in your opinion, would an appropriate equivalence be
??
Yeah but no one filling an application would say something like that because they know it'd be the wrong answer. I think instead of asking that kind of question, admins could explicitly state that anti-veganism is not tolerated, and give brief quotes on the other subjects like imperialism/racial justice and so on. The onboarding process could involve some very light reading on these subjects.
I agree with @hellinkilla@hexbear.net, and if people actually thought they are supposed to give a detailed and thorough answer then they'd be less likely to submit an application, who wants to write a bunch of short essays
Great comment and I'd like to take some time to read it again and respond appropriately
We ask pronouns in the event a user doesn't want to display their pronouns publicly but wishes to be called by the pronouns in private conversations.
The more complicated the question process is more time we need to spend working through them. The current question responses cover areas of theory that has resulted in site wide struggle sessions. We have received vague answers and really in-depth answers to the current question list, then we look at the user's profile and if there is any mod action against them.
I would like to share your questions with the other admins so that we can modify the mod question list for next time. It will take some time and effort to get the list down as you said with some of your additions it would be too large of a hurdle for people but I really like your questions. Thank you
Ya it's way too much. But it was already way too much.
I understand it's a mobius strip because you have to do the things that have been previously committed to in context of specific problems that arose. And that'll only get longer and longer as time goes on. So you probably don't want to add a bunch of BS from here.
Trying to think of questions that would elicit honest, complicated and partly-"wrong" answers.
Individual people don't need to be perfect. In building a project committee it's more important to balance the strengths so overall the collective can accomplish everything. So you need to know what you are already working with (which I can have no insight on) to decide what to focus on bringing in.
Or you just accept everyone who doesn't say anything extremely fucked up? Realistically that's probably what I'd do. Just start small in terms of responsibility.
A lot of the questions could be asked once you accept an application, that way the application would be shorter.
For me these questions don't seem necessary to decide whether you'd accept an application or not, but ofc you know better. After accepting an application an experience mod could ask them about online drama and moderation, and provide some guidance or even "approved answers", call it training lol.