Thanks for creating and/or moderating a community on lemmy.austism.place! As previous moderators, we know that it is a difficult job that is often thankless, so we want to make sure your work is appreciated. To help you with moderating communities on our server, we have provided the guidelines posted below. As a reminder, the purpose of lemmy.autism.place is to provide an lemmy instance that is tailored for autistic culture. Please keep that in mind with all moderation practices.

1. Feel free to start communities

• Communities do not have to be directly associated with autism. Rather, we are attempting to create communities in which we can share and discuss all matters with the general autistic community.

2. The majority of any moderation team of any community should be self-identified as autistic.

• This is a place for us. We would like to allow autistic people opportunities for leadership positions and to contribute ideas that help design and maintain this instance tailored to autistic culture.

3. Aim to have at least 3 moderators per community.

• While this is not a rule, we encourage each community to have at least three moderators each. We have lives apart from Lemmy, so as things come up, we might disegage from time to time. Additionally, as autistic people, we are prone to shutdowns and need rest time to receover. Allow modertators, including yourself, recovery time as needed. With at least 3 moderators, it will be less likely that the entire team is in a shutdown or otherwise unavailable. Considering the worldwide reach of lemmy, we also recommend that the moderation team have members from across time zones so that someone is active at most times.

4. Be considerate of autistic traits.

• Consider that autistic people have unique social skills, mental and sensory processing. Take that into account when moderating by addressing reports with compassion and understanding. It may help to believe that everyone is doing their best.

5. Make use of closed encrypted chat rooms

• It is quite likely that your community will have a purpose and goals. It is also likely that you will have questionable reports that you might not be certain on how to respond. An encrypted closed chat room for the moderation team will provide an avenue for moderators to collaborate on goals and discuss situations that may arise in your community.

6. Do not engage with trolls. Just ban them.

• Trolls seek emotional reactions from others. It typically does not matter whether the reaction is complimentary or insulting. As such, we believe that the best approach is to avoid rewarding them. This means that rather than argue or punish them through rational discussion, it is a best practice to simply ban them with the stated reason being "trolling".

7. Make use of the !moderators@lemmy.autism.place community to discuss all moderating topics.

• It helps to have many moderators reviewing and discussing moderation topics. Other community moderators may have already solved an issue that is new to your community, or vice versa, you may have a solution to a problem in another community.

8. Respond to reporters

• Contacting users that make reports with your decision and logic can help with engagement, transparency, and collaboration. If users see and understand how you moderate, they are more likely to stay engaged in the community and less likely to become antagonistic. You do not have to agree with them, but it helps to respectfully communicate.

9. Check reports at least once per 24 hours

• It helps to address reports as soon as possible to reduce the number of users affected by rule violations. Furthermore, if users frequently see that rule violations are going unaddressed, then they would be more likely to commit violations themselves or leave the community. Accounts used for moderating a community may lose their moderator status if they have not been active on Lemmy for more than 3 weeks.

If you have any recommended changes or additions to these guidelines, please post them below. This instance will become what we make of it, so lets work together in our aunarchistic fashion to create the best place we can as an autistic and allied community.