Moderation is the soul of communities
March 7th, 2008 by bruno boutotChris Wilson gives in Slate a good introduction to the importance of moderation in online communities: The Wisdom of the Chaperones: Digg, Wikipedia, and the myth of Web 2.0 democracy. #
His title is a reference to the famous James Surowiecki’s book, The Wisdom of Crowds. And yes, communities don’t work by magic: they are created, managed and moderated by “admins” and “mods”, people who are the citizens of this site. #
Wilson explains the moderators’ role with examples from Wikipedia and Digg. More importantly, he cites Slashdot’s moderation system, which I believe to be the most sophisticated and efficient system ever made. Slashdot is not for everyone, but its moderation system is the model that we must all study and keep as an inspiration. #
It’s a model made by a brilliant programmer to solve a problem in his own community: he didn’t stop to work on it until he had reached his goal. It’s certainly one of the web’s treasures, a little like the voting system of Worth1000 created by Avi Muchnick. #
Every community doesn’t need this kind of systems. But the admins and moderators are as crucial for communities as editors in chief are for print media. #
In communities, admins and mods don’t create information: they welcome it. By highlighting content and authors that fit with the community’s goals, they give it its soul and its appeal. #
