Metapost: Moderators

In the next few days/weeks, you'll start seeing people with stars by their names on the blog besides just myself.

These moderators are providing an invaluable service to both myself and the site. Knowing that there are moderators other than myself who have the ability to step in and say "no, that's not on topic, take it to the open threads" or "no, that's against the safe space comment policy and needs to stop" or (in the case of a worst-case troll invasion) lock threads until we can deal with a large-scale problem, means that I have room to breathe and sometimes even put the phone/tablet/computer down and go do something fun for a few minutes without worrying that THE SITE MIGHT NEED ME.

I cannot overstate the importance of this to my mental health and stress levels, or how grateful I am to the moderators for being willing to help me.

Moderators will operate here much as I already do: they can and very probably will leave normal chatty comments in the threads and 95% of the time they'll be your basic Kickin' Awesome Commenter Person, just like they were before they were moderators and just like I am now. But when/if they pull out their Moderator Voice and tell someone to stay on topic, or to take a Feminism 101 question to the open thread, or to adhere more closely to the site comment policy, then I expect everyone to treat them exactly as you would treat me: as a site-owner who is not to be argued with.

I also want to note that each moderator here is an individual with hir own spoon budget. Not every moderator will have the spoons to enact moderator actions directly, and may instead largely monitor possible problems and contact me so that I can get to a computer and intervene. These moderators should be given just as much respect as the more visible ones, because they are providing an invaluable service by helping both me and the site to stay safe.

It takes one-hundred-thousand judgment calls over the life of a blog to make it a Safe Space. Though we are all imperfect people who make mistakes from time to time, that doesn't mean that the judgment calls made on this blog are up for commentary or vote or discussion. The reason for this is not because I think I'm perfect and never wrong, but rather because I've been-there-done-that years ago as a moderator whose decisions were constantly up for questioning, and I know for a fact that way lies burnout and misery for myself.

And that is why I ask that everyone respect the decisions of our new moderators and to always remember that moderating actions are done with the good of the blog in mind. Thank you. Thank you for reading, thank you for commenting, and thank you for helping to maintain this safe space community. It means the world to me.