16/6/2020 Gamasutra: Victoria Tran's Blog - Finding, Choosing, and Managing Moderators

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Moderators
by Victoria Tran on 06/16/20 10:34:00 am

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The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community.
The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.
AUDIO

DESIGN By Victoria Tran, Communications Director at Kitfox Games, an indie studio in Montreal. Currently working
on Boyfriend Dungeon, Lucifer Within Us and publishing Mondo Museum and Dwarf Fortress. This was
PRODUCTION originally written on their Medium blog.

BIZ/MARKETING
Sometimes, your community grows to a size where you can no longer reasonably keep track of it by
yourself — you need to sleep, go to conventions, do other work, etc. At this point, you’ll probably need a
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mod or two.
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And honestly?
June 16, 2020

Health Scholars A community is only as good as their mods.

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Airship Syndicate So let’s talk about how I found Kitfox’s mods on Discord, what qualities I generally look for, and
Mid to Senior management techniques!
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You don’t ALWAYS need a moderator — for instance, if your community is quite small, relatively calm, and
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June 16, 2020

Finding, Choosing, and

Managing Moderators

The Pros and Cons of

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as a game company
owner
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At Kitfox, we have 6k+ Discord members, 6 mods, and a bot for general moderation. However, the
activity of the mods varies drastically on their own work schedules and/or life business. Our Discord is
pretty well behaved (I love them), the mod role is pinged infrequently, and we have steady streams of
conversations everyday. I got our first mod in 2018, sometime after the Kickstarter of Boyfriend Dungeon.

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16/6/2020 Gamasutra: Victoria Tran's Blog - Finding, Choosing, and Managing Moderators
I Asked Ian Deane I can’t say for certain when you’ll need a mod (I don’t know if there is a standard community size to mod
(Interview)
ratio), but variables for how many you need include: the time zones you need covered, how active your
mods are, how active — and not just how big — your game community is, strictness of the server, etc.

Press Releases So maybe my best advice is: when you feel overwhelmed or know an announcement is coming up that
June 16, 2020 will overwhelm you (e.g. a launch/new game announcement), look for mods! Preferably you will find
mods before you are overwhelmed, but sometimes these things creep up.
Games Press

Conscript release a Finding Moderators

Demo
and a new Trailer for... Alright, so you’re ready for moderators but… how do you find them? There are a number of ways to do so:

Vertigo Arcades
Transitions To New
Seeing who is active, but respectful in your servers — that is, respectful of you/your time, other
Normal devs, the other players, and each other (there is always usually one, when your community grows
With... large enough to need them)
'SOMETHING ATE MY
Friends or fellow developers you trust (many caveats with this, but there are instances of servers
ALIEN' STEAM being successful with them)
SUMMER... Discord has some volunteer moderators for verified servers
Action Packed UEDI: Recommendations from current mods
Shadow of the Citadel Setting up a Google Form for people to volunteer to be mods
Demo...

Control 32,000 Drones Choosing Moderators

in
Gripping Sci-fi Real Choosing moderators requires a good sense of judgement. Personalities are, of course, extremely varied
Time... so I can’t give you some easy “choose only ISFJ people” or something. (Lol, can you imagine though.)
Keep in mind being a pleasant person to chat with online is not the same thing as being a good
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moderator.

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Personality traits: Humble (or at least, no grandiose sense of ego that would probably go mad with
power), friendly, empathetic, gets along with other members
Has at least a vague sense of the emotional toll moderating can take (they can discover this later
and decide it’s not right for them, which is ok!)
If they have previous moderating experience (in other Discords, Reddit, etc.)
If needed, in a different timezone than you (or maybe they have a very bad sleep schedule but…
they really should get some sleep…)
Have they shown that they understand the rules and appropriate behaviour on a personal level?
Are they already bringing value? Do they make people laugh, help people out and make people feel
welcome?
Beware of backseat moderators. While it may look like a user with a willingness to contribute would
be a great mod,you need to be careful they aren’t SO keen that they become some overzealous
moderator. Not saying you need to avoid them, just keep it in mind.

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When it comes to approaching potential mods, I’ve always asked them via private messages listing out
why I’m asking them, why I appreciate their presence, mod expectations, and a clear statement that it is
not at all mandatory for them to accept. No pressuring/guilting anyone into becoming a mod! I also
tend to reitierate that mod work can be quite draining, so if they try it out and decide it isn’t for them, no
hard feelings ever.
Knowing Your Mods
As the defacto leader for your mods, you’re essentially in charge of your own team. And so, all the
responsibilities and leadership skills of a manager will be on you. That includes knowing the dynamics and
personalities of your mods, taking ultimate responsibility for anything that happens, and ensuring their
wellbeing as much as you can. Mods are not volunteers you get to ignore.

Every mod has a different personality and moderation type — know how they interact with you,
each other, and the community
Some may have different ideas/styles of moderation than you — this is okay, as long as both of you
understand and respect this
For numerous reasons, they will often have different levels of activity and presence within the
community
Some mods do not have the personality type to be a mod!! It’s hard!! Don’t force them to stay as
one, or make them feel guilty if they ever want to stop.

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Managing Mods
Mods are still people with opinions, and often the times that call for mods will be instances that can be a
bit divisive. Maybe one mod thinks the person should get a warning, while the other mod wants a straight
ban. Either way, you need to be ready for things like this to crop up. Time to brush up on those leadership
skills.

I highly recommend you have an internal moderator guideline outlining:

Behaviour expectations
Your expectations for how the community will be handled
Internal rules and regulations
More specific guidelines on what warrants an instant ban, a warning, and what to do if they’re
unsure
How to report an offense

And while you’re at it, you should keep these questions in mind for yourself:

How will you handle inter-mod disputes?

What will you do if your mods are targeted?
How will you balance suggestions from a mod VS what you think you should do?

Keep in mind managing moderators isn’t just about handling arguments though, or telling them what to
do. You need to respect their time and concerns. After all, they’re the ones helping you out! For example:

Warn them in advance if you’re announcing something big/expect an influx of new members. Don’t
leave them in the dark about these things.
Check in on them proactively. Don’t just wait for them to come to you.
They have lives!! There will be times they can’t be as active, and that’s okay, so long as you set the
expectations for it!
BE OPEN TO FEEDBACK. This means if they have a criticism, do not immediately respond being
defensive, angry, or most of all, hurt. They need to feel safe telling you things.

These are specific situations, and you may find you need different rules for your own moderators. And
that’s good — every community is so different, you shouldn’t be purely copying/pasting rules. Morph them
to fit your situation.

By the way — don’t forget that in the end, you’re the one responsible for your mods. No throwing them
under the bus. And if one of them majorly messes up? That’s their bad as much as yours.

Be Thankful!
In a perfect world, we would be paying our moderators. But with indies, it’s not viable sometimes. That
doesn’t mean you shouldn’t actively be showing your mods that you’re grateful for their help because uh,
let’s face it, we’d perish without them.

I can’t say exactly what you can do — part of the whole thankfulness part is to give non-generic thanks,
in my opinion — but here are things I have done:

Given mods free keys (and maybe tried to force them to take them) (let me give you things for free
pleaseee)
Cards for New Years + gifts
Any merch we make is offered to the mods

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Tried to show thankfulness with small continual actions. Recorded birthday messages, random
messages in our mod channels, etc.

Conclusion
Mods are precious cinnamon rolls that must be protected, yet somehow they protect us. Once your
community grows large enough, they’re imperative to not only maintaining the rules of your community,
but also greatly contribute the overall positive atmosphere of it, if done right!

As community devs, we are in our own managerial positions, in a sense. Hint hint to people who
undervalue or misjudge how difficult soft skills are: you try doing this and try not to get demolished.

We need to be conscious of the the people we welcome into our communities and the ones that we choose
to help us. And together, you basically become the Voltron of a good community structure.

<3

If you found this article helpful, please consider donating or even signing a petition for the
Black Lives Matter movement.

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