Moderating Moderators: The Role and Challenges of Community Management in the Digital Age

When discussing online communities, the role of moderation often comes to the forefront. With the prevalence of AI and bots in moderating online spaces, it is crucial to understand who is in charge of moderating these moderators and how they ensure community guidelines are upheld effectively.

A.I. and Algorithmic Moderation: The Digital Overlord

For a more technical approach, A.I. and algorithmic moderation play a significant role in filtering out inappropriate content. These systems are designed to analyze and flag problematic posts, images, and text automatically. An engineer typically oversees the performance of these filters and adjusts them as necessary. They ensure that the moderation policies are either too lenient or overly strict, and they feed new phrases and images to the system to improve future recognition accuracy.

Human Moderation: The Expert Oversight

However, while these A.I. systems form the backbone of moderation, they are not infallible. This is where human moderators come into play. A human moderator is responsible for ensuring that advanced and nuanced issues are handled appropriately. In essence, a human moderator oversees the work of other moderators, conducting weekly catch-ups, spot checks, and even feeding "test" images and text to ensure that the human moderators remain vigilant.

One organization that takes quality assurance very seriously is WebPurify. They have a structured approach to ensuring that their human moderators are the best in the business. For instance, they conduct end-of-month awards for those who manage their queues most efficiently with the fewest errors.

Community Management Manspreading: From Top to Bottom

The community management structure often looks like this:

Head of Community Community Managers Paid Moderators/Admins Volunteer Moderators

While bots and A.I. are increasingly used to handle the 'low hanging fruit', their primary role is to augment human moderators. This way, the community can have the best of both worlds—automation for quick, initial scans and human expertise for more complex cases.

The Dark Side of Bot Moderation

Given that most of the initial moderating is done by bots, it raises a pertinent question: Who is responsible for the programming and maintenance of these bots? And why, after several years, have they not been improved to address easily solvable issues?

It appears that software developers may not be monitoring their bots as closely as they should. If these issues persist, it suggests a lack of accountability and oversight. A community in need of better protection might find it necessary to question the software development team's approach and diligence.

For those seeking expertise in online communities and artificial intelligence, Venessa Paech is a valuable resource. Paech offers deep insights into the intersection of community management and AI, helping organizations navigate the complex challenges of digital community management.