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Community PortalHandling Difficult Scenarios as an Admin


HANDLING DIFFICULT SCENARIOS AS AN ADMIN





For moderators both new and experienced, enforcing the rules is central to your
role in your respective community. It’s something you’ll run into daily and not
knowing how to handle an infraction severely undermines your abilities as a
moderator. This article will be going over a few things relating on how to take
action as a moderator. We’ll talk about the things you should consider in
situations that require a moderator, the first steps you should take in common
scenarios, and touch on what punishments are appropriate. If you’re unsure of
the tools available to you and how they work, consider reading Permissions on
Discord first.


STEPS TO RESOLUTION

There are a few “genres” of things you tend to see on a daily basis, depending
on your community. Keep in mind that every situation is unique. Because of this,
you may find it difficult to understand what exactly you should do in each
different scenario. If you find yourself in one of those situations, here are
some good points to follow for nearly every situation:

1. Situation Identification

 * Is something happening?
 * Does this need a moderator?

2. Information Gathering

 * Context
 * Motives

3. Initial Response

 * De-escalation
 * Proportional Response

4. Situation Closure

 * Informing other staff
 * Stating a message where the issue occurred
 * E.g. "Sorry about that, situation handled!"

In some scenarios, steps 2 and 3 can be interchangeable or simultaneous.
Sometimes the context and motives are immediately apparent with the action, such
as a user’s intent to cause disruption by spamming gore in your server. You can
see right away that no additional context is needed and that their motives are
demonstrated clearly, so you can go right to proportional response. In this
case, the user is typically banned and reported to Discord’s Trust & Safety
team.


SITUATION IDENTIFICATION

There are two questions you should ask yourself whenever something catches your
attention:

 * Is something happening?
 * Does this need a moderator?

These questions are rather straightforward, but sometimes the answer may be a
little unclear. Typically a member’s disruption in the chat will catch your eye.
This disruption may be a variety of different things: they might be explicitly
breaking your server’s defined rules, treating other members harshly, bringing
the quality of your chat down through their behavior, or perhaps just a small
yet visible disagreement. If you confirm that something like this is happening,
you can then ask yourself the next question: Do I need to intervene?

When a member begins to disrupt your server, this member may need intervention
from a moderator to prevent the situation from escalating. However, while it may
be your first instinct to step in as a moderator when something happens, take a
step back and evaluate if that’s necessary. If two members have a disagreement
on a subject, this doesn’t always mean that the situation will become heated and
require your intervention. Disagreements are common not only on Discord but in
any sort of open forum platform where everyone can voice their opinion on
whatever anyone else says. Disagreements are a natural part of conversation and
can encourage healthy discourse. As long as a disagreement does not turn into a
heated argument, disagreements tend to be mostly benign.

There are, however, also cases that will require a moderator’s intervention. If
a situation seems to be escalating into harassment rather than simple
disagreement, or if members are posting things that break your server’s rules,
you can determine that it’s appropriate for you to intervene.


INFORMATION GATHERING

After you’ve confirmed to yourself that something needs your attention, you
should begin the next step of gathering information.

Before we get into that though, it’s good to note that there are certain
scenarios in which you would entirely skip this step and immediately move on to
the third step- involving de-escalation or handing down a corrective action.
Situations like these are ones in which you can tell right away that additional
context is unnecessary and that something needs to be done, typically
immediately. Situations like this could be:

 * Posting NSFW in non-marked channels
 * Posting gore
 * Mass spamming
 * Call to arms (Raiding threats, posting IPs and asking for DDoS, etc)

In cases like these, additional deliberation is unnecessary as the violations
are obvious. For more ambiguous cases however, you should consider the context
of the situation and the motives of the user.

CONSIDERING CONTEXT

Context is the surrounding circumstances of each situation. This includes the
events that happened before the incident, the interaction history of those
involved, the infraction history of those involved, and even how long they’ve
been in your server.

Consider the scenario where a user uses a racial slur. Some may think that the
user should immediately have corrective action taken against them, but that may
not be the case. This user could have been explaining an issue they run into in
the real world, or they could be asking someone else not to use the word. With
additional information at hand, it may become evident that the transgression is
less severe than initially thought, or perhaps even a non-violation at all. The
exact action taken will depend on your rules, but it’s clear that understanding
all of the relevant information is key to ensuring you take appropriate and
proportional action.

MOTIVES

Another thing to consider when you first approach a scenario is the underlying
motives of those involved. What are they trying to achieve? What is their goal
by doing what they’re doing?

For example, if two users are trading mild insults, it is possible to interpret
this as friendly banter if you know these two people are good friends.
Conversely, if you know these people dislike each other, then their motives may
be less than friendly. Knowing your members well will therefore help you better
to assess when a situation that needs intervention is occurring.


INITIAL RESPONSE

Now that you’ve confirmed both the context of the situation and the underlying
motives of the individual(s), you can decide what action you should take. Unless
you deem the conduct of a user to be notably severe, a typical initial response
is to de-escalate or defuse the situation. This means you attempt to solve the
situation by verbal communication rather than moderation action, such as an
official warning, a mute, or a ban.

DE-ESCALATION

When it comes to de-escalation, you should remember that the members involved
are typically going to be annoyed or upset at that moment due to the situation
at hand. If you approach the situation from a stern and strict stance
immediately, you could upset the members further and fan the flames, so to
speak.

An example of verbally mitigating an argument that's turning too heated would be
to say “Hey folks! While we appreciate discussion and think disagreement is
healthy for promoting productive discourse, we think this particular discussion
may have gone a little too far. Could we please change the subject and talk
about something else? Thanks!”

Now, consider what this statement aims to accomplish. It starts positive and
friendly, thanking the users for their participation on the server. Showing this
appreciation can help to calm the members involved. The message then states the
reason for the intervention. Doing this respectfully is important, because if
you aren’t respectful to your members, they aren’t going to be respectful to
you. This effect is amplified on community servers where you are going to be
interacting with the same active members on a regular basis.

After clarifying the reason for intervention, you should make the request on
what you expect to happen going forward. In this situation, this is asking the
members to move on. It’s important to note that phrasing the request as a
question rather than an order is a deliberate choice. The message thanks them
one more time as a way to end it on a positive note. Your goal here is to defuse
the situation so things don’t get worse. Keeping all of these things in mind
when you phrase your communications is important.

De-escalation is a skill that you may struggle with initially. Being comfortable
with it requires many different interactions and experiences with many different
moderation scenarios. Don’t be discouraged if you can’t do it immediately.
You’re going to run into scenarios where you simply aren’t able to effectively
defuse the situation and may have to rely on a corrective action instead. It is
still a very good idea to generally approach these situations without the intent
of punishing someone. Not every situation needs to end with a punishment. The
one skill that can take you from a good mod to an outstanding mod is the ability
to defuse situations swiftly and efficiently.

PROPORTIONAL RESPONSE

If you’ve tried to defuse a situation and they fail to listen, or continue to
escalate, your next step is deciding what other effective means you have to end
the situation at hand. So, what exactly should you do?

Most servers tend to follow a proportional response system. This means that
members tend to receive corrective action proportional to the acts they commit.
If we think about our situation where an argument got too heated and
de-escalation techniques were ineffective, we may want to consider restricting
the privileges of the members involved. This serves as a punishment that is
appropriate for the scenario while also allowing them the time they need to cool
down and move on. Other examples of where a mute may be appropriate are minor
spam, they are clearly inebriated, if a user is a little too harsh, or if
someone needs time to cool off. It’s important to note that an official warning
could also be given as an alternative which is typically done through a
moderation bot.

After you apply this mute, it is worth looking at the history of the members
involved in the incident to determine if the mute is all you need. If these
members have a history of being problematic in chat, you may consider removing
them from your community.

It’s important to remember that the goal of the moderation team is to promote
healthy activity in our communities. With this in mind, it’s also good to
remember that moderators and members are ultimately a part of that same
community and that you don’t want to intimidate the people that rely on you. If
you react too harshly, you run the risk of establishing a negative relationship
between you and your community. People in your community should feel safe
approaching you about an issue. Just like in the real world, they want to be
confident that if it ever comes to them being reported, they’ll be treated
fairly. If you’re scared of being banned from the server because of a small
disagreement, you tend to not want to engage with the server to begin with.

Inversely, if you don’t react strongly enough, you allow those who wish to
disrupt your community more time and opportunity to do so and you may not be
trusted by your community to handle situations.


SITUATION CLOSURE

After you’ve dealt with a scenario, it may be appropriate to take action in
other places as well. Questions may arise from other members, your staff may
need to know about this incident in the future, or tensions may remain high
where the incident occurred.

INFORMING STAFF

It is important to log this incident with the other members of your staff for
future reference. There are many ways to do this, whether that be sending a
message in your private staff channel, logging it within a bot, or maybe posting
about it in your moderation log. These all provide you with a means to go back
and check the history of these users and their run-ins with staff. It is
important that you’re diligent about keeping these records. Other staff might
not know about the incident and similarly you may not be aware of other
incidents handled by your fellow staff members. If you find yourself in a
situation where the problem user causes issues in the future, you will be able
to quickly access the infraction history. This will allow you to appropriately
adjust your response to the situation and emphasizes the importance of context
when taking action.

TENSION RESOLUTION

Tensions may linger where the incident occurred. Other members may see what
happened and feel second-hand discomfort or anger depending on the situation. It
may be necessary to resolve this tension by thanking the other members of chat
for their patience and/or bringing it to your attention and stating that it was
solved. This has the side effect of answering where the users went and why it
happened.

For example, if two users had a heated argument in your chat and you ended up
muting them, third-party observers may see this argument in chat and react
negatively to the comments made during the argument. You can resolve this by
stating something along the lines of “Sorry about that everyone. Situation
resolved, users will be muted for a time to cool down.” This statement has the
effect of stating what you did and why you did it. Acknowledging the situation
as well as detailing that it’s been handled is an effective means to ease
tensions and bring healthy discussion back to your chat. Keep in mind though, if
the conversation has already moved on by the time you’ve dealt with the
incident, this step may not be necessary. Bringing the conversation back to this
issue may have the opposite effect and remind people of the uncomfortable
situation.


SUMMARY

You should now be able to confidently approach each situation and determine what
the best way to handle it is. That being said, this is just a portion of your
foundation. First-hand experience is invaluable and necessary in order to be
more efficient and fluent in moderating.

One of the most undervalued tools in moderation is your voice as a person in a
position of power and your ability to defuse a situation, so don’t be afraid of
trying to mitigate a situation first. If you’re still in doubt about what to do,
never be afraid to ask your other staff members, especially those who may be
more experienced.

Remember: Situation identification, information gathering, initial response, and
situation closure. Keeping these steps in mind will help you stay on track to
becoming a better mod and better community lead.




April 20, 2023
Contents
Steps to ResolutionSituation IdentificationInformation GatheringInitial
ResponseSituation ClosureSummary



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COMMUNITY RESOURCES


BUILD

Getting Started as a Server Admin & Running Your Server
Setting Up Your Discord Server - How to Get Started
Securing Your Discord Server & Creating a Safe Community
Making a Great Server & Building a Home for Your Community
Community Onboarding: Welcoming New Members
Essential Channels Every Community Server Should Have
Customizing & Branding Your Discord Server
The Discord App Directory
Server Information and Announcement Channels
Basic Channel Setup
Utilizing Role Colors
Channel Categories and Names


ENGAGE

Onboarding New Members & Helping Your Community Find Its Way
Regularly Engaging Your Community
Creating Value with Conversation
Co-Creating with Your Community - Events, Art & Feedback
Turning Your Social Posts into Community Activations
Using Roles to Increase Server Engagement
Hosting Voice Events with Stage & Voice Channels
Getting the Most Out of Stage Channels
Understanding Server Insights


GROW

Welcoming Server Newcomers
Growing and Promoting Your Discord Server
Brand, Optimize and Grow Your Server With Invites
Growing Your Server Community Through Member Referrals
Growing Your Server With Social Media
Growing Your Community Through Server Insights & Analytics
Designing Effective Events to Bring Your Community Together
Growing Your Server Through Community Events
Understanding Event Metrics
Understanding Your Community Through Insights
Bringing Other Communities to Discord
Using Insights to Improve Community Growth and Engagement
Ethical Community Growth
Community Partnerships


MANAGE

The Basics of a Safe, Active Server
Keeping Your Server & Community Safe
Establishing Trust with Social Media Connections and Roles
Identifying and Assigning Server Moderators
Moderation & Community Support to Manage Your Server
Learning More About Your Community


CREATOR PORTAL




HANDLING DIFFICULT SCENARIOS AS AN ADMIN




moderator. This article will be going over a few things relating on how to take
action as a moderator. We’ll talk about the things you should consider in
situations that require a moderator, the first steps you should take in common
scenarios, and touch on what punishments are appropriate. If you’re unsure of
the tools available to you and how they work, consider reading Permissions on
Discord first.


STEPS TO RESOLUTION

There are a few “genres” of things you tend to see on a daily basis, depending
on your community. Keep in mind that every situation is unique. Because of this,
you may find it difficult to understand what exactly you should do in each
different scenario. If you find yourself in one of those situations, here are
some good points to follow for nearly every situation:

 * Situation Identification
 * Is something happening?
 * Does this need a moderator?
 * Information Gathering
 * Context
 * Motives
 * Initial Response
 * De-escalation
 * Proportional Response
 * Situation Closure
 * Informing other staff
 * Stating a message where the issue occurred
 * E.g."Sorry about that, situation handled!"

In some scenarios, steps 2 and 3 can be interchangeable or simultaneous.
Sometimes the context and motives are immediately apparent with the action, such
as a user’s intent to cause disruption by spamming gore in your server. You can
see right away that no additional context is needed and that their motives are
demonstrated clearly, so you can go right to proportional response. In this
case, the user is typically banned and reported to Discord’s Trust & Safety
team.


SITUATION IDENTIFICATION

There are two questions you should ask yourself whenever something catches your
attention:

 * Is something happening?
 * Does this need a moderator?

These questions are rather straightforward, but sometimes the answer may be a
little unclear. Typically a member’s disruption in the chat will catch your eye.
This disruption may be a variety of different things: they might be explicitly
breaking your server’s defined rules, treating other members harshly, bringing
the quality of your chat down through their behavior, or perhaps just a small
yet visible disagreement. If you confirm that something like this is happening,
you can then ask yourself the next question: Do I need to intervene?

When a member begins to disrupt your server, this member may need intervention
from a moderator to prevent the situation from escalating. However, while it may
be your first instinct to step in as a moderator when something happens, take a
step back and evaluate if that’s necessary. If two members have a disagreement
on a subject, this doesn’t always mean that the situation will become heated and
require your intervention. Disagreements are common not only on Discord but in
any sort of open forum platform where everyone can voice their opinion on
whatever anyone else says. Disagreements are a natural part of conversation and
can encourage healthy discourse. As long as a disagreement does not turn into a
heated argument, disagreements tend to be mostly benign.

There are, however, also cases that will require a moderator’s intervention. If
a situation seems to be escalating into harassment rather than simple
disagreement, or if members are posting things that break your server’s rules,
you can determine that it’s appropriate for you to intervene.


INFORMATION GATHERING

After you’ve confirmed to yourself that something needs your attention, you
should begin the next step of gathering information.

Before we get into that though, it’s good to note that there are certain
scenarios in which you would entirely skip this step and immediately move on to
the third step- involving de-escalation or handing down a corrective action.
Situations like these are ones in which you can tell right away that additional
context is unnecessary and that something needs to be done, typically
immediately. Situations like this could be:

 * Posting NSFW in non-marked channels
 * Posting gore
 * Mass spamming
 * Call to arms (Raiding threats, posting IPs and asking for DDoS, etc)

In cases like these, additional deliberation is unnecessary as the violations
are obvious. For more ambiguous cases however, you should consider the context
of the situation and the motives of the user.

CONSIDERING CONTEXT

Context is the surrounding circumstances of each situation. This includes the
events that happened before the incident, the interaction history of those
involved, the infraction history of those involved, and even how long they’ve
been in your server.

Consider the scenario where a user uses a racial slur. Some may think that the
user should immediately have corrective action taken against them, but that may
not be the case. This user could have been explaining an issue they run into in
the real world, or they could be asking someone else not to use the word. With
additional information at hand, it may become evident that the transgression is
less severe than initially thought, or perhaps even a non-violation at all. The
exact action taken will depend on your rules, but it’s clear that understanding
all of the relevant information is key to ensuring you take appropriate and
proportional action.

MOTIVES

Another thing to consider when you first approach a scenario is the underlying
motives of those involved. What are they trying to achieve? What is their goal
by doing what they’re doing?

For example, if two users are trading mild insults, it is possible to interpret
this as friendly banter if you know these two people are good friends.
Conversely, if you know these people dislike each other, then their motives may
be less than friendly. Knowing your members well will therefore help you better
to assess when a situation that needs intervention is occurring.

CONSIDERING CONTEXT

Context is the surrounding circumstances of each situation. This includes the
events that happened before the incident, the interaction history of those
involved, the infraction history of those involved, and even how long they’ve
been in your server.

Consider the scenario where a user uses a racial slur. Some may think that the
user should immediately have corrective action taken against them, but that may
not be the case. This user could have been explaining an issue they run into in
the real world, or they could be asking someone else not to use the word. With
additional information at hand, it may become evident that the transgression is
less severe than initially thought, or perhaps even a non-violation at all. The
exact action taken will depend on your rules, but it’s clear that understanding
all of the relevant information is key to ensuring you take appropriate and
proportional action.


CONSIDERING CONTEXT

Context is the surrounding circumstances of each situation. This includes the
events that happened before the incident, the interaction history of those
involved, the infraction history of those involved, and even how long they’ve
been in your server.

Consider the scenario where a user uses a racial slur. Some may think that the
user should immediately have corrective action taken against them, but that may
not be the case. This user could have been explaining an issue they run into in
the real world, or they could be asking someone else not to use the word. With
additional information at hand, it may become evident that the transgression is
less severe than initially thought, or perhaps even a non-violation at all. The
exact action taken will depend on your rules, but it’s clear that understanding
all of the relevant information is key to ensuring you take appropriate and
proportional action.


SITUATION CLOSURE

After you’ve dealt with a scenario, it may be appropriate to take action in
other places as well. Questions may arise from other members, your staff may
need to know about this incident in the future, or tensions may remain high
where the incident occurred.

INFORMING STAFF

It is important to log this incident with the other members of your staff for
future reference. There are many ways to do this, whether that be sending a
message in your private staff channel, logging it within a bot, or maybe posting
about it in your moderation log. These all provide you with a means to go back
and check the history of these users and their run-ins with staff. It is
important that you’re diligent about keeping these records. Other staff might
not know about the incident and similarly you may not be aware of other
incidents handled by your fellow staff members. If you find yourself in a
situation where the problem user causes issues in the future, you will be able
to quickly access the infraction history. This will allow you to appropriately
adjust your response to the situation and emphasizes the importance of context
when taking action.

TENSION RESOLUTION

Tensions may linger where the incident occurred. Other members may see what
happened and feel second-hand discomfort or anger depending on the situation. It
may be necessary to resolve this tension by thanking the other members of chat
for their patience and/or bringing it to your attention and stating that it was
solved. This has the side effect of answering where the users went and why it
happened.

For example, if two users had a heated argument in your chat and you ended up
muting them, third-party observers may see this argument in chat and react
negatively to the comments made during the argument. You can resolve this by
stating something along the lines of “Sorry about that everyone. Situation
resolved, users will be muted for a time to cool down.” This statement has the
effect of stating what you did and why you did it. Acknowledging the situation
as well as detailing that it’s been handled is an effective means to ease
tensions and bring healthy discussion back to your chat. Keep in mind though, if
the conversation has already moved on by the time you’ve dealt with the
incident, this step may not be necessary. Bringing the conversation back to this
issue may have the opposite effect and remind people of the uncomfortable
situation.


MOTIVES

Another thing to consider when you first approach a scenario is the underlying
motives of those involved. What are they trying to achieve? What is their goal
by doing what they’re doing?

For example, if two users are trading mild insults, it is possible to interpret
this as friendly banter if you know these two people are good friends.
Conversely, if you know these people dislike each other, then their motives may
be less than friendly. Knowing your members well will therefore help you better
to assess when a situation that needs intervention is occurring.


INITIAL RESPONSE

Now that you’ve confirmed both the context of the situation and the underlying
motives of the individual(s), you can decide what action you should take. Unless
you deem the conduct of a user to be notably severe, a typical initial response
is to de-escalate or defuse the situation. This means you attempt to solve the
situation by verbal communication rather than moderation action, such as an
official warning, a mute, or a ban.

DE-ESCALATION

When it comes to de-escalation, you should remember that the members involved
are typically going to be annoyed or upset at that moment due to the situation
at hand. If you approach the situation from a stern and strict stance
immediately, you could upset the members further and fan the flames, so to
speak.

An example of verbally mitigating an argument that's turning too heated would be
to say “Hey folks! While we appreciate discussion and think disagreement is
healthy for promoting productive discourse, we think this particular discussion
may have gone a little too far. Could we please change the subject and talk
about something else? Thanks!”

Now, consider what this statement aims to accomplish. It starts positive and
friendly, thanking the users for their participation on the server. Showing this
appreciation can help to calm the members involved. The message then states the
reason for the intervention. Doing this respectfully is important, because if
you aren’t respectful to your members, they aren’t going to be respectful to
you. This effect is amplified on community servers where you are going to be
interacting with the same active members on a regular basis.

After clarifying the reason for intervention, you should make the request on
what you expect to happen going forward. In this situation, this is asking the
members to move on. It’s important to note that phrasing the request as a
question rather than an order is a deliberate choice. The message thanks them
one more time as a way to end it on a positive note. Your goal here is to defuse
the situation so things don’t get worse. Keeping all of these things in mind
when you phrase your communications is important.

De-escalation is a skill that you may struggle with initially. Being comfortable
with it requires many different interactions and experiences with many different
moderation scenarios. Don’t be discouraged if you can’t do it immediately.
You’re going to run into scenarios where you simply aren’t able to effectively
defuse the situation and may have to rely on a corrective action instead. It is
still a very good idea to generally approach these situations without the intent
of punishing someone. Not every situation needs to end with a punishment. The
one skill that can take you from a good mod to an outstanding mod is the ability
to defuse situations swiftly and efficiently.

PROPORTIONAL RESPONSE

If you’ve tried to defuse a situation and they fail to listen, or continue to
escalate, your next step is deciding what other effective means you have to end
the situation at hand. So, what exactly should you do?

Most servers tend to follow a proportional response system. This means that
members tend to receive corrective action proportional to the acts they commit.
If we think about our situation where an argument got too heated and
de-escalation techniques were ineffective, we may want to consider restricting
the privileges of the members involved. This serves as a punishment that is
appropriate for the scenario while also allowing them the time they need to cool
down and move on. Other examples of where a mute may be appropriate are minor
spam, they are clearly inebriated, if a user is a little too harsh, or if
someone needs time to cool off. It’s important to note that an official warning
could also be given as an alternative which is typically done through a
moderation bot.

After you apply this mute, it is worth looking at the history of the members
involved in the incident to determine if the mute is all you need. If these
members have a history of being problematic in chat, you may consider removing
them from your community.

It’s important to remember that the goal of the moderation team is to promote
healthy activity in our communities. With this in mind, it’s also good to
remember that moderators and members are ultimately a part of that same
community and that you don’t want to intimidate the people that rely on you. If
you react too harshly, you run the risk of establishing a negative relationship
between you and your community. People in your community should feel safe
approaching you about an issue. Just like in the real world, they want to be
confident that if it ever comes to them being reported, they’ll be treated
fairly. If you’re scared of being banned from the server because of a small
disagreement, you tend to not want to engage with the server to begin with.

Inversely, if you don’t react strongly enough, you allow those who wish to
disrupt your community more time and opportunity to do so and you may not be
trusted by your community to handle situations.


SITUATION CLOSURE

After you’ve dealt with a scenario, it may be appropriate to take action in
other places as well. Questions may arise from other members, your staff may
need to know about this incident in the future, or tensions may remain high
where the incident occurred.

INFORMING STAFF

It is important to log this incident with the other members of your staff for
future reference. There are many ways to do this, whether that be sending a
message in your private staff channel, logging it within a bot, or maybe posting
about it in your moderation log. These all provide you with a means to go back
and check the history of these users and their run-ins with staff. It is
important that you’re diligent about keeping these records. Other staff might
not know about the incident and similarly you may not be aware of other
incidents handled by your fellow staff members. If you find yourself in a
situation where the problem user causes issues in the future, you will be able
to quickly access the infraction history. This will allow you to appropriately
adjust your response to the situation and emphasizes the importance of context
when taking action.

TENSION RESOLUTION

Tensions may linger where the incident occurred. Other members may see what
happened and feel second-hand discomfort or anger depending on the situation. It
may be necessary to resolve this tension by thanking the other members of chat
for their patience and/or bringing it to your attention and stating that it was
solved. This has the side effect of answering where the users went and why it
happened.

For example, if two users had a heated argument in your chat and you ended up
muting them, third-party observers may see this argument in chat and react
negatively to the comments made during the argument. You can resolve this by
stating something along the lines of “Sorry about that everyone. Situation
resolved, users will be muted for a time to cool down.” This statement has the
effect of stating what you did and why you did it. Acknowledging the situation
as well as detailing that it’s been handled is an effective means to ease
tensions and bring healthy discussion back to your chat. Keep in mind though, if
the conversation has already moved on by the time you’ve dealt with the
incident, this step may not be necessary. Bringing the conversation back to this
issue may have the opposite effect and remind people of the uncomfortable
situation.


SUMMARY

You should now be able to confidently approach each situation and determine what
the best way to handle it is. That being said, this is just a portion of your
foundation. First-hand experience is invaluable and necessary in order to be
more efficient and fluent in moderating.

One of the most undervalued tools in moderation is your voice as a person in a
position of power and your ability to defuse a situation, so don’t be afraid of
trying to mitigate a situation first. If you’re still in doubt about what to do,
never be afraid to ask your other staff members, especially those who may be
more experienced.

Remember: Situation identification, information gathering, initial response, and
situation closure. Keeping these steps in mind will help you stay on track to
becoming a better mod and better community lead.

Last updated
December 19, 2022


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