2023:Program/Submissions/Should big projects have moderators? - HN98QG

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Title: Should big projects have moderators?

Speakers:

J. N. Squire

I’m an active contributor on the Wikipedia in French since 2009, and later on Commons and Wikidata. I’m also a member of the Wikimedians for Sustainable Developement User Group. I also translate a lot from English to French. I’m involved in technical and community discussions for preventing issues coming from bad accessibility, such as the huge redesign of the Main page on the Wikipedia in French (2017) or the transformation from Pages for Deletion procedure to Notability Debates (Débats d’admissibilité, 2021-2022) on the same wiki. I also bring some accessibility input to the team developing the Vector 2022 redesign. I also try to promote Wikimedia projects through workshops to people involved with local and reliable knowledge, such as libraries and associations.

Pretalx link

Etherpad link

Room:

Start time:

End time:

Type: Roundtable / open discussion

Track: Equity, Inclusion, and Community Health

Submission state: submitted

Duration: 90 minutes

Do not record: false

Presentation language: en

Abstract & description

Abstract

Should we have moderators aside admins to compensate the decline of new candidatures and help moderate the discussions on wiki?

Description

Project administrators have many extra tools, some allowing them to moderate discussions on them. Unfortunately, such broad tools mean that there are a lot of different things that they can do, not all of them about community discussions. They can declare on their application before the community vote that they intend to only focus on moderating discussions and solve conflicts between users, but they also expose themselves to negative votes from users wanting them to be "full admins", which is a role that takes a lot of time. Unfortunately, administrator applications are low in big wikis nowadays.

But what if volunteers with less time might want to help too? Is there a way to give them less tools, only the ones needed to moderate discussions?

Are you interested in preventing and solving conflict between Wikimedia users? Then you're welcome to tell your experience and ideas to improve how to fluidify dicsussions, and prevent and solve conflicts.

Further details

Qn. How does your session relate to the event themes: Diversity, Collaboration Future?

Preventing and solving conflicts in Wikimedia projects ease collaboration. It also help to avoid contributors from minorities from being driven away from projects through harassment and gatekeeping. and make them sustainable through time.

Qn. What is the experience level needed for the audience for your session?

Everyone can participate in this session

Qn. What is the most appropriate format for this session?

• Onsite in Singapore
• Remote online participation, livestreamed
• Remote from a satellite event
• Hybrid with some participants in Singapore and others dialing in remotely
• Pre-recorded and available on demand