I'm a free speech extremist, so moderating the opinions of the users isnt really important to me. but what is important is making a site that isnt filled with garbage. and i think there are two things you have to do to keep garbage off your site
the first thing you must do is censor slurs. now like i said im a free speech extremist so i think its fine to say slurs. but im also a decent human being so im not a fan of people using slurs in order to hurt others feelings, or spamming slurs.
when it comes to using slurs online there is a certain kind of person who thinks using slurs in and of itself is really really funny. go to any website that calls itself a free speech platform like gab.com or poa.st and you will see this kind of person. who will spam anti white, anti woman or anti black slurs over and over cause he thinks its funny. I'm almost certain you know the kind of person im talking about if you've been around the internet. i respect their right to say these things but i also think this is the lowest of low internet content. and actively damages the health of the community on your site. i would also ban direct use of slurs against others.
example of direct use: you are a (c slur)
example of indirect use: he said (c slur)
the benefit of this is it keeps conversations from becoming a bunch of insults, and will essentially keep people who like being hateful for the sake of it from posting.
plus you could replace those words with other words using a filter like roblox does which might be funny.
the second thing, and one thing i like about spacehey is that it doesnt host pictures or videos. everything is linked from offsite. this stops it from becoming a repository of illegal or disgusting images without a single moderator lifting a finger. this not only has the benefit of keeping illegal content off your servers, but also keeps away the kind of person who is looking for a place where he can host and share that filth.
if you must host images on your site. then you must ban porn (which spacehey does <3) the reason being that if you allow porn at all, people will end up posting illegal content. just look at tumblr for proof of that. you have to think of the kind of person who posts illegal content as always looking for a place relaxed enough with moderation of images that they can get away with posting it there. banning porn is the easiest way to keep them away.
i think this form of moderation will keep your community both healthy and freedom respecting. I've never hosted a public website like spacehey so i can't say for sure if any other issues would pop up from this approach, but i have ran discord servers and it works pretty well in there.
![pecan's profile picture](https://cdn.spacehey.net/profilepics/1876793_c287ed8d13dd81d066ff69767931104f.jpg?token=QuaDlVfXprpSn7oeIkMHKvab2YiJBjauuD9ZUHbvMNc&expires=1725772374)
How I would moderate a website
2 Kudos
Comments
Displaying 2 of 2 comments ( View all | Add Comment )
BOMBZxo
I just found ur post, and I whole heartedly agree on this type of moderation technique. I do want to suggest adding an option to 'choose' if you want to censor profanity or not, because there are some things which people just use in their normal conversation, most common example being Aussies and Brits saying (c word) or (w word) between words (its out of habit really; source: im Aussie).
So yeah, Ive been warned/suspended in sites and games just for saying that mid chat, So I wanted to bring this up; since context does matter in all scenarios, like you mentioned as well - it can be direct or indirect, and many such cases. Other than that, good post and pretty profile!
Sent To Destroy
Interesting. I have a bit of a similar view. I would allow as much freedom of speech as possible if I moderated a website. I personally wouldn't ban the use of slurs outright, such as if one is, say for instance, quoting Martin Luther King, and in that quote he uses the gamer word, but I would ban the use of slurs as a insult and when it's used to bully others. On related note, I would also try to ban content that can be considered propaganda and promotes certain hateful or extreme ideologies. What I mean by that is that some sites, like Vidlii, people post neo-nazi edit and shit. I would ban such content.
If I ran a website, I would also ban porn. Porn is degenerate, and people who say it's art are stupid, coomer, scum. I don't know if I would make it so people can't post videos, partially because I've imagined running websites before, and I've toyed with the idea of running a video sharing site. Maybe I wouldn't host videos if it was a social media website like SpaceHey, so it be as addicting, or mindless as more popular socials like Tik Tok or Twitter.