i wonder, sometimes, if hearing news about moderation decisions - especially ones that the public perceives as being especially poor, or have poor messaging/transparency - will ever *NOT* give me a fit of anxiety.
is this what it's like to have trauma? am i just not going to ever get past those chapters of my own life as a former moderator?
christ on a bike. if ever there was a profession in which a person can do no right...
in order to not have to put a CW on this, i'm gonna put this as vaguely as possible: it sucks that there are certain infractions that *NEED* to be acted on ASAP with zero delays or time spent questioning or investigating. for some problems, there can be no time spent to wait and see how a situation develops. for some problems, nothing short of immediately, permanently blasting the user is acceptable, and anything less can and *will* get the mod staff yelled at.
except. they get yelled at anyway
i am only still a member of moderation in one place on the internet - a discord server for a small gaming publication. there are times now that i feel ashamed of having such a visible role, even if my presence has been nothing but good for that server.
after last year? it makes me feel like a target. sure, i haven't had death threats, i haven't been doxxed (yet). but there are people i can't talk to ever again, places i don't dare show my face. and i know the internet is a small place.
i always used to believe that the enforcement needed to be "users first" - they needed presence, they needed to be helpful in things besides arguments and literally illegal activities, build the trust with the normally-privileged user base by being good citizens. of course, reputation has a way of tanking when it's one mistake.
far be it from me to say that 4chan had the right idea for *anything*, but maybe keeping the mod staff's identities heavily under wraps has its advantages in the 2020s.