The Forum should be a great and safe space: we’re working on hard problems, and the internet can be rough! We don’t want arbitrary barriers to keep people from joining discussions on the Forum, we don’t want people to be miserable on the Forum, and we want to promote excellent discussions and content. 

• Civility and charitable discussion - the Forum should feel like a breath of fresh air and a refuge of sanity. When you join a discussion on the Forum, you should be able to reasonably expect that the other people won’t twist your words, won’t call you names, etc.
• Safety - if users feel unsafe on the Forum — they’re being threatened, or they’re worried that if they post, they’ll have to fend off trolls on their own, etc. — that’s our problem. We need to prevent this.
• Relevance, honesty - we also want discussions on the Forum to be on-topic and honest. If this is getting out of hand, it’s our responsibility. 

Over-moderation can be dangerous: if users become worried that moderators will swoop in and warn or shame them in front of others for arbitrary reasons, that they’ll get banned for doing something that isn’t reasonably ban-worthy or that they can’t quite understand, etc., users will be stressed and will avoid certain behaviors are useful (like engaging critically with content on the Forum). This is bad. Moreover, we can introduce our biases if we selectively over-moderate. 

• We are fallible and human - we need to keep in mind the possibility that we might be making a mistake. This is true for how we’re interpreting an interaction or situation, and it’s also true for our actions. We should e.g. check our biases (is someone criticizing something we like). 
• Empathy with the users - the users aren’t (generally) ill-meaning. They’re often tracking reality better than we are. If we are banning someone, we should be sad about this. In general, good moderation sometimes just looks like being a good contributor to the conversation. 
• “Could this be a policy” heuristic - if we’re considering getting involved in an unusual circumstance, in an official moderator capacity, we should check whether this would generalize 
• Transparency, onion test - we should be able to explain our decisions to users, and ideally our decisions shouldn’t be surprising to people who know the Forum well. Some things shouldn’t be discussed in public (e.g. interpreting misinformation in communication with users), but reasonable people shouldn’t be surprised or upset at what they find if they pull back the layers (see onion test). 

Collective ownership: The moderation team wins and loses together. We want to appear mostly unified in public — this doesn’t mean we hide the fact that we disagree, but it does mean that we don’t throw anyone under the bus and we stand by each other.

• Over-communicate - raise a lot in Slack (#moderation-incidents), and give input on other moderators’ proposals
• Wins and loses - sometimes we'll make mistakes. We need to be open about those mistakes — we should be very prepared to "say oops" as a team — but we don’t point fingers. 
• Heroic responsibility (up to a point) - someone else “owning” an incident doesn’t mean that we should stop caring about the outcome; reality doesn’t grade on a curve or based on whether we did our jobs. 

Independent thought: We do disagree, and that's very good and important. Ideally, we will hash out most disagreements in private, but we don’t want to imply that there’s a consensus on the team when there isn’t one. 

• Speak for yourself - do not post on behalf of the moderation team unless you have agreement to do so; many of our comments are made “as a moderator” rather than “the moderation team”
• Chatham house rule (ish) - it’s generally ok to share that we discussed something, and that e.g. someone disagreed with the proposal we went with. But we should not reveal who made any particular comment, or make it easy to guess. 

Thoughtfulness: As discussed above, we don’t want to over-moderate, and we are conscious that moderation can be harmful as easily as it can be helpful. We want to take very considered actions and strive to make thoughtful and careful decisions whenever we can.

• Consider downsides - when proposing a course of action, look for ways it might be harmful or backfire.
• Consider other possibilities - as mentioned above, we may have some basic facts wrong. Think through what that might be. 
• Let people disagree - we welcome different points of view, and discussing incidents and policies with the team is important for this. 
• WTBU (“watch team backup”) - if we think someone else might have missed something, we point it out to them kindly. When someone else does this for us, we don’t take it personally, or take it to imply that we hadn’t thought about the issue before. You can explicitly flag this as “WTBU.” 
• Perpetual beta - we look for improvements and strive towards systems that make us more likely to improve. (See more here.)

Responsiveness & being action-oriented: We want to support good norms, and actually getting things done is important for that. Moreover, if we constantly get bogged down or locked in a disagreement, we’ll get less done. Moreover, our responses will be slower, which is bad. Quick, clear action signals that our norms are important and will be enforced, and can prevent further harm if e.g. a thread is developing. It also gives other users on the Forum a clear picture that civil interactions are welcome and uncivil interactions are not and can prevent users who are dealing with incivility from feeling alone.

• Sometimes we will disagree, and sometimes we will make mistakes - while we strive to figure out the best course of action, we’ll sometimes need to do something like vote on a decision and live with disagreement, or act on uncertain information and go with imperfect comments. 
• Proposals over questions - if you’re not sure what to do, consider suggesting a default course of action instead of just asking a question. This can help us move faster and disagree with more specific parts of a proposal. 
• Riskier and more sensitive actions merit more care - in general, leaving suggestions or warnings can be done without checking with other moderators. Bans or other restrictions should not be taken without consulting with the rest of the team.
• Drop balls by choice, not folly - we follow through with what we agree to do. We communicate clearly about what we’re not doing.

Moderator perception: You are a moderator and people will see you as such. Because of this, we strive to hold ourselves to an especially high standard in both our moderation actions and our personal actions, which inevitably reflect back on our moderator titles even when we caveat them as personal opinions.

• Do as I do - we want to be role models for all the positive norms on the Forum, remind yourself of them every now and then.
• (Very) high integrity - Don’t get into fights with people. As a moderator, you have access to some private information. Don’t use it if you don’t need to, and don’t share any of it outside the moderation team. By default, please don’t mention things discussed in Slack without checking with the head moderator. Don’t get defensive. Don’t mislead about what goes on in moderation. People may try to get gossip from us about other Forum users; we should try to avoid these conversations.
• When in doubt - ask other moderators for feedback if you aren’t sure how a non-moderator comment from you might be perceived

Personal reality: You aren’t always a moderator and you don’t always have to act as one - feel free to engage users and make suggestions without your moderator hat on. If you’re speaking clearly as a moderator, though, do mark those comments. 

• Don’t flash the badge - please don’t mark comments as “moderator comments” if they’re not “moderator comments.” But don’t ignore it either - if you’re speaking clearly as a moderator, do mark those comments.