Key to being a good mod is to have very clear rules, so when you warn/ban someone you can point to the rule number and not get into an argument about it.

I haven’t modded on Lemmy so not sure how applicable these all are.

When removing a comment, cite the specific rule they are in violation of. It helps them understand why, it helps anyone else in the community know why, and it helps yourself and other mods if the person appeals down the road. Be transparent.

When removing a comment because a portion is unacceptable, i.e., they throw in an unnecessary slur when the rest of the comment is fine, offer to restore the comment once they edit it to remove the slur.

Establish ban guidelines within the mod group. First time offense? One day. Egregious offense? What’s the threshold for “egregious” and when does it result in permaban? This person who got a 1-day ban for the f-slur, is the same ban length being consistently applied to other users of the f-slur?

If you feel a personal dislike of a user, check your decisions against another mod for an outside perspective. Or better yet, just ask them to mod that particular comment/post and remove yourself from the conflict of interest.

Don’t base whether you are a good mod or not on one user that was warned and chose to ignore the rules.

In addition to what others already said:

• if you notice that you’re angry / annoyed, don’t act immediatly. Leave the PC, do something unrelated (like the dishes) for a few minutes and give yourself a little space to think about your next action. IMHO it is better to act / react a little later but with a calm mind and neutral language rather than giving in to anger and escalating the situation.

• If you’re still angry, type a response anyway. Read it. Delete it. THEN write the actual response. Sometimes you have to let your anger out, but this doesn’t mean that you have to send the message afterwards. Sometimes you need more than once “cycle” of venting-deleting-rewriting until the response is in an actual neutral tone, but it is worth the effort.

• Some people are simply trolls and only want to annoy / trigger others while pretending to be victims. Some people had a bad day and are unreasonably touchy, angry and frustrated, maybe a little drunk, and don’t really notice that they’re being assholes. It can be hard to distinguish between those two at first glance, but keep in mind that the comment history is public…

• If their other comments read a lot more calm and reasonable, I usually just ask whether they had a bad day and want to talk. Surprisingly, that does work more often than not to de-escalate a situation. You can also opt to just ask them to not do “it” again without immediatly resorting to mod tools, especially when the offense is something trivial like being off topic (just as a general rule, not related to your specific situation)
• However, if they behave like assholes all the time across all instances, or clearly show that they aren’t interested in behaving like decent human beings even after a suspension/warning, then just block them. As a mod, you kinda have the responsibility to protect other users from nuisances, so this isn’t exactly “powertripping”, and the chances that the user in question suddenly starts to behave are slim. It’s good to give people a second chance, but noone deserves a third chance unless they’re showing effort to be better.

• Sometimes there is no “good” option. Sometimes you have to chose between “bad” and “worse” and it will feel bad.

As for your specific example, I’d tell them the following;

“That behaviour and attitude are not welcome here. You can chose to leave them at the doorstep when you enter this community, or you can stay out of the community along with the slurs. Your decision.”

Well, a rude user being rude is not a surprise.

I would say: Reasonable rules, not many, clearly and obviously stated, evenly applied.

Whatever rule you set, be transparent about it, be open to feedback about it, and enforce it fairly.

I think most powertripping mods end up being unlikable due to one of several reasons:

• passes a new rule that people don’t like. Refuses to (or pretends to) listen to feedback when people get upset about it

• enforces an existing rule more harshly against people they don’t like, often to the point where the mod would first decide that a user should be banned, and then try to find a justification for banning that user. (As opposed to the normal process, where a mod notices rule breaking, and then decides whether the user should be banned)

• Complementing the previous point, gets into petty arguments. Mods are meant to be the role model of the community, and that inherently means being the “bigger man” basically all the time. You need to be able to take insults and know not to respond.

Just from my personal experience relating to banworthy things.

Make the rules clear and unambiguous and include the penalty for breach within the rule body itself.

And have an absolute heart of stone. When you ban somebody, you quote the rule, and you do not add any personal narrative. You ignore every appeal for decency or clemency. If somebody cannot be bothered to read and follow the rules, they have already forfeited the right to be a part of your community in any way. Do not allow yourself to be swayed.

Even if there is some ambiguity or sense of injustice, that’s just too bad so sad. “Oh no, I don’t get to post for 24 hours on some random forum about some bullshit that doesn’t really matter”. Wah. If they can’t get over it, they weren’t going to add anything useful to your community anyways.

If somebody sends you an appeal and you don’t want to argue with them, simply don’t argue with them. If they keep coming at you, making your life hard, or swearing at you, just keep extending the ban or make it perma.

We aren’t dealing with bars of gold here, it’s mostly random horseshit posted to communities that we talk about for a few days and then forget we even saw. I mean I loved the community that I built and nurtured for 14 years but really at the end of the day after I walked away from Reddit from the API changes, I haven’t noticed one iota of difference in my life.

I just had a bad experience with a discord group of mods and Admins. It was an open server, but the focus was on a very specific population. It had dozens of channels, none really specific to the focus of the server.

There wasn’t a heavy flow of conversation, so when one would start and the topic would veer towards a different channel topic, the mods would immediately delete the entire conversation and warn everyone about keeping the conversations to their related channels.

Also, there have been several new people to the server that were definitely not part of the intended audience for it. They would come in and start being loud and annoying, but the mods wouldn’t kick them even though the new users would blatantly state the reason they joined was because they thought it was funny.

I eventually got angry with the mods when they added another and it was apparent they had no intention of cleaning up the server and making it more friendly and usable. So I gave them a piece of my mind and basically just told them everything I had issue with like I did above. I knew they were going to ban me, I asked them to ban me. That server brought me no joy.

Was I rude? Depends on your viewpoint. I didn’t drop any slurs, but I did it in the open and I cussed a couple times. But also, the mods both weren’t doing their jobs and were acting as kings of a tiny castle. Be respectful and listen to what people are saying. You may be missing something they are pointing out, and while they are the only people saying it, I promise other people are thinking it.

If someone is clear/consistent/understanding/honest/courageous with enforcement, the rest is subjective. These aren’t just any five random adjectives either, they are the ones that come to mind first (the first one foremost, which is why my server infamously has a myriad of listed guidelines). Can’t really do anything about the rest though. And sometimes you do have to remind people it’s your burrow (Lemmy equivalent term for subreddits) and cannot be blamed for any ban prescribed by the fine print no matter how abrupt it is.

Follow the rules but don’t be too strict to those rules (like “instabanning” someone for using the f-slur once.).

All Mods Are Bastards

If you become a mod the power will go to your head and corrupt you. You will end up addicted to the excertion of that power for the rush of dopamin it provides.

Thusly to be a good mod you can’t be a mod. Basically like the one ring in lord of the rings. You can’t ever use it unless it is an emergency otherwise it will complete consume you and hollow you out untill you end up, blinded by your greed, taking a role as mod without question, falling to darkness. Now you are slave to saurons will. You are a Reddit-Mod, neither living nor dead.

Keep the rules to a minimum, and attempt to refer to local law as a guideline. Using slurs are not illegal. Humans are imperfect.

Exiles in isolated pools is what breeds extremism.

Also, realize that you and everyone else are unfit for power. Power should be distributed.

Good mods don’t ban people for swearing.