To be an Unofficial HCR Discussion Group moderator…
To start with, your own posts and comments will stand out a bit more, with a blue “moderator” tag next to your name… This may give your posts and comments a little more weight, for some people, perhaps…
As a moderator your own posts will go in right away, so you will need to be attentive that your posts are in the flow of what is happening, helpful, needed, inviting, perhaps challenging in some good ways, inspiring, inducing of good discussion, not repetitive, measured, etc. etc…
You’ll also have the ability to approve new posts… There can be exceptions to this, but generally we will let it be that John F. as Admin approves new posts from our general membership…
Additionally in regards to new posts, there is also slowly growing list of presently about sixteen select members whose posts are automatically pre-approved to go in right away, this in addition to the posts of moderators and admins which also go in right away…
Moderators may give as much or as little time to moderating in any given period as they feel called and are able… And in whatever areas, subjects, posts you are feeling called to check out, or into… Drilling down into discussions for instance, to see that all is well… Encouraging and cautioning commenters… Nudging conversations… Noting connections…
No schedules, no expectations…
Basically and to start, you would be moderating comments per the group docs that are here – https://www.unofficialhcr.com/ – though with some non-public understandings…
If a moderator “flag” is about just a single term and not toooo offensive, and the comment as a whole seems at least a little relevant or helpful, we can sometimes let them go by…
And just more generally, if a comment seems honest, participatory and/or possibly helpful, and is not toooo outrageous, we will tend to let them slide as well…
AND it is always up to each one of us… No one needs to think they have to moderate like someone else…
And then, the trolls, gas-lighters, provocateurs, people who try to overwhelm, fight, be obnoxious, etc., etc… There won’t be all that many hopefully, partly because we have gotten rid of a bunch of them in recent times, and partly because we are now quickly scanning the public feeds of all new member applications who don’t meet our automatic approval criteria…
There is some more on all that, further below… Our group has been growing on average by approximately 5-600 members a month since July, 2021… Before that membership had become pretty much static, with previous admin not able to individually checking new applicants that the automatic FB filter didn’t just let in…
And still occasionally someone gets in who shouldn’t, or a troll has been lurking around from earlier, or whatever… People such as these we tend to be as thorough and unforgiving as seems warranted in any particular incident… Removing and blocking from the group being the most often response, though muting for a set period of time can and does also sometimes happen…
We recognize that there is a part of each of us that is better than some of the crazy stuff a lot of people these days are lost in and identified with… And even as for many that part seems to be so buried in conflicted and conflicting beliefs that it seems to be totally unreachable… And, we have no time or space in our group for dealing with such folks…
We are about something else, something different… We leave people like that to their own journey, however many lifetimes that may or may not be for them, all the while knowing we are all of us always in the “hands” of something greater and deeper than anyone of us can ever imagine…
And, we are always evolving…
The rest of it is on the job training, as you go… When you accept the invitation to moderate, a new area opens up to you in the group page, which you could take your time exploring… There is a lot there… We all come in cold, but it doesn’t take long to sort most of it out…
Invited moderators are sent an invite which should appear in your notifications, and when accepted it’s done… After that a new area, left side on a desktop or laptop, opens up for managing the group… On a phone it is a new button going to a new section/area… Our moderator Anita does most of it on a phone, so if that is similar for you it might be good to get some pointers from her, if they are needed…
Regarding filtering new member requests…
First, there is a filter set up that automatically approves people who have been on FB longer than a year, have two or more friends in the group, and have answered all three of the membership questions… These criteria can be adjusted… But for whatever reason most people by far seem to miss some or all of the questions… Perhaps in part because of the device they are applying from, combined with FB not doing a very good job of making the questions obvious enough…
FB provides up to five of the groups each new member applicant belong to, so we’ll glance at that first, then if we want more click the link FB provides that takes us to their public page where we can quickly scan over what is there, posts, images, whatever is available under their “About” tab, etc… It can be for most people fairly quick and obvious, so back to the application list and approve…
But anyone who seems to be looking for or is attracted to trouble, has definite rightwing beliefs and/or passions, or what is clearly a fake identity, perhaps a FB account just made in last minutes, hours or days, for instance… Or perhaps someone in another country clearly not familiar with the US or what we are about as a group, and/or who is obviously just looking for a place to “friend” people, their purposes irrelevant, for instance… There is neither need nor helpfulness in letting such folks into our group…
Some people don’t allow much, or sometimes not even anything, to be available to the public… For them, and/or even if someone might be OK but there is still some iffiness about them, we will tend to “Decline with feedback,” and copy/paste a short something prepared, that tells them to check out HCR’s writings and reapply with detailed and candid answers to all three questions… For instance…
“There is nothing in your public facing FB profile indicating if you are a fit for our group… Please google & explore Dr Heather Cox Richardson’s writings, reapply to join the group, & answer all three questions with much detail and candidness…“
And always just feeling into it, what feels right… Gut feelings and intuitions are good…
Sometimes members invite a whole bunch of their friends at once… What we have discovered is that only one out of maybe ten or fifteen or even twenty invitees actually accept… A lot of people don’t see the invite notifications is probably a lot of it… Clunky ways FB presents these things to them maybe also part of it… In these cases, with batch invitees, there is also a button that lets us accept all of them at once… Otherwise it can be a bit overwhelming… Invited people do not come in right away in any case, they will always still need to accept…
So instead we might check out the member who is the inviter (small text below the invitee name), and see how long they have been in the group, how active with comments and likes etc. they’ve been, if they have a lot of high quality likes or other things in their “About” section on their own public page, and maybe they have a lot of friends so they were selective, and/or they have some sensible public posts, and maybe all around appear intelligent, informed and motivated in some good ways… If it all looks good we can choose to click the accept all button for all their invitees…
If it is not clearcut for the inviter, and say maybe one or more of the invitees are problematic, we’ll maybe check out each invitee individually, IF we feel like it, approving or declining as necessary, or perhaps we will just “Decline All,” and possibly PM the inviter to be more selective with their invitations…
And, always evolving…
We do recognize there is a part of all of us that is better than some of the crazy stuff a lot of humans these days have gotten lost in… And even as for so many that part seems to be deeply buried in conflicted and conflicting beliefs to the point they seem unreachable… AND, we have zero time or space in our group for dealing with really difficult folks…
We are about something different… We leave people like that to their own journey, however many lifetimes that may or may not still be for them, knowing we are all of us always in the “hands” of something larger, greater and deeper than any one of us can or will ever imagine…
Some more general moderation perspectives…
We try to notice when posts may be a problem for some people, so that we can stay on watch for unhelpful comments or worse, under them… And maybe also for comments with misunderstandings, we might sometimes feel called to engage and perhaps help that commenter reorient… Always realizing that we are writing for the benefit of not just the person we are ostensively talking to, but also for the benefit of others who happen by, possibly even others with more open minds… If we see a good purpose for a post, which we generally do or we won’t let it come in,, and if we believe a comment is obstructing that purpose too much, we will remove it…
One of the greatest things about this group is that it is filled with great minds, great hearts and great perspectives… How can we entice all that to come out, engage, and really listen to each other, all the while we collectively recognize that the whole human race is caught up in a great big imagined “box” called the belief in separation…
That is the box all of us need to be working to step out of together, if we really do want to survive and continue as participants in the awakening of consciousness to itself, through life, an awakening that is presently trying to happen on this planet through humans…
Wherever we are, with whomever we are with… And not just entice others, entice ourselves…
Also to note, we do not ever let anyone second guess or question our administration or moderation, or try to debate how it is done, or how the group is run… Not with well over 35K members we don’t… And this is also because we are trying to do something here in our group that not a whole lot of people can yet really grok… Yet…
For the one who is writing this, there is a deeper place, way, thing, or sense, many terms yet none of the terms themselves being what I am trying to point to now, that we are following, in regards to what it is we may or may not be doing…
Always in the midst of not knowing… Trusting something deeper and greater… Each individual human is a microcosm and aspect of our collective human unfolding, and so is each human relationship, group and grouping… No matter how large or small… The change that needs to happen everywhere also needs to happen, on every ever evolving level we are able to aware of, together…
We can be a part of the changes that are calling everywhere now, only and exactly here, wherever we find our very own selves, in each moment… Here alone, writing this, in the group, in relationship with a friend or relative, at the Co-op, on the phone or skype with someone, etc., etc…
One of the reasons we asked you to become a moderator is because we believe you have a similar sense, and a similar trust… And I’m not talking about similar to any of the words here, but rather about what we are trying to point towards with these words… When people actually know this about each other, the words themselves will change, become less and less, and less and less necessary… We want to bring these sorts of possibilities slowly into the group… Another word for slowly, in this context, is organically, or perhaps consciously…
Enough.
🙏🏽😊🌻🌈💕