Follow-up Thread to Moderation Discussion & Broadcast!
Hello All,
Thank you to those of you who tuned in to the community youtube broadcast yesterday! You all were really helpful in providing ideas and suggestions about this idea. If you missed it, no worries, you can watch the recording here. Or read the original post here.
Based on the feedback and conversations / discussions I had after the meeting, I wanted to make a follow up post to address common questions all in one place. I know change and new ideas is hard, it is hard for me too. We are a team and will be working together here!
So lets dive in…
----> What is the nature of a group mod/ forum mod role? Some of you voiced that it feels like the role needs are changing.
Group mod & forum mentor roles are at their core, community building roles. By community building roles, I am referring to creating supportive, uplifting, welcoming and kind experiences and content in our group spaces. I think somewhere along the way, we may have lost sight of this a little bit. Mostly because, we also rely on these leaders to help with managing difficult situations or emergencies. Of course, we look to moderators to help with managing difficult situations as well. But that is not the primary focus of these roles. The primary focus of these roles is community building.
----> Emergency situations in the chatrooms - this came up a bunch. I think its a valid concern and it is one that I share. First off, of course, we want to make sure all of the rooms are safe. We will not intentionally do anything to make rooms less safe.
Second - we will have a team of global moderators who will be able to help out. We will be experimenting with this role and its needs in the upcoming weeks. We will love your feedback as we do that.
Third - As this will be a slow roll out, we will only be working with specific communities to learn here. If your community is not part of this process, you will not be impacted. We will announce the communities soon!
----> Spam control in the forums. Much like the above, we will not be doing anything to make the forums less safe. We will not be removing badges, everyone who has been able to help in the past, will still be able to help.
Additionally, we are working on an additional fix to help the removal of spam. I hope to provide more information soon!
----> Team and group dynamics evolving. Yes, we anticipate that team dynamics will evolve. The goal is to make more dedicated sub-community based teams. If you look at the leadership list on any sub-community page, you will see a team of people dedicated to that community. We want these folks to be working together, to know one another, to share in community building together... We hope that these team dynamics will continue to evolve and grow. Right now project based teams are central, this will still be the case. However, we will work to create project based teams around an entire community system.
Final note - Next week, the community management team will be focusing on Cupsgiving! We will be around to answer questions related to this converation, but we will not be pushing it live. We will announce the communities who may be involved with this first round of testing the week of November 27th.
I'm glad we were able to discuss this in the meeting to follow up the broadcast 
This post summarizes it well, although in the teen meeting we discussed slightly different matters, such as who will be eligible to apply for global moderation, how the roles will work within the teen community in comparison to the adult community, and so on. We came up with that if Mentors are eligible to apply for a global moderation role, then Teen Stars will earn eligibility too. If the role will be reserved for Mentor Leaders, then Teen Star Leaders will have the role reserved for them as well. The same will go for Support Team Leaders, as all Support Team Leaders should be able to apply for global moderation for the group support rooms. For the forums, definitely Teen Star Leaders that are Teen Forum Stars and possibly Teen Forum Stars that aren't Teen Star Leaders depending on how long they've been a Forum Star and other similar factors. However, there was some confusion in regards to a Mentor vs. Mentor Leader and Teen Star vs. Teen Star Leader, as there's no Teen Star Leaders currently that are teens and none have been picked in almost two years. Additionally, since there's way less Teen Stars than Mentors, that as well made us lean to a conclusion that if a Mentor Leader can apply for something, then maybe a Teen Star can as well (and Teen Star Leaders, of course) since there's less Teen Stars to fulfill roles that Mentors can
@Emily619
global mod role can be for any mod. Not just one in another role.
@Laura thanks for clarifying the role of group mod and how it does not seem to be changing as much as I originally thought throughout the site.
I always enjoyed science experiments in high school. By the way I never blew up the chemistry lab! LOL
So please give us updates on how the experiment is going as you try it out in a few communities.
@soulsings we'll keep you in the loop
Thanks @Laura for the clarification on the role of a group moderator!
I think that the differences and expectations in the roles and responsibilities of a group mod are one of the reasons why some people may feel a bit confused about the changes, so this definitely help clarifies it!
I think it's really nice to hear that as group mods, our main job is not to "police" the chatrooms and "enforcing" the rules, but rather, to provide and safe, welcoming environment to members and to build stronger subcommunities as a community leader 
Happy to give it a go. It's good that people are working hard to try to improve the site.
@brilliantTurtle89
Fixed your typo, or shall I say post-o 
@Emily619
Thank you💜
@brilliantTurtle89
You're welcome, anytime!
