In my experience, someone who is actively lobbying to be a moderator may be a poor choice. There is a tendency for control freaks to seek out opportunities for power and control, and it doesn’t work out well. I look for people who work to facilitate discussion even though they aren’t moderators.
Empathy matters, but so does the ability to set aside criticism. I’ve had some really great mods who were very empathetic, but the conflict and nastiness they had to deal with hurts them too much, and they had to quit because of this (and rightly so).
If you have a low-conflict forum they should be OK.
At present I haven’t got any conflicts happening on a discourse forum, but there are topics I hope to talk about which do involve conflicts. The one new member I mentioned may be able to help with some administrative tasks, but I told them they would need to be vetted before I would grant admin or mod status on an active site.
With a new site with almost no activity seems like could be safer to appoint someone to one of those positions on trial basis to see how they operate, rather than with a site with a lot of active engaged community members where there is risk they could cause significant damage.
With earlier stages of community site if things start to take off I’ll want to be the only moderator at first to establish the main practices. Basic plan is to allow people to speak freely, but be prepared to step in with interventions if necessary.
You have had a good experience with promoting those members to be moderators?
This is unfortunate, am sad to read this. Some people can be quite unpleasant and difficult to moderate. I don’t want to be one of those people myself, but if am unhappy or in distress about something that can inspire the writing of meaner statements. If it’s possible for the core source of the unhappiness to be addressed and resolved somehow hopefully that can yield calmer waters.
Here’s a thought: if someone wants to be a mod, and especially if they are quite new, then watch and see how they react to being told that they need to wait and show good behaviour as a user. If they react badly, that tells you that they would not make a good moderator.
The reason for waiting and watching their interactions is to give them plenty of chances to see how they cope with disagreement and conflict. Someone who de-escalates is good, someone who loses their temper is bad.
Yeah that is good common sense, firstly for the fact that the site is about architecture history I said new members can prove themself by starting topics about actual architecture history to prove their knowledge of the field. The new member hasn’t done that, but is a reader of this here discourse support site. They said they are taking a break from being an active here member until November for some reason, maybe they were suspended until then I suspected. Is suspicious for a brand new rando member to ask for admim access expecting that to be given over right away.
Anyway may be launching a new site for a local church community, that may take off better since there are already a lot of people involved with the church who would likely be glad to join online message board for established community.
Let me put this differently; empathy is a key skill for a mod, but it also makes them more susceptible to conflict. Mods also need to be able to set aside those negative feelings directed at them.
I have also very much found this to be the case. Anyone asking to be a moderator is almost certainly not someone you want as a moderator, especially a new user. Unless you’re actively soliciting applications for an open moderator role, the very act of asking is IMO an automatic disqualification.
Edited to add:
Writing “meaner statements” may feel good, but it’s the kind of thing that genuinely hurts good empathetic moderators—people who are almost always volunteering their time.
One of the rules we were forced to adopt many years ago in the primary community I participate in is a hard prohibition against arguing moderation decisions. Mod decisions are final and there is no appeals process. Arguing moderation in-thread results in a thread-ejection and an escalating series of temp bans, with the third one being permanent.
Adults should be able to act like adults, and if not, they should be shown the door.