The Moderator Handdocument

[bring4th_admin]

How the Enlightened* Moderate

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1) The moderator interprets, applies, and enforces the Bring4th Guidelines. The moderator will have a working knowledge of the guidelines. And operate according to the spirit of the Bring4th Principles.

The guidelines distill down to two broad concepts: How we relate to one another. And the content of our posting. Respect/kindness/compassion defines the former. The focus on the spiritual principles of the L/L-Research philosophy, and staying on the thread’s topic, defines the latter.

2) The moderator always attempts to walk the high road. May not be successful in the walking by relative measures, but the attempt is always present. How to walk high road? This is variable. Key is to honor the first guideline: treat all members, regardless of their outer behavior, with respect, gentleness, and compassion, seeing them, as Carla would say, at the soul level. Use no negative energy toward another member. And if knee-jerk reactions get the better of the moderator, he or she will seek to restore harmony and make amends.

3) The moderator seeks to keep their cool at all times, especially in situations of community dispute and conflict resolution. If anger/irritation/postal-like-rage builds, vent with other moderators, never resort to pettiness or personal antagonism or confrontational energies as a moderator.

4) Though impossible to perfectly achieve, the mod will strive for impartiality and neutrality in all situations, always attempting to see all sides of the situation and weigh all perspectives.

5) The moderator will promote values of acceptance of other members.

6) The moderator will attempt to communicate most (but not necessarily all) of their housekeeping actions to the affected community members. If a thread is moved or split or merged, the mod will send a note to the members involved, or leave a note in the thread itself. A simple note will do. Or perhaps an e-card of a cute animal with a notification that a thread has been moved.

7) The moderator will keep in mind that they are not a moral authority who possesses answers that other seekers don’t. The work will be undertaken with humility and without condescension.

8) Moderating is at times not dissimilar to weeding a garden. Certain posts and certain threads, and in some rare cases, certain individuals, act as weeds in the garden, inhibiting the vitality, health, and beauty of the overall garden. The moderator helps guard the tuning of the forums knowing that negative energy, if left unchecked or unprocessed through the heart, begets negative energy—it tends to create and invite more of itself, perhaps even from external sources.

9) The mod attempts to preserve the greatest range of free expression possible within the limits of the guidelines. When in doubt, it’s generally (though not always) better to err on the side of accomodation. Though the moderator must also consider how certain types of expression affect the culture, coupled with the needs of new members and how certain posting may or may not be welcoming therein.

10) The moderator doesn’t steer the ship of the community by personal vision and willpower. Rather the moderator tweaks, tunes, and refines the existing energies of the community. It is a partnership with the community that often helps to set the tone and direction of the overall Bring4th experience. This is accomplished by helping to keep energies from straying into the red, the untuned, and the negative.

11) The moderator goes about the work lightheartedly and with joy, attempting to lighten the mood with humor and playfulness when and where possible. Have funny images on hand. : )

12) The mod recognizes that the guidelines cannot spell out each and every situation, so great discernment, sensitivity, and creative interpretation will often be necessary.  However, the moderators do not wish to extend beyond the scope and the spirit of the guidelines.

How Enlightened Beings Work Together as a Team

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1) General housekeeping tasks (e.g., moving, splitting, merging threads) don’t need to be discussed as a team. These can be executed at the discretion of the individual moderator.

2) Larger decisions—such as putting a member on moderated status, banning a member, deleting a substantial thread, sending a warning to a member, etc.—need to be discussed between all active moderators if timing and availability permits. (Some moderators may unavailable due to circumstance.)

3) Throughout Bring4th’s storied history, the moderators have made the larger decisions using multi-party dialoguing until consensus is reached and all parties agree on a course of action. This often involves one of the moderators drafting up the moderator message and sending it to the other mods for peer review and ruthless editing, refining the end product until all mods can sign onto it as being representative of their perspective, each learning when to yield and when to push.

Whoever heads up the moderator team will, however, reserve the right to spearhead action if consensus is not reached, and veto something he or she deems not in alignment with the mission of L/L Research. However, both scenarios are hoped to be avoided 100% of the time.

4) The moderators will strive to maintain unity of purpose and vision, and keep in mind that they are moderators first, members second.

5) As general procedure, when a member deviates from a guideline, we send a gentle reminder about a) what exactly the guidelines say, b) where they are deviating from the guidelines, and c) how they may return to full compliance with the guidelines. If reminders/requests fail in their purpose, then, after discussion, the moderators may have to resort to the revocation of the member’s permission to post on the forums.

6) When a moderator communicates with a member in an official capacity (not in the course of personal correspondence), the other moderators are expected to be given a BCC.

This is helpful because each on the team would know if a particular user had already been contacted by the moderation team regarding their activity on the forums. Consequently the user would not receive repeat moderator email and, in the event of repeated offenses on the user’s part, the mod team, being on the same page, can put the heads together to reach a consensus regarding the appropriate response to the user in question.

The moderator may still reserve the right to keep a communication to a member private if circumstances require. A summary of the situation to the other moderators would be helpful here if possible.

Handy Tips for Moderating - Whether Enlightened or Not

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1) When a mod sends message to the forums or to a member that typifies a certain dynamic (e.g., a message about staying on-topic, or a welcome note to the community with a request to review the guidelines, etc.), it is handy to hang onto those message as templates for future use so that messages don’t have to start from scratch but can be modifications of an earlier copy.

2) Keep links to posts you may want to make future reference to for whatever reason, including and especially those that may require moderator action.

3) There is a nifty moderator option called “Unapprove” post or thread listed below each thread. If something is questionable and requires further discussion among moderators and consideration, simply take it offline by clicking “Unapprove”. This can be later reversed, whereas deleting a thread or post cannot be reversed.

4) Some moderating is best done invisibly (in terms of not being publicly visible). Some is best done visibly (in terms of being done via PM). Good to know the difference.

5) A lot of moderating is general housekeeping, including merging, renaming, splitting, and moving posts and threads.

a. Merging: Where very similar threads are noticed, they can be merged into one. In most cases try to keep the title of the earlier thread, but feel free to be creative and rename altogether.

b. Renaming: We prefer that thread titles reflect their content as closely as possible.

c. Splitting: There are often multiple sub-threads in a given thread. Using your discretion, feel free to split off sub-threads into their own thread.

d. Moving: We like to keep socks in the sock drawer and pants in the pants drawer. Threads that have better homes in another forum can be moved. Often it is helpful to leave a redirect in the thread’s place for a day or two, but this is to the individual mod’s discretion.

The four most difficult forums to determine whether a thread belongs or not include Olio, Life on Planet Earth, Strictly Law of One Material, and Treehouse. Here’s a general rundown:

i. Strictly Law of One Material: Should make substantial reference to and use of the actual material of the Law of One. Some discussions do refer heavily to Law-of-One-Material concepts without actually using direct quotes. Also anything pertaining to the Ra Contact itself has a home here.

ii. Spiritual Development & Metaphysical Matters: This is a forum for personal spiritual development and the many catalysts that arise in ones life, along with study of other metaphysical subjects that may or may not be personal in nature. Ex: “I’m experience a yellow-ray blockage” on the “Spiritual Development” side; and“Studies of the Kabbalah” on the subjects side.

iii. Art, Media, & Entertainment: This is a forum for all non-personal sharing and discussion of, as the title says, art, media, and entertainment. This includes movies, books, video games, painting, graphic art, Broadway plays, artists themselves, etc. Ideally any AME discussion will still happen through the lens of spiritual evolution.

iv. Artistic Endeavors: This is a forum for the sharing of personal artistic creations, whatever their medium.

v. Olio: This is not a sub-forum for “everything”. Threads in Olio are still expected to be positively oriented and in alignment with the spiritual principles of the Law of One. It serves as a catch-all for that which doesn’t quite fit into the other categories. A miscellaneous drawer, if you will.

vi. Treehuggers Treehouse: This is the social chat-room and goofing off area of the forumFor the most part, energies in here are not focused on anything of great significance except joking around and having a good time. Basic rules of respect still apply but otherwise it’s a free-for-all. Any thread in another forum can be relocated here if it consists mostly of lighthearted banter and less on focused discussion.


*Moderators not actually enlightened. Just dumb enough to take the job.