Online Moderators Keep it Civil, But What About Where They Work?
Online Moderators Keep it Civil, But What About Where They Work?
Mzinga moderators spend much of their shifts putting an end to flame wars, banning trolls, handling customer complaints, and keeping the peace. As Mzinga’s Director of Moderation Services, I ensure that the team works in an environment that encourages and practices civil interaction as well.
To produce harmonious workplace conditions, the consulting firm Civility Partners has established the following guidelines for teams, whether they work together in an office or virtually. Teams should especially avoid:
— Aggressive Communication (includes insults or offensive remarks, angry outbursts, avoidance, offensive written communications, and blaming someone for issues not their fault or they have no control over)
— Humiliation (includes ridiculing or teasing, spreading gossip, taunting (in person or writing), publicly pointing out mistakes or mistakes that have been corrected, and snubbing for having a different interpretation of a company policy or management style)
— Manipulation of Work (includes subverting tasks associated with a person’s job responsibilities, unmanageable workloads and impossible deadlines, making general statements about poor performance without offering assistance to correct it, and leaving a person out of the correspondence and meeting loop)
Behaviors that contribute to workplace civility are respect, support, encouragement, politeness, openness, appreciation, trust, sensitivity, sincerity, having a positive attitude, taking pride in what you do, and being a good example.
Each company should have an established Company and Management Commitment to Civility that ensures their workers are free from negative, aggressive, and inappropriate behaviors and that the workplace will provide an atmosphere of respect, collaboration, openness, safety, and equality; where complaints about negative workplace behaviors are taken seriously and followed-through to resolution. Every employee, from the CEO to the intern, is given a copy and a signed copy is part of their employee file. Larger companies will have a training module as part of new employee orientation.
Online moderators keep their client’s sites free from risks that run from bad publicity to legal liability. As a result, the burnout rate is high (see my blog entry from a couple of weeks ago about two Microsoft moderators who say they are permanently disabled from moderating disturbing images). At Mzinga, the moderation team is able promote civil interaction because it is practiced in their workplace.
