Officially adopted by the moderation team on July 25, 2025[1].
- Moderators should flag internally when they have a conflict of interest, erring on the side of caution and mentioning something.
- We don't need to be incredibly paranoid about conflicts of interest. This community is fairly densely connected and it will often be the case that a moderator will have some connection to one of the people involved.
- This should push us to have a different moderator be the point person for that incident, proportional to the size of the COI. However, it does not need to prevent a moderator from providing input.
- In the case of major COIs, such as a romantic partner or employer, the moderator should err far to the side of avoiding even the appearance of pressuring the result.
- CEA is a special case because it is hard to exclude all CEA-employed moderators. Forum moderation work is also paid for by CEA. Full employees of CEA should nevertheless prefer to have a non-CEA mod run the case, and we should generally err against moderating criticisms of CEA.
- Note that I (Sarah) am currently the Head Moderator, and also employed by CEA. Although I plan to defer to non-CEA mods for cases that involve CEA, and mod decisions do not need my approval, it is still a fact that I always have the ability to influence moderation decisions (for example by vetoing them).
- FAQ:
- What if we accidentally make a mistake?
- Disclose to head moderator ASAP, no written policy for reacting at this time
- Would we say publicly something like, “JP was recused from the decision on this 80k critic[2]”?
- Default to no, but weakly, and be willing to make exceptions if (e.g.) it's a situation where not announcing it could create the appearance that there was a large COI
- What if we accidentally make a mistake?