Moderation

This page is for people with the moderator or admin role. It explains what each role can do, where the tools are, and what the people on the other end experience.

Everyone already gets some protection automatically: comments, bios, display names, invite messages and proposals containing language that isn't allowed are blocked before they're saved. Moderation is for everything a filter can't catch.

Roles

• Moderators can hide (shadowban) a lesson, delete any comment, close any proposed change, ban people by display name, and ask an admin to delete a lesson.
• Admins can do everything a moderator can, and also delete lessons outright, approve or deny moderators' deletion requests, ban by internet (IP) address, add and remove moderators, and, on instances where people sign in with a password, set someone's password.

Admins add moderators from the Moderation page. The person has to have signed in at least once first. Admins themselves are set up by whoever runs the site; there's no button for it.

Neither role can edit someone else's comment or merge someone's proposed changes into a lesson. Both would put words into a lesson or comment under another person's name. A moderator's power over a bad comment is to delete it, and over a proposal is to close it.

Where the tools are

• On a lesson's page: a shield button next to the Lesson actions menu opens the moderation menu: Shadowban lesson (or Un-shadowban lesson), Ban author by name, and either Request deletion... (moderators) or Delete lesson fully... and Ban author by IP (admins).
• On a comment: the comment's moderation menu has Delete comment and Ban author by name.
• On a proposal: Close, on the lesson's Proposals tab.
• The Moderation page: choose Moderation from the account menu (it only appears for moderators and admins). It has Shadowbanned lessons and Bans for everyone with a role, and for admins Pending deletion requests, Moderators and, on password instances, Set a password.

What each action does to the person

None of these actions sends the person a notification, except closing a proposal (they're told it was closed, the same as when the author closes it).

Shadowbanning a lesson

The lesson disappears from public view: it's no longer listed on the hub, in search, on the author's profile, in people's following feeds or in the RSS feed, and anyone else who opens its link sees "Lesson not found". Its comments and proposals are hidden the same way.

The author can still open and edit it as normal, and nothing is deleted. Their lesson page does show a Shadowbanned label next to the title, so the author can tell it has been hidden if they look at the lesson itself.

It's fully reversible: use Un-shadowban lesson on the lesson's page, or Un-shadowban in the Shadowbanned lessons list on the Moderation page.

Deleting a comment

The comment disappears for everyone, and every reply under it goes too. This happens straight away, with no confirmation, and can't be undone. The person isn't told.

Deleting a lesson

Deleting a lesson removes it for good, along with its comments, ratings, proposals and history. It can't be undone.

Moderators can't do this directly. Request deletion... asks the admins, with an optional reason. Admins see the request under Pending deletion requests and choose Approve (the lesson is deleted) or Deny (nothing happens). Admins can also use Delete lesson fully... on any lesson, which asks them to type the lesson's name to confirm.

Banning by display name

A name ban stops any account whose display name matches (capital letters don't matter) from publishing, saving or editing lessons, posting or editing comments, and proposing changes. When they try, they see "Your access has been suspended." They can still browse and read. Nobody can choose a banned name as their display name.

Their existing lessons and comments stay where they are; hide or delete those separately if they need to go.

Name bans match the current display name only. Someone who changes their display name to a different one is no longer covered by the ban. If that happens, an admin can ban their IP address instead.

Moderators can ban a name from a lesson or comment menu, or type one into Banned names on the Moderation page. Lifting a ban is done from the same list.

Banning by IP address (admins)

An IP ban blocks the same posting actions as a name ban, but for anyone posting from that internet address, whatever account or name they use. Existing content stays in place. Be aware that several people can share one address (a home network, an office, a library), and an IP ban blocks all of them.

Ban author by IP only works when the address the lesson was published from is available to the page, which at the moment is only for a lesson that is shadowbanned or still a draft. On a normal published lesson the menu item reads Ban by IP (no IP on record). To ban that author's address, shadowban the lesson first and reload the page. Admins can also type an address into Banned IPs on the Moderation page.

Closing a proposal

Close ends a proposed change without merging it. The proposal and its discussion stay visible, but the changes themselves are discarded. The person who proposed it is notified. See Pull requests.

Setting a password (admins)

On an instance where people sign in with a username and password and there's no email, a forgotten password can't be reset by email. An admin can set a new one under Set a password, identifying the person by Username or email. The password must be at least 8 characters, and the person should change it afterwards.

Admins can set their own password and anyone else's except another admin's. This doesn't necessarily sign the person out on devices where they're already signed in, so it's for recovering a forgotten password, not for locking out someone whose account was taken over.

For roles, endpoints and the database tables behind moderation, see Moderation for developers.