Moderation Brief Overview

Level 1: community member report forms -- all members can report inappropriate content with the report link.

Level 2: personal content blocking system -- each member can block offensive content based on their personal value system from their personal profile (under development, release date is Q2 2007)

Level 3: volunteer moderators -- report to paid staff with direct links to inappropriate content

Level 4: paid moderators and site managers -- paid moderators do not search for inappropriate content; they only act on reported content items.

Level 5: Age and ID Verification, DebateOurFuture knows that every user is an adult over the age of 21 and DebateOurFuture can hold each user responsible for there actions and behavior.

For more detailed moderation information click next.

Moderation Detailed Overview

DebateOurFuture believes in people. In fact, DebateOurFuture believes that people are generally good and that the good people will prevail over and influence the bad people by projecting the social community’s collective social value systems to all members of the community. Value systems are a direct result of the environment and the social influences in that environment. Good or bad, people will take on that value system to which they are exposed. As this is the site for the REST OF US, being mature intelligent adults who tire of the offensive content of the other social sites, DebateOurFuture has given our members the opportunity to create and set the tone of this new social community. It is our belief that members of the other spaces on the Internet are looking for a more mature environment where the anarchic attitude does not prevail. DebateOurFuture was conceived and created with that purpose in mind. A place where the community members can

“Meet People - Find Entertainment - Learn Something New - Influence Others”

and leave as better people. Please abide by our simple guidelines and make your experience on DebateOurFuture a contributing factor in the success of this social networking community.

DebateOurFuture Has Integrated Various Forms of Website Moderation
Pre-Moderation. Post-moderation. Reactive-moderation. Distributed-moderation. Paid moderation. Self-moderation (introducing the GMI* proprietary self moderation system)

Pre-moderation
  Because of legal anxieties, many websites operate on the principle that every piece of user-generated content that could go up onto a site should be checked by a moderator (or sometimes, in extreme cases, a lawyer) before it goes live. As a rule, this method of moderation can be the death of an online community, but there are times when it's the best way of handling user-generated content or when it is simply too dangerous to use any other kind of moderation scheme. Websites are concerned with the liability that some content is prone to libel and copyright infringement and can be a source of legal anxiety for the organization that hosts the content (GUO). Other kinds of danger are more overtly unpleasant and are likely to require at least some form of pre-moderation based management. Under these circumstances the cost of pre-moderation (which is high) can be a significant disincentive to building and maintaining an online community. The only form of automated, pre moderation in use, are word censor programs that turn offensive language into random characters. We have chosen not to perform any other form of pre-moderation, enabling the automatic approval of content, and instead have chosen to enact penalties for content that knowingly violates the Terms of Use and Privacy policies. For copyright infringement moderation see Terms of Use, 6. Copyright Infringement Notification.

Post-moderation
  As stated, the big peril of pre-moderation is that it kills online communities stone dead. The immediacy that people want when they press their submit button is fundamental to all online communities and most sites based around user generated content. That's where post-moderation comes in. Post-moderation is based again on the assumption that, for security, legal or behavioral reasons and problems, every piece of user-generated content needs to be checked. But rather than checking them all before they go live, they are instead checked as soon as possible after live posting. It's not as secure an approach as pre-moderation, after all, dubious content will be live on the site, but it does give communities a space to breathe and users the instant feedback they need when they want to put their content online. It's worth remembering, however, that every post still has to be read and checked, and that's still profoundly time-consuming and expensive. DebateOurFuture has a team of post-moderators who react to content violations and have the authority to delete and move content with impunity. DebateOurFuture has also enabled every member of the community to act as post-moderators through proprietary moderation systems.
 

Reactive-moderation
  Reactive moderation is based on the assumption that if something bad is happening on a site, the users will spot it quickly and will alert the moderators as soon as possible. This is by far becoming the most common form of moderation due to the extreme cost of maintaining pre, post and paid moderation, and because the legal situation seems  to be increasingly based around the responsibilities of community moderators to remove dubious content, rather than to prevent it being posted in the first place. It can also be more responsive than post-moderation as well, because only the trouble-generating content needs to be checked and the community can direct moderators straight to the problematic areas. We are relying on that group of members who want to see abusive content least to tell us when they've found it. DebateOurFuture has provided a link to a report form at the bottom of every webpage. As some content will live for a short time before our moderators find it, it is the duty of our community and in the interest of member participation in a self moderated internet safe environment that we encourage our members to report content that is in violation of our Terms of Use and Privacy policies. Bear in mind that abuse of the reporting system is a violation in and of itself and that this act could lead to the termination of the reporting members own site services. To address the abuse of the reporting feature, volunteer moderators can be chosen from the community and given the authority, by use of the "GMI proprietary moderation system"*, to submit the violation reports directly to a small staff of paid moderators or website managers. This reduces the need for global moderation by each member of the community, holds the volunteer accountable for the reliability of the reports, and reduces the number of paid staff moderators and website managers as they no longer need to be proactive in searching for violations, just reactive to taking action on the reports from the community's volunteer staff.
 

Distributed-moderation
  Distributed moderation is something that websites have only recently implemented. Fundamentally, the principle that a community can self-moderate and collectively decide what's appropriate and inappropriate behavior for themselves and others (see Self) can seem a worrying jump in the dark for a social community to make. For the most part, distributed moderation of any kind often consists of content rating schemes and interacts with aspects of the other moderation types. DebateOurFuture has implemented a system of user ratings for most areas of content posting. The higher a content item is rated, the higher it will appear in content results and listings. User ratings are counted with stars, numbers, karma, and thumbs up, thumbs down choices for member submitted content. We also have supplied our members with a commenting system for immediate reviews of user submitted content. DebateOurFuture believes that the community can control the content by using these functions and set the tone for the mature internet environment. In theory, the attitude of the community will be reflected in what content rises to the top of the collective content rating systems.
 

Self-moderation
  The previous forms of moderation addressed in this article; pre, post, reactive and distributed, do not provide a targeted personalized focus on what is or is not acceptable content for individual members of a social community or the governing and management organization. Another issue that until now has seldom been addressed is the policy infractions that fall into the so called "Gray Area". As people, we are all individuals, with our own value system of ethics and morals which is instilled in us by our environment, including but not limited to the influences of parental guidance, spiritual and religious practices, peer groups and life experiences. How best to address this issue is with the "GMI proprietary self moderation system"*. This recently developed feature permits each user to moderate the viewable content based on their individual value system. Using this system, the value systems of each member as an individual need not infringe on the value system of any other individual member. Content still deemed to be offensive to individuals after the previous forms of moderation have taken place, can simply be cloaked from viewing by a button that blocks a selected content item from the social community member’s individual profile. All other community members can still view the content until they have made the choice to block the content for themselves. This system enables the user to moderate content for their own personal value system while not infringing on the value system of any other individual member. Many social networking websites have been accused of censorship due to this “Gray Area” of what is and is not acceptable and the varying value systems of its members. Censorship, in any form and for any reason, in a free and open society, never pleases the members of that society and can have serious repercussions for the governing and managing authority of that society. The "GMI proprietary self moderation system"* addresses this issue and the personal value systems of it members by putting the onus on that individual member and releasing the governing and managing authority from all of the responsibility of making the decision of what is or is not acceptable for the community. Management is no longer solely responsible for what may be construed as censorship of content, as each member can provide their own level of moderation that only affects their personal member profile and value system.
 

Paid-moderation
  DebateOurFuture has also employed a professional team to manage the moderation of the social community. Reports of  Terms of Use and Privacy policy violations will be sent to the paid moderation management team and this team will in turn respond with appropriate action on each content item infringement. In a moderated social community, even a moderator will need to be rated and held accountable through performance reviews. Like all leaders, the populous will tire of the current authorities and governing power and they will have to be replaced as prevailing value systems of the membership change. If you think about it, this is how nations, states and cities work too! This community is likened to a city, the city needs an infrastructure to govern and protect its citizens. Moderators are the community’s security force, much like the police that citizens of a community look towards for safety and security. But, if the moderator fails in the job, management can fire the moderator or vote them out of office based on community feedback through the ratings and reviewing system. The paid moderator staff is identified in various ways throughout the social community website. Members know when, and who, is logged on the site at any given moment and each is accessible by the private messaging system. Another innovative and proprietary system of GMI* is the ratings module for each moderator. When a moderator’s performance rating falls below a pre determined level, the management of the social community can conduct a performance review to address issues related to the rating and how to improve the quality of the moderation staff. Thus, the management can be held accountable for the performance of the paid moderation staff.

Moderation policy
  Please familiarize yourself with Terms of Use and Privacy policies. Many complaints and reports of content may fall into a gray area as what's offensive to one member may not be offensive to another due to differing ethic, moral, social and environmental backgrounds. Action on content in violation of the Terms of Use and Privacy policies may not be taken until there is a preponderance of complaints on each individual content item. Moderators are not under any obligation to communicate with individual members about decisions made concerning content items. Content can be removed without notice or justification..