How can I involve my community in my content moderation practices?

Every member of your online community has an important role in keeping your website free from unwanted content. The members’ adherence to your content moderation practices is a basic form of involvement they can give to maintain the quality of your website. However, it takes a more active approach to guarantee that everyone abides by the rules.
How can you encourage your online community to follow guidelines and participate in keeping posts clean? Here are some ways you can apply:

•   Crowdsource

Crowdsourcing content moderation is one way of involving users in your moderating efforts. By making content moderation not just a responsibility but a paid duty, community members could be more vigilant in spotting objectionable submissions.

•   Use post-moderation

With post-moderation, users can report posts of fellow site members that violate submission guidelines. Each post could come with a list of options prompting viewers to flag inappropriateness, submit feedback, or report defects in site functionality. Post-moderation can also double as an audience engagement tool. In this type of moderation, users can rate posts to feature best submissions, burying duplicates, spam, and unremarkable content in the process.

•   Give rewards

Of course, your community would be more motivated to actively report violations if they could reap rewards from the action. Execute a ranking scheme like letting top user-moderators earn forum badges that make them eligible for site privileges and gifts. Entice them with free memberships, first preview of new site features, or any exclusive, personalized reward.

•   Serve penalties

Users would be mindful of their actions if they are aware of the consequences of violating community guidelines. Make your restrictions and sanctions viewable and easy to comprehend so that no member would have an excuse for making offenses. Let them know about penalty levels, and explain what kinds of content could be subjected to removal, and online activities can cause user suspension, or permanent blocking.

Your content moderation process could be more effective if the community is one with the moderators in maintaining order, quality, and sense in your website. Applying measures such as the ones mentioned here could encourage each member to not just adhere to the rules but also actively participate in the rules’ implementation.