5

As we say goodbye to the old year and welcome the new one, we have a tradition of sharing moderation stats for the preceding calendar year.

As most of you here are aware, sites on the Stack Exchange network are moderated somewhat differently to other sites on the web:

We designed the Stack Exchange network engine to be mostly self-regulating, in that we amortize the overall moderation cost of the system across thousands of teeny-tiny slices of effort contributed by regular, everyday users.
-- A Theory of Moderation

That doesn't eliminate the need for having moderators altogether, but it does mean that the bulk of moderation work is carried out by regular folks. Every bit of time and effort y'all contribute to the site gives you access to more privileges you can use to help in this effort, all of which produce a cumulative effect that makes a big difference.

So as we say goodbye to 2021, let us look back at what we accomplished as a community... by looking at some exciting stats. Below is a breakdown of moderation actions performed on Biblical Hermeneutics over the past 12 months:

Action Moderators Community¹
Users suspended² 12 7
Users destroyed³ 6 0
Users deleted 1 0
Users contacted 20 0
User suspensions lifted early 1 0
User banned from review 1 0
Tasks reviewed⁴: Suggested Edit queue 236 456
Tasks reviewed⁴: Reopen Vote queue 118 199
Tasks reviewed⁴: Low Quality Posts queue 11 220
Tasks reviewed⁴: Late Answer queue 4 912
Tasks reviewed⁴: First questions queue 0 74
Tasks reviewed⁴: First Post queue 3 928
Tasks reviewed⁴: First answers queue 2 425
Tasks reviewed⁴: Close Votes queue 310 769
Tags merged 35 0
Tag synonyms proposed 20 3
Tag synonyms created 26 0
Revisions redacted 1 0
Questions unprotected 1 20
Questions reopened 59 13
Questions protected 34 64
Questions migrated 21 0
Questions merged 67 0
Questions flagged⁵ 58 128
Questions closed 681 57
Question flags handled⁵ 141 41
Posts unlocked 8 6
Posts undeleted 24 47
Posts locked 69 70
Posts deleted⁶ 962 577
Posts bumped 0 628
Escalations to the Community Manager team 2 0
Comments undeleted 123 0
Comments flagged 92 311
Comments deleted⁷ 4,101 2,193
Comment flags handled 361 42
Bounties canceled 1 0
Answers flagged 282 709
Answer flags handled 915 77
All comments on a post moved to chat 75 0

Footnotes

¹ "Community" here refers both to the membership of Biblical Hermeneutics without diamonds next to their names, and to the automated systems otherwise known as user #-1.

² The system will suspend users under three circumstances: when a user is recreated after being previously suspended, when a user is recreated after being destroyed for spam or abuse, and when a network-wide suspension is in effect on an account.

³ A "destroyed" user is deleted along with all that they had posted: questions, answers, comments. Generally used as an expedient way of getting rid of spam.

⁴ This counts every review that was submitted (not skipped) - so the 2 suggested edits reviews needed to approve an edit would count as 2, the goal being to indicate the frequency of moderation actions. This also applies to flags, etc.

⁵ Includes close flags (but not close or reopen votes).

⁶ This ignores numerous deletions that happen automatically in response to some other action.

⁷ This includes comments deleted by their own authors (which also account for some number of handled comment flags).

Further reading:

Wishing everyone a happy 2022! ^_^

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
1

Look at them there numbers!

Numbers don't lie. It is a community effort all around and moderators certainly do a lot of work to help keep things going.

I was brought on board a few months ago and I'm looking forward to making a hefty contribution next year.

0

Review Queues are Important!

It's been a great year! Thanks so much to everybody for all your contributions - it gets lost in that table, but to me the most encouraging thing here is the activity in the Review Queues:

Moderators: 684 (15%)

Community: 3983 (85%)

Perhaps the most annoying thing about being a Moderator is that many of our votes are binding - if we Vote to Close something, it gets closed immediately. Knowing that 85% of the review/moderation activities are being actioned by regular site users should be a huge encouragement for everybody, and shows the level of care and dedication you, the community have shown to the site and its content this year.

Flags are Very Important!

Look at that, ~1600 flags! Flags are the most important thing that shows up on the Moderators' dashboards from day to day, and are how we find and action concerns with content across the site. We've noticed a lot of new users have begun raising flags this year, which has really helped us to identify problematic content quickly and help address a wide range of concerns.

Sure, not every flag is necessary, not every flag is accurate... but if in doubt, just raise it! Speaking on behalf of the Moderation team, we all really appreciate every last one and the time that you take in flagging content for us to check out, if there's any chance that it would require or benefit from intervention, or otherwise you really just want a second pair of eyes on.

Other stuff

Thanks so much to everybody who has helped with everything this year, and to the whole community for a really engaging and lively election - and to Jesse for joining the team, and helping share the load! It's been refreshing to have enough headspace to even start writing a Question or Answer here and there the past few weeks :) We're all feeling positive now and looking forward to what's in store for 2022.

As a final note, I'll also just add for anybody who's interested that all of the deleted/destroyed users I can recall was performed at their own request, as that's the kind of stat that would otherwise concern me as an end user.

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .