
Welcome to 'the worst job in the world' – my life as a Guardian moderator - braithers
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/apr/18/welcome-to-the-worst-job-in-the-world-my-life-as-a-guardian-moderator
======
mahranch
Only 70k comments a day?

As a someone who has been a reddit default moderator for 6+ years (I help out
in more than 1 default subreddit), I'd say they're still small time. It's so
bad over on reddit that even with a fully active staff, we have to utilize
bots to automate much of the work. Without those bots, it would be impossible
to have a community at the sizes we're talking. We simply wouldn't exist.

He overstates how bad the job is because they've never experienced "true"
bad... The author should see if he could intern for a month on one of reddit's
busier subreddits. If he asks, I'd be more than willing to give him an inside
peek into one of our subreddits. Weekly 4chan raids, intra-subreddit brigades,
people (spammers, SEO types, marketers, etc) trying to game us to reach the
front page for profit, and then to add on top of that, we have all the same
trolls and racists and psychopaths theguardian has to deal with. That's
actually not true, they're not the same, there are more of them on reddit.
Many, _many_ more.

I know this isn't a competition, but I look at the average comment there and I
can get a feel for what moderating there must be like. And I have to say, it
looks like paradise compared to reddit. It would be a vacation and even that
would probably be an understatement. Though, TheGuardian is the 128th largest
website in the world while reddit is 28th (9th largest in the U.S). That's
quite the discrepancy.

~~~
elaus
> […] I look at the average comment there and I can get a feel for what
> moderating there must be like. And I have to say, it looks like paradise
> compared to reddit.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but what you're seeing in the comment section of the
Guardian is AFTER moderation has taken place – both longterm (blocking trolls)
and short term (removing/blocking comments). So obviously it doesn't look as
bad as what you're seeing WHILE moderating reddit comments and you can't
really compare that.

It's like I'm saying "moderating reddit is easy, I barely see any spammers or
trolls there" (as a user).

~~~
lucozade
The Guardian has just done an analysis on comments and they get approx 2% that
are blocked or deleted. So it doesn't look like they're fighting back the
hordes and you just can't see it.

And in the article, the chap says that removing the spammers and swivel-eyes
is easy. What's hard is curating the discussion. If you read the comments on
this article and on similar articles recently, this is the area that attracts
the main criticism of the Guardian moderation.

My guess wrt Reddit is that it's a much more difficult job to remove the
spammers and front-page optimisers. The curation of a sub-reddit, if it
happens at all, is probably easier as there'll likely be little or no real
need to be subtle about it.

------
grey-area
I think the problem with sites like the guardian is that they still haven't
adjusted to the inversion of power between writer and reader that the Internet
brought (the article hints at this but doesn't fully address it). When they
still see the article (which is often rushed insignificant fluff) as primary,
and comments as secondary, optional and in need of gardening by qualified
moderators, they get the commenters they deserve.

Contrasting this with moderation and comments on HN and well run subreddits is
instructive. Those sites aren't perfect but at least they recognise the value
of comments, and that _some_ commenters will know more about the story than
anyone, they might even be involved in it as witnesses or protagonists, as
opposed to journalists who typically know very little about a subject. In
addition your readers can be the best moderators if you empower them and keep
steering them with a light hand. The guardian lets readers vote up only and
then does nothing with it.

Maybe it's time for a new kind of journalism without journalists or ads, with
a focus on primary sources, and empowering interested communities to report
and verify for other readers. It's unlikely to emerge from old media though.

~~~
lucozade
I agree with you. My anecdotal opinion is that commentary works well where the
article is intended to impart information. A lot of HN submissions are of this
type because they're posted precisely because someone learnt something from
them and often lead to extra information being imparted in the comments. It's
true, to a lesser extent in Guardian articles that are simply reporting.

Where it doesn't work well, on HN or news sites, is where the article is
intended to influence debate. Whether it's a monad swinging contest on HN or
an analysis of the lighter side of Jeremy Corbyn, comments rarely seem to
reduce the polarity.

I think this is more of an issue for news sites simply because there is less
reporting and more influencing done, somewhat ironically.

~~~
grey-area
Yes agreed, on opinion pieces, everyone has their own opinion, and wants to
shout about it. I'm not even sure they are useful on a news site, but they
drive traffic and due to the perverse incentives which drive places like the
guardian (ads and clicks above all, the competition for traffic on google),
they will start to dominate over didactic pieces which take more effort and
drive less traffic. Our journalism is turning into Buzzfeed because of the
quest for traffic at all costs.

------
gadders
Ironically, the last Guardian editor's daughter got in trouble on comments she
was supposed to be moderating: [http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-
news/21934/guardian-editors-dau...](http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-
news/21934/guardian-editors-daughter-melanie-phillips-row)

------
pluma
I thought YouTube moderators had the worst job?

[http://www.buzzfeed.com/reyhan/tech-confessional-the-
googler...](http://www.buzzfeed.com/reyhan/tech-confessional-the-googler-who-
looks-at-the-wo)

~~~
isxek
All this talk about worst jobs reminded me of that old show "Dirty Jobs"[0]
from a decade ago.

[0]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty_Jobs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty_Jobs)

------
thesehands
If online publications wanted genuine discourse under articles then I'm sure
the die-hard commentators would pay a fee to engage in such, especially if the
author were around to offer response. Seems this would provide enough of a
barrier to stop _most_ "trolling", and self fund the moderation. If newspapers
would stop using clickbait titles I'm sure they'd move the needle somewhat
too.

They are however in the 'eyeball' game and the content quality reflects this
lowest common denominator ethos.

------
junko
Sometimes reading the Guardian's comment sections is like reading the Daily
Mail's with extra pompous tosh.

------
pieter1976
Seems vastly overblown to call this "the worst job in the world". There are
far, far worse things people do to get paid.

Sure jumping out of your tree-hugging everybody-love-everybody mindset is
probably a shock, but there's plenty of hatred in the real world.

~~~
takno
The article finishes by saying it's the best job in the world. Did you read
it?

~~~
rawTruthHurts
And if you read it to the very end, it leaves some doors opened (to the tree-
hugging argument I mean): "It’s the best one I’ve ever had."

------
im3w1l
Trolling is a word. It means something: "make a deliberately offensive or
provocative online posting with the aim of upsetting someone or eliciting an
angry response from them."

I can't help but wonder why the author attempts to describe anything he
doesn't like, in his moderator role, as trolling. This seems to be a general
trend in newspaper people describing their comment sections.

~~~
_yosefk
To elaborate on your point - from the article:

"They are comment-thread poison – men’s rights activists who act as if
articles about women’s issues are their gender’s single biggest problem,
climate change deniers who will drag any conversation about energy policy into
murky pseudo-science, and borderline racists for whom there is no issue that
cannot be pinned on immigration (UK) or black people (US)."

...incidentally these are all people strongly opposing (perhaps to an extreme)
some political positions of The Guardian. Not a single example of people
strongly supporting (perhaps to an extreme) some political positions of The
Guardian - these could never become "comment-thread poison."

~~~
fredley
Those people are probably off being "comment-thread poison" trolls on right-
wing websites.

~~~
_yosefk
Probably "yes" in the sense that it's those websites where they're being
labeled "comment-thread poison", probably "no" in the sense that they
certainly do comment on left-wing websites, they just don't ever "derail the
discussion" in the eyes of this moderator.

------
cbeach
The Guardian seems to be doing well on HN recently. For such a one-sided
political publication, with no technical merit, that seems odd.

~~~
m0nty
> one-sided political publication

They certainly are left-aligned: they are famous (and notorious) for it. The
"Guardian-reading lentil-munching sandal-wearing lefty" is a popular
caricature, I've even seen people criticised during debates for being a "good
Guardian-reader" (i.e. a part-time socialist).

But they do publish articles on relevant topics, and are prepared to stick
their collective neck out for important stories like the Snowden case. They
are probably a few notches above the open sewer which characterises much of
the rest of the UK press, and it's clear that many people on HN find them
relevant, if not always correct.

~~~
jensen123
> The "Guardian-reading lentil-munching sandal-wearing lefty" is a popular
> caricature

I find some of these caricatures interesting. Like how many leftists are
vegans or vegetarians, and how many libertarians are meat-lovers. You would
perhaps think that diet should have no correlation with political opinions,
but it certainly seems to have.

Or take clothing. Among leftists, there seems to be more people wearing stuff
like sandals, colorful clothing, dreadlocks, piercings etc. than among right-
wingers or libertarians. When I see pictures of libertarians or right-wingers,
they often seem to be wearing conformist looking clothes, such as suits. Is
there a reason for this?

In order to do well economically, you probably need to be careful not to
offend other people, so you cannot express yourself too much. People who
express themselves more (wear what they want to, rather than what is
inoffensive), are probably more likely to become economic losers. And if
you're an economic loser, I guess left-wing politics (tax the rich!) is
appealing.

~~~
c594815
Right-wing, besides being capitalist, also means being conservative. Which
implies respect for tradition, etiquette and savoir-vivre. Other than diet,
another interesting aspect is architecture. Leftists like brutalism and
modernism, while right-wingers like traditional architecture, have a look
here:
[https://www.facebook.com/ArchMMXII](https://www.facebook.com/ArchMMXII).

~~~
dagw
_another interesting aspect is architecture. Leftists like brutalism and
modernism, while right-wingers like traditional architecture,_

On the other hand, preserving old traditional buildings tends to be a leftist
cause, while wanting to bulldoze them and replace them with new modern
buildings tends to be a right-wing cause.

~~~
digi_owl
And this is why i find the concept of a dual axis political sorting better.

One axis is economic, the other social, with the traditional left-right divide
being mapped to the social axis.

Here is the tricky bit, that once you start mapping liberal and conservative
on the economic axis things tend to reverse compared to the social one.

So quite often social conservatives end up in the economic "liberal" (or
laissez-faire) end.

