Moderation Strategy
Policies, workflows, and tooling to keep your community healthy, inclusive, and safe—clear guidance for moderators, predictable enforcement, and reduced maintainer load.
Sponsor and Ecosystem Impact
Effective moderation minimizes disruption and keeps collaboration productive, helping projects remain focused and dependable under growth or stress.
Moderation Strategy
Modreation tends to be an afterthought, and often becomes urgent as the lack of a strategy takes hold: spam, AI slop, community chaos or just more nosie than one can process. This playbook is intended to help maintainers co-build a strategy with their team and community to setup for success in the future.
NOTE: moderation strategy can include code of conduct response, but the details of creating that document, and response times is a governance task.
Resources
- Moderation Pocket Book
- Psychological Safety(https://chaoss.community/kb/metric-psychological-safety/)
Process Milestones
Note: that some milestones may not currently apply to a project and will be refined as part of the initial
- Kick off meeting: Maintainer meets with OSS Wishlist admin and pracitioner (whether sponsor employee or verified pracitioner) to align on goals and timeline.
- Noise & Spam Control Readiness
- Team Alignment on Moderation Practices
- Escalation & Maintainer Protection
- Continuous Process Improvement
- Wrap up meeting: Maintainer meets with OSS Wishlist maintainer and pracitioner
- Survey (maintainer and pracitioner)
Moderation Strategy – Peer Review Rubric
Scoring Scale per Criterion:
0 = Absent
1 = Informal or ad-hoc
2 = Partially defined but inconsistent
3 = Strong policies and tools, minor improvement areas
4 = Mature, proactive moderation and team alignment
A. Noise & Spam Control Readiness (0–12 pts)
| Criterion | Indicators of Excellence | Score |
|---|---|---|
| A1. Automated Spam & Abuse Filtering | Bots/filters handle spam, AI-slop detection, issue templates block junk. | 0–4 |
| A2. Workflow Hygiene in PRs & Issues | Clear routing rules; backlog pruning; stale automation; minimal manual triage. | 0–4 |
| A3. Contribution Qual |
B. Team Alignment on Moderation Practices (0–12 pts)
| Criterion | Indicators of Excellence | Score |
|---|---|---|
| B1. Defined Community Interaction Norms | Internal doc: what’s tolerated vs. ignored vs. actioned; consistent decisions. | 0–4 |
| B2. Moderation Roles & Responsibilities | Who triages what is clear; triage rotation or designated moderators. | 0–4 |
| B3. Low-Level Conflict Resolution | Playbooks for de-escalation and “nuisance contributor” handling. | 0–4 |
C. Escalation & Maintainer Protection (0–12 pts)
| Criterion | Indicators of Excellence | Score |
|---|---|---|
| C1. Defined Escalation Path | When routine moderation escalates to CoC enforcement, GitHub reports, or external help. | 0–4 |
| C2. Maintainer Safety Practices | Clear boundaries; avoid one-on-one confrontations; neutrality reminders. | 0–4 |
| C3. Decisions Documented Privately | Minimal internal notes stored securely; privacy respected; audit trail exists. | 0–4 |
D. Continuous Process Improvement (0–12 pts)
| Criterion | Indicators of Excellence | Score |
|---|---|---|
| D1. Monitoring Signals & Metrics | Spam rates, triage load, response times tracked to guide improvements. | 0–4 |
| D2. Tools & Scripts Are Updated | Automation tuned as spam tactics evolve; proactive adoption of new protections. | 0–4 |
| D3. Community Education & Preemptive Guidance | FAQs, proactive docs to reduce repetitive questions; templates evolve over time. | 0–4 |
✅ Total Score: / 48 pts
| Rating | Descriptor |
|---|---|
| 44–48 | Excellent — Maintainers shielded, chaos minimized |
| 36–43 | Strong — Manageable noise, rare overload |
| 24–35 | Adequate — Maintainers still burdened during spikes |
| 12–23 | Weak — Frequent chaos, burnout risk high |
| 0–11 | Not Viable — Maintainers overwhelmed; community degraded |
Reviewer Notes
- Top sources of noise:
- Risk of harm / stress to maintainers:
- Most impactful next improvements: