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While most moderation actions on major social platforms are performed by either the platforms themselves or volunteer moderators, it is rare for platforms to collaborate directly with moderators to address problems. This paper examines how the group-chatting platform Discord coordinated with experienced volunteer moderators to respond to hate and harassment toward LGBTQ+ communities during Pride Month, June 2021, in what came to be known as the "Pride Mod" initiative. Representatives from Discord and volunteer moderators collaboratively identified and communicated with targeted communities, and volunteers temporarily joined servers that requested support to supplement those servers' existing volunteer moderation teams. Though LGBTQ+ communities were subject to a wave of targeted hate during Pride Month, the communities that received the requested volunteer support reported having a better capacity to handle the issues that arose. This paper reports the results of interviews with 11 moderators who participated in the initiative as well as the Discord employee who coordinated it. We show how this initiative was made possible by the way Discord has cultivated trust and built formal connections with its most active volunteers, and discuss the ethical implications of formal collaborations between for-profit platforms and volunteer users.
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Retiree Volunteerism: Automating "Word of Mouth" Communication
Many retired people engage in volunteer opportunities as a means to give back to their communities, stay physically and intellectually active, and build and expand their social networks. However, our semi-structured interviews of six retirees found that they typically avoid searching for volunteer opportunities through websites and social media due to a lack of trust in those tools and a concern for privacy. Instead, they rely on word-of-mouth communication facilitated through emails with individuals and organizations they trust. To support this type of communication, we designed an adaptive interaction mechanism in the form of a newsletter with volunteer opportunities that are personalized using recommender system technology. The newsletter mechanism leverages personal connections through user-defined preference-based communities that allow users to share volunteer opportunities with their peers.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2045153
- PAR ID:
- 10402475
- Editor(s):
- Smith-Renner, A.; Taele, P.
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- CEUR workshop proceedings
- Volume:
- 3359
- ISSN:
- 1613-0073
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 216-223
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
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- The DOI is not currently available.
