A Moderator's Life

Hey there!

I know that @MGleason posted a forum about the day and life of a moderator but I would like some real info. What is it like? I may consider it but I don't know...

Interesting…!

Woah! That was fast Deflection!

We have moderators from all walks of life. Some of us are (university) students, employees in all kinds of fields, stay-at-home moms&dads, a few chess masters, as well as some retirees.

So first and foremost the day of a moderator is mostly just a normal person's day. Many of us play and study a lot of chess. I aspire to become a CM one day, and aim to play at least 50 classical OTB games, for example. We spend time with our families and loved ones.

As volunteers, moderators don't have any fixed work demands, and don't need to moderate when they don't feel like it. I'd guess most of us spend between a couple of minutes and an hour or two per day on moderation. But tbh, if I'm playing in a multi-day tournament with two classical games per day, I might not do any moderation during that time.

Moderators specialize on various chess.com services:

• These forums
• Offensive users (e.g. inappropriate profile pictures)
• Various twitch channels
• Various YouTube channels
• the official discord
• the /r/chesscom reddit

For example, 80% of my moderation is in the discord. All of these services have their own systems for user reports. For example, in the discord our users can ping Server Mod, which notifies a mod. Here on chess.com there are Report buttons. On twitch and YouTube it's more real-time.

But of course, we also action if we see something. Whenever I'm in the forums I scan the Most Recent sidebar for obvious spam. In the discord, I'm primarily active in the #improvement-talk channel, where we enforce a very strict conduct focused on improvement. If there are any violations, I will frequently see it before any member reports it.

When I'm watching a streamer encountering some problems, I can action that too.

Moderation is not only deleting or editing content and punishing offenders. Many times we're helping newcomers or users with various problems. We're welcoming people. Writing posts like this one. And oftentimes, we are just playing chess and engaging with the chess community. I frequently analyze games or discuss improvement in our discord, for instance.

We also have special moderator events. We have regular moderator hangout days where we play a chess arena or other games and talk about moderation, open problems, new policy and the like.

We are playing a votechess match against our discord community (and in my personal opinion we're holding our own).

Some of us went to twitchCon in the last years and helped set up the booth, organize giveaways and other activities, and played chess against anyone who was looking for an opponent.

I recently met two of my fellow moderators at an OTB tournament. We analyzed all of our games without an engine to improve our evaluation & calculation skill and give feedback to each other. My fellow moderators were woeful about only winning 20 or 30 FIDE rating points, whereas I was reasonably happy despite losing 20 .

If you are at least 18 years old and interested in becoming a chess.com moderator, consider applying at https://www.chess.com/forum/view/community/the-chess-community-needs-you.

Just to be clear, 80% of my moderation is in the discord. Most moderators aren't active in the discord at all. I don't moderate twitch nor YouTube for example. Another moderator might be active on both twitch and YouTube, or just in the forums, etc. .

I'm very active in the discord, and at the time it was quite rowdy. Becoming a moderator allowed me to handle that. Also, if there is a cheater in an arena or so, moderators have at least some tools. (But I am not a member of the Fair Play team.)

I'm proud to say that these days, the discord is very much focused on chess and serious chess improvement.

I wouldn't say a lot. For a while I spent a lot of time moderating. My chess and other hobbies suffered a bit. These days, it's only 1-2 hours per day, and I try to keep it within that limit.

I collected the funniest appeals in the discord!

The runner-up in 2024 was:

The winner of 2024 was:

And of course I very much enjoy joking around with my fellow moderators.

I don't moderate on Discord and only do things on site. I spend about 4 hours a day, most days doing various things, about 60% directly mod related. Usually early mornings and in the evenings, with occasional visits and short moderation stints during breaks in my day.

Thank you for the clarification, I appreciate both your's and Martin_Stahl's information. Thank you!

Sorry, another thing: do you get to choose what you moderate? Or do the staff ask you to moderator certain parts? (I really love forums but would not want to moderator the Discord)

Moderators choose what they moderate generally.

Hi,

I'm a discord and Site moderator ,I been doing it for about 3 years now and my old name was stumpyblitzer as what I was known for,

I spend time dealing with forums and usually spend an hour every few days unless someone messages me and needs assistance in that time ,

I do it to keep the community together and try and keep forums and discord enjoyable for you all,

Most of all I enjoy it and meeting new people ,

Thanks all

If you dont mind me asking, would you say that this job or hobby, affects you somehow personally or your personal life, by what you see here or have to do? And if yes, how do you cope with it or dont get so affected?

That sounds great, but I have a question about that: how many moderators are allowed to moderate one thing at once, and if there is a limit, or not, why?

Sometimes multiple moderators might be handling the same individual content at the same time (I occasionally have it happen). Otherwise there's always chance multiple moderators are in the forums at the same time doing moderator related things.

Other than that moderators do what they can, when they can.

Due to the much lower age of the average discord member, I'm always up-to-date on the latest youth lingo

It is true that moderators sometimes see quite inappropriate images, at least in the forums and when handling avatars. However, that is the exception. Personally, while I'd rather not have the memory, I forget these experiences pretty quickly and it doesn't haunt me.

Other than that, it's all text, and the vast, vast majority is just nonsense, people writing EZ in daily puzzles, spammer, cheaters, and the occasional Nazi. Not nice people, but nothing I lose sleep about – especially knowing that I made the chess communities I am in a safer place.

I'd love to be a moderator when I'm 18. It seems like a fun experience to keep the community safe and to make change happen within the site. I think I could do a lot of good for chess.com, especially within the forums, where I'm very active. I've found that I have a real connection to the community and think that it would be great to be a moderator or staff member later on. Thanks to all the mods who shared their story here, as it was very interesting to read what a day in the life of a mod was like. Hopefully I can join some of you in around three years!

I'd say a lot (seeing how many moderators are on this forum lol)