Tips on channel moderation from an old-school forum mod who got started in the 1990s:

Good moderation can't be done on autopilot. It requires a lot of skilled labor and care (much of which is invisible and largely thankless). 

Tools + agents are great, but they're not a replacement for hands-on work by humans with 

1) strong community-building skills, and 
2) a clear vision for what the channel can be. 

If you want a top-notch community-driven channel and you've already defined a clear vision for it, then consider enlisting paid moderators + curators to:

- establish and model channel norms 
- regularly cast good content
- maintain a high signal-to-noise ratio
- curate casts into the main channel feed
- monitor the channel for spammy casts
- report + ban repeat violators
- encourage people to participate and engage with one another
- recognize exemplary casts (like, recast)
- respond to comments and answer member questions in a timely fashion

FC has some good channels already. Looking forward to more.

microsub.

Writer, senior editor, music nerd, GenX eldergoth, monastery-bootstrapper. https://paragraph.xyz/@danicaswanson https://tinyurl.com/Black-Stone-Wordsmith