Positive Online Communities: observations on supporting youth interaction

Online conversation moderation and facilitation should be comprehensively and strategically designed from the outset, considering not only the ideal community norms and behavior, as well as anticipating the consequences for bad actors and inappropriate behavior. Policies for both community norms and consequences of negative activity should be clearly outlined for all users; in several cases, platforms encountered unexpected incidents, and when consequences were created and instituted after the incident, users reacted badly, perceiving the situation to be unfair and arbitrary. Thoughtful moderation policies are needed for all platforms, but there are a number of issues which are specific to youth. For example, moderation is often held to a higher standard, and a platform may need to make decisions about whether and how to involve a parent/guardian of a user. And when focusing on younger users, remember that there are specific kinds of emotional and friendship issues, depending on the age of the user.

Individual vs. Group 
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Release Date 
August, 2015