Wikipedia:Meetup/NYC/Discord/Moderators

This is a guide for people with advanced permissions on the Wikimedia New York City Discord server. See Wikipedia:Meetup/NYC/Discord for other information.

Current active moderators

As of December 7, 2023:

Differences between roles

Most roles (aka user levels, user rights, etc.) determine access to channels. So event channels are limited to people in the "member" role (or specific "attendee" role), planning channels limited to people in the "organizer" role, etc. The "moderator" role grants access to all channels.

The "board" role initially was similar to "moderator," but is now primarily just a way to signal to other users who the board members are.

The "moderator" role has the ability to kick and/or ban users, delete messages, create channels, maintain channels, create invitations, and create events.

Kicking, banning, and deleting messages

The Wikimedia New York City Code of Conduct applies to the Discord space. Moderators can kick (remove from the server) and/or ban (prevent from joining the server in the future) users to enforce the Code of Conduct or otherwise ensure a positive experience. Moderators can also delete [potentially harmful] messages.

We do not, as yet, have a written policy on when it is ok to use these tools, and they were not necessary at all in the first year of operation. Unless it's a particularly egregious instance which demands immediate action, it is probably prudent to discuss with others in the #moderators channel first or via DM.

Please be careful! Kicking/banning is as straightforward as right-clicking a user and selecting the action. Deleting a message is as simple as clicking a message, selecting "..." and then "delete message".

Note that there is also an option to "block" -- this is unrelated, and something everyone has access to. Blocking just makes it so you can't see messages from that user anymore; it doesn't affect a user's ability to send messages to others or to channels.

Channel maintenance

Moderators can create and delete channels. The server uses some complicated combinations of roles and permissions, so please clone channels rather than create new ones whenever possible! Select the channel with permissions/access most like the channel you would like to create, right-click it in the channel list, and select "clone". In general, please be conservative in channel creation, and when in doubt check with other moderators to see if it's a good idea.

Please don't delete channels except where entirely uncontroversial. Whereas Slack has an option to "archive" a channel (preserve visibility while restricting the ability to type in it), Discord only has deletion. So only delete channels if, for example, you created it for testing purposes or if it was intended to support an edit-a-thon that was ultimately canceled.

Old channels can be archived. That means changing the permissions so that only moderators can see it and moving it to the "archive" channel group. Archiving instead of deleting preserves the history and allows it to be recovered down the road if necessary.

Creating invitations

The ability to create invitations is restricted to moderators. By default, use the invite posted to Wikipedia:Meetup/NYC/Discord. It has no expiration date and brings people directly to #welcome. This creates a central point of control in case of, say, a raid. Rather than track down all invitations, it's just a matter of disabling that one.

Event-specific channels and invitations

There may be times when we want to invite people directly to a channel dedicated to a particular event, or a channel dedicated to planning an event. These should be rare. Most of the time, it's best to use the main invitation, ensuring that everyone authenticates and joins the main WikiNYC Discord community. Once they do this, you can always manually add them to whatever role and/or channel you want.

Use a dedicated invitation only when: (a) most attendees are unlikely to already have Wikimedia accounts, such that requiring authentication may erect a barrier to participation, and/or (b) the attendees are not prospective members of the WikiNYC community.

Process for creating event-specific channels

Clone #example-event and give it a relevant new name.
Go to server settings → Roles. Create a new role along the lines of eventname-participant (or eventname-organizer if creating an organizing channel). Do not change the default permissions (none). Drag it so it appears with the other "participant" roles (below "authenticated" and above "pronoun picker").
Back in the channel list, right-click your new channel and "invite people". Copy the invitation link.
Go to #bot-commands and issue this command: ~invrole connect https://discord.gg/yourinvitecode @yournewrole

Again, in general these channels should be rare. We want people to authenticate, and we want people to join the rest of the WikiNYC Discord.

Creating events

Moderators can create and modify events, which function like calendar alerts visible at the top of the channel list. Events should be connected to WikiNYC events or Wikimedia-related events the WikiNYC community would be interested in (such as workshops and lectures organized by the Wikimedia Foundation).