As someone who’s been on forums of every stripe since the goddamn 80s, I can say with a great deal of experience that all good internet communities have just one single rule: “Don’t make us ban you.”

Anything else just invites edgy trolls and rules-lawyering.

Now don’t get me wrong, guidelines are good and necessary. Give people an idea of the kinds of thing you do and don’t want to see, and the way you will generally act in turn, because managing expectations is important.

But the moment you make hard-and-fast rules that you’re obliged to follow, people will make a point of bending you over them with edge cases and not cuddling afterwards, just because they can. They think denial-of-service attacks are just as hilarious against human systems as they are against software ones, if not moreso - or they do it to assert control as part of one personality disorder or another.

If you play their game, you will lose.

You need to have an admin-discretion clause, and not feel bad about invoking it whenever it’s the right thing to do.

Of course, this can lead to tyrannical asshole mods - if you have a mod team, you need to keep a close eye on it to prevent shitty personalities taking over in that domain. As the person that the buck stops with, if you can’t trust yourself with it, then the place is going to hell anyway.

[Warning: the following is my opinion, not some incontestable truth.]

It’s less about bending rules and more about enforcing them by spirit, not letter.

Reusing your example: I think that you did the right call there - sure, the post doesn’t “share” a cool website, but it’s still about one. It might not fit the letter of “find a cool or useful website on the internet. Share it here so others Lemmings can bookmark it too.”, but it’s still well within the overall spirit of the community, and why that rule is there on first place.

Another example: my comms often have a rule against off-topic, but if people start some friendly chitchat in the comments (they do it often) I leave them alone. Because the spirit of the rule is to avoid content that would derail the community, and that chitchat won’t do it.

You’ll often get rule lawyers trying to “mmm, ackshyually, the rule says that orange socks aren’t allowed, but my post has a reddish yellow sock”. That’s unavoidable even if you enforce rules by the letter; nothing ever written is completely unambiguous, there’s always some grounds for alternate interpretations. As such don’t feel discouraged by them.

Note however that what I’m saying does not mean that you should disregard the letter of the rules. Don’t - the rules should be still listed in a succinct and accurate way, both to guide your comms’ users and justify your actions; it’s a matter of transparency. Instead edit the written rules over time, to address issues that makes their letter betray their spirit.

Lemmy users disagree with everything and hate themselves publicly. Ignore them. Continue acting in good faith and always use your best judgment.

Folks will rage no matter what. Strict enforcement and you’re the fun police, lax and you’re letting it turn to shit.

Previous comments are spot on.

One thing I would add is that Lemmy is a particularly sensitive case, because we really want to encourage activity and growth at this stage. It pains me when communities without much activity get a meme post or something that makes it into /all and the mods remove it for being off-topic.

Overly strict moderation is one of the fastest ways to drive people away from a platform. Just follow your natural instincts and let people post what they want as long as it’s not harming anyone.

Go with your gut.

Source: I was a mod on /r/soccer for a while.

You won’t win this “battle”, no matter what you do. Being a mod is a thankless job, and you’ll piss people off regardless of which side you take. The only thing you can do is be fair and balanced. List your rules out, enforce mostly to the rules, but add common sense, and regularly check in with the community to get feedback.

Each to their own I’d say, but I’m all for rule bending.

I’ve always been up front about modding based on what I consider reasonable interpretation of the spirit of the rules combined with common sense. This means that some things that technically should or shouldn’t get deleted gets a treatment it wouldn’t get by strict interpretation of the rules in their literal meaning.

That being said, my interpretation of the rules may not necessarily conform with those of other mods, so I rarely complain if someone else decides to overrule me.

If u ban someone for something that isnt a rule then i recon at least update the rules to reflect the change

Don’t overthink it. I bend the rules in my communities quite often. The case that happens most often is somebody posting a duplicate of a news story. However, it is usually one or more days later and the new post usually picks up some comments from new people that didn’t comment on the previous post. I often let those slide. As long as people are trying to constructively engage in the community, then I give people the benefit of the doubt.

Should you moderate like a bot? No.

I’m human, your human, the community is made up of humans. Act like a reasonable human, and yes, you get to define what is reasonable.

If bots could mod, we would just have them mod, but that would suck.

In terms of rule bending, if it’s in good faith then let it go. If you want to remind someone, that’s fine.

Ask your community members how they want it moderated. You may not get agreement, but you should get a feel for the vibe of it. 😁