Moderation

New members, rules & regulations

In online communities, Baym (2010, p. 117) asserts that power structures are present. In the case of the Pokémon Go Sydney community, these power structures are ‘explicit and built into the group’s […] structure’ (p. 117), upheld by moderators who ‘make sure that the rules of an internet discussion are not broken’ (Cambridge Dictionary n.d., para. 4). Pokémon Go Sydney’s presence on Facebook, Reddit and Discord are all adminned by various moderators.

The Pokémon Go Sydney Facebook private group requires that prospective members send a request to join, and complete a series of questions which request information such as city residence, and if one agrees to respect fellow members. Moderators sift through these requests and accept new members as they see fit. This group is moderated by two people, Melissa She and Ankido Khoshaba, whom both live in Sydney. They engage with other members and ensure that the rules of the group are enforced. These rules discourage advertisement, bullying, and inappropriate content, and can be found in the ‘About’ section of the group.

A member’s Reddit identity is linked to their Discord account, where members are placed into a team by a moderator. Membership allows access to group chats where discussion held by fellow team members takes place. Eight moderators administer the subreddit, one of which is a bot. These moderators were last active within the community two years ago. Moreover, there are no written or established rules specific to the community; rather, members uphold ‘Reddiquette’ (Reddit (b) 2018), a set of manners laid out by the platform’s creators. Twitter users are inherently moderated by the platform’s Terms of Service (Twitter 2018), too.

On Discord, some rules apply; these are presented in the Welcome Guide, and discourage spam, harassment, misinformation, and dangerous or illegal activity. Members can also find information about how to assign oneself to a team; how to include and find the community in-game; and bot commands. The two most active moderators on this platform are Lizardman8891 and Straw|MyFishDrownd. Lizardman8891 presents almost all announcements and events.