This week we revealed the many benefits of becoming a Moderator. Today we explain what being a Moderator means for you. #FeatureFriday

Note: For a more detailed overview of the company, including how CS works and its relationship with PLG, consult our white paper. Acquiring CS, and thus becoming a Moderator, is not available to US persons.

Overview

On Pledgecamp, Moderators are the ones who enforce the community standards of the platform. In this way, quality control is done in a decentralized way, not by any centralized authority (i.e. us).

Moderators earn this role by demonstrating a significant stake in the platform. Currently, 100,000 PLG are required. To indicate your interest, please fill out this form.

Pledgecamp’s Token Economy is designed to reward these important Moderators for their work with a monthly “retainer”. In short, all the listing fees collected by the platform in a month are divided among Moderators proportionally to the size of their stake. For details, consult our white paper.

How Moderation Works

Okay, so you’ve read this post and you’re excited to be a Moderator. You now might be wondering, “what kind of work do I actually have to do?”

In reality, the first step in platform moderation begins not with Moderators, but with the community as a whole.

1. Project is Flagged for Violations

Every crowdfunding campaign that lists on Pledgecamp features a button that allows any community member to “flag” a campaign for being in violation of the company rules. These include projects that are clearly illegal, indecent, fraudulent, and deceptive.

2. Enough Flags are Triggered to Begin Moderation

They say that two is a coincidence and three is a pattern. In a similar way, a project must reach a threshold of flags (based on a balance of frequency and quantity) before the project is sent to Moderators.

This is an example email with fake campaign details that a Moderator might receive.

A total of 12 Moderators are randomly chosen out of the entire pool of available Moderators. You may think of this like a random “jury” selection of peers who will evaluate the case. If the pool of Moderatos is large, and the number of violations is as low as we project (<1% of all projects), the number of cases any individual Moderator must review may be few.

On Pledgecamp, each Moderator does not know who the others are to prevent collusion, and has 48 hours to vote.

3. Moderator Reviews the Project

“Voting mode” for Moderators. Campaign continues as normal to all other users until a verdict is reached.

After the Moderator clicks through the email, they will see a special view of the page that includes a “Moderator Toolbar” fixed at the top.

This toolbar contains the specific violation that the Moderator is instructed to check for, as well as a simple “yes” or “no” voting option. As a reminder, projects are not flagged and moderated on the basis of whether they are “good ideas” or have good business plans.

They are simple yes or no questions of whether the projects is clearly violating community rules that can harm the platform as a whole.

For more information, the Moderator is instructed to view the project comments section to see the community discussion. Users who flagged the project in the first place are required to comment their reasoning publicly on the page, giving the project creator the chance to explain and defend themselves, and giving the Moderators more context with which to make their decisions. Moderators are NOT able to comment or communicate each other during this blind voting period.

4. Consensus is Reached and Action Taken

Consensus is achieved as soon as at least 7 out of the 12 Moderators (simple majority) have agreed on the same direction.

Notification you will see after voting.

If Moderators agree that “No”, the project is not guilty of the flagged violation, the project will continue as normal. It cannot be Moderated for the same violation again (no double jeopardy).

If Moderators agree “Yes” (as would be the case for the hypothetical example in these pictures), the campaign will be immediately cancelled. No funds will be collected from investors so no harm will be done. The project will be marked as “cancelled” and preserved for the sake of transparency.

If 48 hours have elapsed and not enough Moderators have voted, they will be replaced by new random Moderators until consensus is reached. (Moderators who fail to do their duty will be given a strike — three strikes and they will be suspended).