Charged Topics

Some topics on Hachyderm generate dialog that fractures faster than it builds. What counts as charged shifts over time, and what’s calm in one corner of the community may be inflamed in another. Rather than maintain a list of specific topics, this doc describes the shape of charged content and how we ask the community to engage with it.

What makes a topic charged

A topic is charged when the pattern of engagement around it tends to fracture rather than build. The content itself may or may not even be a problem. People hold a wide range of views on most things, and disagreement is part of a healthy community. What matters is the interpersonal pattern: emotional stakes high enough that good-faith engagement degrades quickly, replies that escalate rather than respond, and dialog that pulls people apart rather than into conversation.

Charged topics can be short-term or long-term. Short-term ones spike around a specific event, such as a release, an announcement, or an incident, and fade as the event recedes. Long-term ones may create sustained community fractures or topics that stay in headlines over months or years. Both follow the same pattern of engagement degrading under emotional load; the difference is how long the spike lasts and what kind of attention it needs from moderation, if any.

What we ask of you

The core ask is the same as the rest of Hachyderm, applied with extra care: engage with care for both the community and the person on the other end, or don’t engage. Disagreement is fine. Contempt, dismissiveness, and pile-ons are not. When a reply lands wrong, ask whether you’re responding to the person or to the position, and if it’s the position, consider whether engaging will move the conversation forward or accelerate fracture.

Stepping back is usually the strongest move when a thread is pulling you toward a reply you’ll regret. Mute the thread, report what needs reporting as needed or desired. Retaliation, even justified retaliation, tends to worsen situations rather than resolve them. Stepping back from a thread isn’t the same as stepping back from the issue; our Community Care in Online Spaces series explores channeling that energy and what we want it to achieve.

Reach amplifies both helpful and harmful engagement, so accounts with reach carry more responsibility for restraint. This includes entity accounts, which encompass a variety of accounts including those representing businesses, organizations, or projects. See our entity account expectations for more on this.

Moderation here responds to patterns of engagement, not to positions. Holding a strong position on a charged topic isn’t a moderation concern; responding in ways that harms others is, regardless of the position the response is defending. Harm received and harm caused are tracked separately. Report harmful engagement when you encounter it; responding in kind creates a second pattern for us to address rather than resolving the first.

How we moderate

Reports about charged situations get a closer look than ordinary reports. The moderation team examines the pattern of engagement around the report, not only individual rule violations. A thread can degrade into harm even when no single message crosses a line, and we treat that pattern itself as the thing to address.

On charged topics, you can expect:

• More active attention from the moderation team, particularly during spikes in activity.
• Ligher touch actions than on ordinary disputes as early as possible, with moderators working to defuse situations before they escalate and to de-escalate them when they already have. This can, and frequently does, involve temporary limits or freezes in an attempt to slow down an escalating conflict as well as other temporary actions.
• The standard rules applied more rigorously, not less. “Don’t Be A Dick” applies most when it’s hardest to follow.

Reports are how we know what’s escalating. As much as possible, please report engagement that’s harming the community, yours or someone else’s, rather than escalating it. We’d rather receive a report we don’t need to act on than miss a pattern we should have caught.

If you’ve been moderated

Moderation during charged moments can feel disproportionate, especially when the feelings driving the engagement are strong. A few things worth knowing:

Moderation actions on Hachyderm are reversible. Local actions come with an email explaining what the action is, what triggered it, and what to expect, including whether it’s time-bound and what the path forward looks like. Our Actions and Appeals page covers the appeals process if you’d like to appeal a decision.

Moderation actions don’t federate, so remote users won’t receive any notifications. (This is expected functionality of Mastodon, not a Hachyderm limitation.) To find out whether an action is temporary or permanent, or what next steps are available, please email us at admin@hachyderm.io. We don’t address moderation inquiries through tags or direct messages; those channels aren’t suited to the care these situations need. If you’d prefer to go through your local moderation team instead, we’re happy to correspond with them as well.

These situations resolve fastest through direct communication, especially when the topic that prompted the action is still active. Continuing the same public engagement during the resolution process tends to slow things down rather than speed them up.

We don’t share specifics about individual moderation situations, but the doc above describes how we approach charged topics and what we hope to see from the community. By working together we can have healthy spaces that support both agreement and, even heated, disagreement.