The code of conduct says what is expected of members. This charter says who enforces it: how those people are chosen, what they commit to, and how the role is taken away. It is public because moderation is only legitimate when its rules can be read before they are needed.
What kills small communities is rarely technical: it is moderation that is absent, arbitrary, or whose rules nobody knows. This charter was written before the first appointments, so that the rules precede the people.
Who moderates today
The team is currently just the site’s publisher (see the legal notice). The role is visible: a member’s public profile says whether they are a moderator.
How someone becomes a moderator
Nobody becomes a moderator without knowing it, or without having explicitly accepted. Appointments are decided by the publisher, on three criteria:
- seniority — an active member for at least three months;
- a clean record — no active sanction, and none in the past twelve months;
- manner — helping without crushing, debating without wounding. It is the criterion that matters most, and the only one that cannot be measured.
Volunteering is possible, through the email address in the legal notice. But the role is not claimed: an insistent application is, if anything, a signal against.
The availability commitment
Availability is not a promise on someone’s honour: the site measures it. If no moderator has been around for 72 hours, writing closes automatically — the chat, bios and ideas — until one of them returns. Nobody writes in a room that nobody is watching.
The commitment is therefore collective: that at least one moderator passes within every 72-hour window. Individually, a moderator has no duty of permanence — this is volunteer work. What is asked of them fits in one word: tell us, when they know they will be away for more than a week.
The tools, and their limits
A moderator can, gradually: delete a reported message, mute a member (30 days at most — beyond that, it would be a ban that dares not speak its name), and ban an account. A ban has no expiry: it is lifted by hand, never by neglect.
Three limits, held by the code as much as by this charter:
- everything is logged — every sanction carries the name of who issued it, its date, its duration and its reason;
- deleting hides, it does not erase — the text of a deleted message is kept, precisely so that an appeal remains possible. Only criminally serious content is actually erased, and that act is logged too;
- lifting a sanction closes it, never erases it — the log stays whole.
Conflicts of interest
A moderator does not handle a report that targets them, nor a dispute they are a party to. They leave it to someone else — to the publisher if there is nobody else. Sanctioning someone you personally disagree with is the most common abuse in small communities; it is the one this rule aims at.
Appealing a decision
Every moderation decision can be appealed, through the email address in the legal notice. The appeal is reviewed by someone other than the author of the decision, as soon as the team’s size allows it. This is why nothing is erased: you cannot review what has disappeared.
Revocation
The role is taken away the way it is given: by a reasoned decision of the publisher. Three grounds are provided for:
- abuse of the tools — a sanction without serious grounds, an ignored conflict of interest, use of the role in a personal dispute. In case of manifest abuse, the tools are removed immediately; the conversation happens afterwards;
- silent inactivity — three months without passing by and without a word. Being away is not a fault; saying nothing about it is a small one;
- a breach of the code of conduct — the members’ rules apply to moderators first.
A revoked person becomes an ordinary member again, with no other consequence. The sanctions they issued remain in force — they belong to the community, not to them — and the log keeps their name.
This charter can evolve
Same rule as the code of conduct: the dated version online is authoritative. Any significant change will be announced.