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.

Ignore any downvotes and do what you think is right. I’ve also been downvoted multiple times for posting good and helpful ideas. That’s just how this place works.

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

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.

The way I moderate, is to be unashamedly selfish, with a sprinkling of impartiality.

Basically, I do whatever I would want “the mods” to do if I were a user. Obviously, there are other users, but since the point of me bothering with the whole thing is to facilitate the kind of activity I personally enjoy, considerations for people who want my communities to be something different, is simply not a priority.

Unless I joined a mod team that existed already, I decide.

If someone complains or has a suggestion, I do make an effort to actually consider what they are saying, but then I still decide what will or won’t happen. I’m doing the work in order to have communities I actually like, not the adoration of a bunch of thankful users. If you compromise on the former for the latter, why even put in the effort? Either way, there will be a set of people who like what you do, and a set of people don’t. So why please other people at the expense of pleasing yourself?

Unless you actually open things up to be voted on, the goal is to be a benevolent dictator. You can’t please everyone, but that doesn’t mean you have to make yourself one of the unhappy ones. You may be a mod, but we’re ALL users. That means what you want to do, even as a mod, matters too.

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.

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.

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

One thing to be careful with allowing some bending of the rules, is some are going to start testing how far they can bend the rules. Everytime you bend a rule you create a precedent for it as well, and you get into nasty fights of why was I banned but not them and have your clemency hit you right back in the face.

If it’s okay to bend some rules, then that should explicitly be the rule instead. Offtopic discussions for example, you can have a rule be “all top level comments should be on topic” as a balance, so offtopic discussions can happen, just not take over the whole comment section. If you allow something, make a mod comment explaining why for transparency and set the right expectations: “This post is off-topic but is generating on-topic discussion so we’re keeping it.”

Similarly, well designed punishments goes a long way. For example, automatic ban after N warnings can be unfair. What you’re really after is, you don’t want to be warning that user every day to stay on topic. So the punishment can be more like “more than 3 warnings within 10 days results in a 7 day ban”. But sometimes the situation is such, you can rack in 10 warnings in the same threads. So you can make the punishment account for that: “If you get warned more than 3 times during a 14 day period, you will be banned for 7 days”. Or per thread, whatever makes sense. Understand common mistakes community members do and how you can steer them in the right direction without being unnecessarily harsh.

With those two combined, it shouldn’t matter if you moderate like a robot or not. The expectations are clear, forgiving and fair while enforcing some order for repeat offenders. The rules have the flexibility you need baked in so you don’t have to bend the rules.

Go with your gut.

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.

I usually lock posts that violate rule 5, for example. But usually remove ones that violate rule 1,3 or 4.

As a fellow lemmy mod, I think that the post you mentioned that is about archive.org recovering should have been removed, because it just does not fit the theme of the community, regardless of whether it was made in good faith or not. You also shouldn’t always rely on what the members of the community say, you need to have your own judgement as a mod and make rational decisions.

The problem with bending established rules is that you now own that behavior and condone it.

That being said and as others have noted, it might help to give yourself some wiggle room in the rules.

You might also want to think about creating a moderation team so you’ve got a group of people to bounce ideas off of. Acting unilaterally against what most of your community wants generally kills most communities.