Moderation boundaries

Status: placeholder. This guide will be written before launch.

Calendar owners moderate their own calendars — they handle visitor reports on their events, decide who their editors are, set the tone for what they publish. Instance admins handle things calendar owners can't: instance-wide issues, problems with a calendar owner themselves, escalations. The boundary matters, and reaching across it carelessly is one of the fastest ways to lose calendar owners' trust.

Planned scope

• The default rule: calendar owners handle their own calendars. Admins don't reach in over an owner's head except in specific cases
• The "specific cases" that justify admin reach-in: the calendar owner is unresponsive and the issue is time-sensitive, the calendar owner is themselves the problem, legal requirements (the rare-but-real category)
• The escalation path the other direction: when a calendar owner asks for admin help. What you can do for them (suspend an external follower, defederate an instance, take action on a local user reporting their calendars maliciously), what you can't do for them (moderate their own events for them — that's the whole point of giving them a calendar)
• The conversation that has to happen before action: even when you're going to override a calendar owner, talk to them first if you can. The five-minute conversation prevents the six-month resentment
• The distinction between "the calendar is doing something I disagree with" and "the calendar is violating policy." The first is a conversation; the second is an action. Confusing them erodes the policy
• Documenting admin moderation actions. Not for performance — for consistency. The fourth time you make a call, you'll want to know how you made the first three