Coordination and Collaboration: How do Volunteer Moderators Work as a Team in Live Streaming Communities?

TL;DR

This study explores how volunteer moderators on Twitch collaborate through various communication modes and informal practices to develop standards and manage harmful content, revealing effective team dynamics.

Contribution

It provides an in-depth analysis of team collaboration processes among volunteer mods, highlighting the role of multimodal communication and informality in their teamwork.

Findings

Mods collaborate through off-stream coordination and in-stream real-time efforts.

Relationship building reinforces collaboration and community norms.

Multimodal communication and informality facilitate effective moderation teamwork.

Abstract

Volunteer moderators (mods) play significant roles in developing moderation standards and dealing with harmful content in their micro-communities. However, little work explores how volunteer mods work as a team. In line with prior work about understanding volunteer moderation, we interview 40 volunteer mods on Twitch - a leading live streaming platform. We identify how mods collaborate on tasks (off-streaming coordination and preparation, in-stream real-time collaboration, and relationship building both off-stream and in-stream to reinforce collaboration) and how mods contribute to moderation standards (collaboratively working on the community rulebook and individually shaping community norms). We uncover how volunteer mods work as an effective team. We also discuss how the affordances of multi-modal communication and informality of volunteer moderation contribute to task collaboration, standards development, and mod's roles and responsibilities.