As we say goodbye to the old year and welcome the new one, we have a tradition of sharing moderation stats for the preceding calendar year.
As most of you here are aware, sites on the Stack Exchange network are moderated somewhat differently to other sites on the web:
We designed the Stack Exchange network engine to be mostly self-regulating, in that we amortize the overall moderation cost of the system across thousands of teeny-tiny slices of effort contributed by regular, everyday users.
-- A Theory of Moderation
That doesn't eliminate the need for having moderators altogether, but it does mean that the bulk of moderation work is carried out by regular folks. Every bit of time and effort y'all contribute to the site gives you access to more privileges you can use to help in this effort, all of which produce a cumulative effect that makes a big difference.
So as we say goodbye to 2022 (and where did January go, right?) and dive head first into 2023, let us look back at what we accomplished as a community... by looking at some exciting stats. Below is a breakdown of moderation actions performed on Hardware Recommendations over the past 12 months:
| Action |
Moderators |
Community1 |
| Answer flags handled |
53 |
33 |
| Answers flagged |
3 |
83 |
| Comment flags handled |
136 |
504 |
| Comments deleted? |
151 |
294 |
| Comments flagged |
13 |
627 |
| Posts bumped |
0 |
168 |
| Posts deleted? |
29 |
324 |
| Posts locked |
0 |
9 |
| Posts undeleted |
1 |
4 |
| Question flags handled? |
76 |
71 |
| Questions closed |
4 |
135 |
| Questions flagged? |
1 |
144 |
| Questions reopened |
0 |
6 |
| Tasks reviewed?: "Close votes" queue |
0 |
13 |
| Tasks reviewed?: "First answers" queue |
2 |
35 |
| Tasks reviewed?: "First questions" queue |
0 |
108 |
| Tasks reviewed?: "Late answers" queue |
2 |
3 |
| Tasks reviewed?: "Low quality posts" queue |
9 |
24 |
| Tasks reviewed?: "Reopen votes" queue |
0 |
3 |
| Tasks reviewed?: "Suggested edits" queue |
32 |
98 |
| Users contacted |
1 |
0 |
| Users destroyed3 |
3 |
0 |
| Users suspended2 |
1 |
20 |
Footnotes
1 "Community" here refers both to the membership of Hardware Recommendations without diamonds next to their names, and to the automated systems otherwise known as user #-1.
2 The system will suspend users under three circumstances: when a user is recreated after being previously suspended, when a user is recreated after being destroyed for spam or abuse, and when a network-wide suspension is in effect on an account.
3 A "destroyed" user is deleted along with all that they had posted: questions, answers, comments. Generally used as an expedient way of getting rid of spam.
? This counts every review that was submitted (not skipped) - so the 2 suggested edits reviews needed to approve an edit would count as 2, the goal being to indicate the frequency of moderation actions. This also applies to flags, etc.
? Includes close flags (but not close or reopen votes). Community can handle these flags by at least one person voting to close a question that has a close flag.
? This ignores numerous deletions that happen automatically in response to some other action.
? This includes comments deleted by their own authors (which also account for some number of handled comment flags).
Further reading:
Wishing everyone a happy 2023! ^_^
