Guide: Moderation of event comments threads for organisers

Welcome to your new role as an active host! At JOYclub, an event is much more than just a date on the calendar: It’s the promise of a good time.

As the organiser, you lay the foundations for the experience well before the event even happens. Your tact and sensitivity determine whether guests feel welcome – and at JOYclub, this process often begins online. One key tool at your disposal is the event comments thread. It serves various purposes:

• Before the event: To provide information to interested people, to answer any questions, and to build anticipation by creating a shared sense of positivity.

• After the event: To support participants in “coming back down to Earth” and to provide a space for constructive feedback and discussion about their experiences.

The moderator rights you now have will enable you to actively and independently shape the conversational culture around your event.

This guide will help you decide with confidence when to intervene and how to ensure the quality of your thread.

1. Our common ground

At JOYclub, respect, consent and openness are our top priorities. Your role is not to suppress unwelcome opinions, but to steer the discussion in such a way that constructive conversation can happen. You protect the chat from disruptions, ensuring that all guests feel at ease in your digital space.

The following tips will help you to remain confident, even in delicate situations:

• Relaxed attitude: Rise above it. As the host, you should neither allow yourself to be provoked nor provoke others yourself. Composure is your best tool.
• Confidence in giving constructive feedback: Not all criticism is an attack. Objective feedback on your event is a valuable contribution. Don’t react to it by deleting posts. Respond with facts and openness. A confident “Thank you for your feedback; we’ll look into it for next time” often works wonders and reinforces your credibility as a professional organiser.
• A friendly reminder: Often, a friendly comment with a wink is enough to steer a wayward discussion back on track before any action needs to be taken.
• Communication regarding individual deletions: If you delete a single, specific post, briefly inform the author of your reasons via ClubMail. This avoids any sense of arbitrariness.
• Provide transparency through moderator posts: People may not always understand moderators’ decisions right away. If you’re deleting a large number of posts (e.g. if there are many off-topic posts), it’s a good idea to post a public moderator’s note in the thread. Posts like these provide transparency, briefly explain your actions and set out the framework for where the thread will go from here.
• Neutrality and de-escalation: Treat all participants equally. Your job is to calm things down and promote balance, not to add fuel to the flames.

• Transparency rather than arbitrariness: To keep deletions fair, always ensure you make them on objective grounds (e.g. a breach of netiquette or a lack of relevance to the topic). That way, all members feel they are being treated fairly.

  If a moderator is proven to have behaved arbitrarily or abused their rights, JOYclub reserves the right to take measures to protect the community.

2. What guidance is available to help you with moderating?

Your guidelines are the same rules that the JOY team follows when moderating. We rely on your active support. Obvious breaches of the rules should be reviewed and moderated within 48 hours.

These breaches are based on our https://support.joyclub.com/hc/en-gb/articles/360021247219-Community-Guide and https://www.joyclub.com/en/nutzungsbedingungen/#i6_prohibited_content. In your thread, you’ll need to moderate posts with the following content:

• Personal attacks and provocations: Communication should always be polite. There’s no place for malice or discrimination in our community. Criticism of the event must remain respectful; personal differences between members shouldn’t be discussed in the event thread. If they are, you can ask people to take the conversation to ClubMail.
• Discussion of moderation decisions: Posts that publicly criticise your moderation in the thread are a distraction from the topic. You can delete them. If users have any questions, offer to provide clarification via ClubMail.
• Private content and data: Protecting privacy (e.g. real names, telephone numbers) is our top priority. Such data or private chat histories shared without consent must be removed immediately.
• Politics, advertising and spam: Your thread is a sex-positive space for your event, not a platform for political propaganda, religion or third-party advertising by other organisers.
• Health risks and sex work: Posts that promote drugs, encourage the practice of unprotected sex or offer sexual services are not permitted.
• Content that breaches criminal law: In the event of any breaches of applicable law, please delete the content immediately and ensure you inform the JOY team by submitting a support message directly from the content concerned.
• Dealing with topical relevance (off-topic content): An event thread thrives on interaction. A shared sense of positivity, anticipation and even the occasional private chat amongst guests are all expressly encouraged and help to create a good atmosphere. You should only step in to moderate if the actual topic (information about the event) is completely overshadowed by entirely unrelated discussions, or if it becomes difficult for other interested parties to follow the thread. In such cases, you may remove posts or politely suggest that more in-depth private conversations be moved to the group chat or the ClubMail inbox.

3. Moderation etiquette: it's not (just) what you say, but how you say it

Before you use moderation tools, remember that communication is your most important instrument. Your aim is to actively moderate the tone of the thread, not just manage the content.

• Being active and present: A moderated chat room feels safer for guests. Reply to questions promptly and use the “Thank you” button to express your appreciation for positive contributions. If members see that you, as the organiser, are paying close attention to what’s being said, they’ll be less likely to cause trouble.

• The power of first-person phrasing: Avoid using second-person phrasing (“You’re disrupting things”, “You’re off topic”), as these often provoke defensive reactions. Instead, use wording from your perspective as host:

  1. Instead of: “Stop arguing about politics!”
  2. It’s better to say: “I’d like us to focus on the build-up and the details of my event in this thread.”

  De-escalation through redirection: If a discussion is worthwhile but doesn’t fit in your event thread, don’t just delete it. Suggest an alternative: “That’s an interesting topic, but it’s getting a bit too cluttered here in the event thread. Please feel free to start a separate post about this in our event group.”

  Set boundaries using the “sandwich technique”: If you need to reprimand someone, frame your criticism in a positive way:

  1. Confirmation: “Thank you for your interest in my event…”
  2. Boundary: “…however, your choice of words here is a bit too harsh…”
  3. Appeal: “…please stay objective so that we all have a good time together.”

  Confident silence: Not every comment requires a response. Provocative “trolls” thrive on your attention. In terms of moderation, it’s sometimes wiser simply to leave a crude provocation unchallenged, provided it doesn’t breach any rules. The community often sorts things out for itself.

4. Your technical tools

There are specific tools available to help you make your thread safe and appealing. As you can’t edit the content of other members’ posts, it’s important to use these tools judiciously. Please note: Technical restrictions are a last resort and should only be used when communication and individual deletions are no longer working.

• Removing posts: Deletion is your primary tool for obvious breaches of the rules, such as insults, spam and the publication of private data. Use your judgement here. To ensure transparency for all readers, it’s advisable to post a brief moderator’s message when performing large-scale deletions (see point 1).
• Closing a thread (lock function): This feature is your “emergency brake”. Only use it if a discussion escalates despite your moderator’s guidance, or once all relevant information has been shared. Ideally, give a short amount of notice of the closure in the thread so that participants can understand the reason for the shutdown (e.g. “I’m closing the thread temporarily so everyone can cool off”).
• Temporarily banning members from the thread: If, despite your polite reminders and the deletion of their posts, certain individuals continue to cause disruption, you can temporarily exclude them from actively participating in your thread. This measure should only be taken if direct communication – either publicly or via ClubMail – has failed to bring about any improvement. The ban is temporary and is intended to de-escalate the situation immediately.

5. Working together for the community: when we support you

Moderation is a team effort. You’re the first point of contact in your thread, but you don’t have to deal with difficult situations on your own. In the following cases, you should hand over the responsibility to the JOY team:

• Security and protection of community values: As soon as post issues stray from the bounds of netiquette and start to breach applicable law or our sex-positive core values, swift action is required. This includes content where the law may be breached, such as specific threats, stalking, defamation or the publication of private data or images without consent, as well as serious offences such as discrimination, hate speech or the promotion of non-consensual practices.

Please report such posts to the Support team before deleting them. They will then assess whether further action is required (e.g. legal action or platform bans) to protect the community.

• Systematic trolling and sabotage: If you notice that a member is not interested in a discussion but is deliberately and repeatedly disrupting your event planning, discrediting you personally or systematically spoiling the atmosphere (“trolling”), please let us know. We will then look into platform-wide measures that go beyond your individual thread.
• Feeling overwhelmed and uncertain about your decisions: Moderating can be emotionally stressful. If you’re unsure whether deletion is justified, or if a dispute in the thread is causing you personal distress, please contact the Support team. We’ll help you assess the situation and support you in your decisions.
• Explicit deletion requests from members: If a member contacts you directly and asks for their own posts to be deleted, please refer them directly to the Support team. As such enquiries often involve data protection issues that go beyond the scope of mere thread moderation, we will take over the assessment and further processing at this stage.

Here’s to being a great host!