How to moderate on Nextdoor
Learn more about the community guidelines, and how to prevent bias in your neighborhood.
3. Get oriented
Familiarize yourself with how moderation works
The community guidelines ground all moderation decisions
Learn why bias is so harmful, and how to identify and prevent it
Self-guided education, toolkits, and best practices
Learn best practices for giving feedback to your neighbors
Understand how content is reported, and how to vote
Why moderation matters
Connecting with others is a universal human need, and neighborhoods are among some of the most important communities in our lives. Much like a garden requires tending to produce crops, online communities also require patience and care to ensure community members are able to build a sense of belonging and connection with one another.
On Nextdoor, our neighborhood moderators—leads and reviewers—facilitate belonging in their online neighborhoods by ensuring conversations stay helpful and kind. Not "kind" in the syrupy sweet-way. "Kind" in the respectful, welcoming, empathetic, and willing to boldly act and support one another-type of way.
It's a small thing I can do to take part in making my neighborhood a better place to live for everyone.
– Joseph W. in Crown Heights, Brooklyn
Five tenets of moderation
Keep these principles in mind when moderating
Lead by example
Empathy matters
Vote consistently
Neighbor first
Use discretion
These are your real-life neighbors. Treat them the way you'd want to be treated.
Model the behavior you want your neighborhood to follow.
The best moderators walk in their neighbors’ shoes.
Use your judgment consistently across all neighbors.
Apply the guidelines in the context of your community.
1. Learn the guidelines
The community guidelines articulate the values of the community you are helping to build, and set expectations for what is and is not acceptable behavior on Nextdoor. Every neighbor agrees to abide by the guidelines when they join.
The guidelines ensure Nextdoor remains a safe and welcoming place for everyone, in every neighborhood around the world. While you may not agree with an opinion, the community needs your fair, unbiased vote to reduce harmful or hurtful conversations.
It's important to review the guidelines thoroughly, and understand what is and isn't allowed. Though we hate to do it, Nextdoor will remove moderation privileges if there is a pattern of voting against the guidelines.
Community Guidelines Overview
Be respectful to your neighbors
Do not discriminate
Discuss important topics in the right place
You’re speaking to your real neighbors. Strong communities are built on strong relationships.
We do not tolerate racism, hateful language, or discrimination of any kind.
We have dedicated spaces for important non-local topics, like national politics and religion.
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Use your true identity
Do not engage in harmful activity
We want everyone to know they’re communicating with their real neighbor.
We prohibit any activity that could hurt someone, from physical harm to scams.
Check your knowledge
Guideline knowledge is critical in ensuring healthy, balanced online conversations in your neighborhood.
2. Understand bias
The term bias is defined as an inclination of temperament or outlook, especially a personal and sometimes unreasoned judgment.
It's true that every human has biases in some way or another. The ways in which each of us grew into adulthood shaped our viewpoints on the world, creating both conscious and unconscious biases. Conscious biases are things we're aware of, whereas unconscious biases are perceptions that take place without us even realizing they're happening. Each of us has a responsibility to understand and repair our own conscious and unconscious biases, to ensure an equitable world for everyone.
Why is bias harmful?
Both conscious and unconscious bias can be incredibly harmful to others, especially those who happen to be part of an underrepresented group or minority. At a minimum, biases result in a verbal, behavioral, or environmental slight towards someone, known as a microaggression. Other cases of extreme bias have led to physical harm, and even the loss of life by those in the impacted group. This is why it's so critical to work to eliminate bias in our world.
Why are microaggressions harmful?
Microaggressions are harmful because they exclude or unfairly target a person based on their marginalized identity. Though a microaggression may not seem like a clear violation of Nextdoor's community guidelines, they can take a toll on the mental and physical health of the person, or group of people, on the receiving end. As such, microaggressions are not appropriate for use in conversation on Nextdoor as they violate our Do Not Discriminate guideline.
Our goal is for you to be able to recognize microaggressions, understand their harm, and take informed, confident actions to keep your Nextdoor neighborhood a welcoming place for everyone.
Image from: Moderating Biased Posts toolkit
Check your knowledge
Preventing bias and microaggressions helps make every neighborhood safer for every neighbor.
Next steps
Understanding–and dismantling–systems of bias is a life-long journey. Once you understand the systems of harm, you can't look away. While there is plenty of education available online, we recommend reviewing the following resources as a follow up to this website.
Download the Moderating Biased Posts toolkit
Take the Inclusive Moderation course
Learn how to prevent racial profiling
We developed this toolkit in partnership with The New Quo, to provide an actionable framework for moderators to help identify and moderate posts with microaggressions and biased language.
Take your knowledge of microaggressions further with our Inclusive Moderation course, available to all neighborhood leads and reviewers for free.
Learn how to identify unconscious bias and respond to racial profiling, so all of our neighbors feel safe in the places they call home.
3. Get oriented
Now that you've got a clear understanding of what is and isn't appropriate on Nextdoor, let's take a look at what moderation is and how it works so you can better understand the role you'll play as a neighborhood moderator.
What is moderation?
Any website that invites its users to create content or leave comments typically has some sort of system in place that allows the website owner to sort and take action on contributions that violate the site's guidelines or terms of use. This is known as moderation.
Moderation actions can typically be taken by a variety of actors involved with a particular website, including: automated machine learning algorithms, website product features, website employees, and non-employee volunteer moderators that have been granted access privileges to moderation tools by the website owners. These kinds of moderation systems are nearly as old as the internet itself.
How does moderation work on Nextdoor?
Nextdoor uses a blended balance of both technology and human review to detect and take action on content that violates our community guidelines, and terms of service, including:
- Product features that enable all neighbors to report harmful content and people, and distribute to the appropriate teams for review;
- Algorithms to proactively detect harmful content; and
- A team of trained Nextdoor employees who review content and profiles that have been flagged, and take appropriate action to support the neighbors involved.
We want conversations on Nextdoor to reflect the nature of neighborhoods in the real world, and thats where the neighborhood leads and reviewers come in. As neighborhood moderators, you all have the local knowledge and expertise that makes your voice critical in knowing if a piece of reported content is truly harmful to the neighborhood. If it is, please vote to remove it.
Please note: Neighborhood moderators are responsible for reviewing reported comments and posts from the main newsfeed. Group Admins are responsible for reviewing reported comments and posts from their groups. Neighborhood moderators will never review neighbor profile reports.
How do posts and comments get reported?
Any neighbor–including you!–can report a post or comment for review. The report reason will determine if the content should be reviewed by neighborhood moderators, or by Nextdoor Support. Nextdoor will never disclose the name of the reporter to the neighborhood, and neither should you.
Reported posts and comments will show up in the review queue of each moderator that is eligible to vote on the content. Once the content receives enough votes from the community, our system will review all the collected signals and take the recommended action. A piece of content will only be removed from Nextdoor once enough votes and signals have been collected to determine it should be removed.
Please note: A single moderator is not responsible for making the decision to keep or remove a piece of content for an entire community. If a piece of content is removed, it is because of collective agreement that the content violates our community guidelines.
To learn how to report a post or comment, please read this help article: How to report a post
How do neighbors get reported?
Any neighbor–including you–can report another neighbor if their behavior on Nextdoor is inconsistent with Nextdoor's community guidelines, or otherwise problematic. Neighbors should not be reported simply because someone finds them annoying, or because of a personal dispute.
Neighbors can easily be reported through their neighbor profile. Your privacy, safety, and security on Nextdoor is of utmost importance to us. Neighbor reports always go to the Nextdoor team to review, and we will never disclose the name of the person who submitted the report.
To learn how to report a neighbor, please read this help article: How to report a neighbor. You may also be interested in how to mute a neighbor in the main newsfeed (useful for when you find someone's content annoying, though not problematic), or how to block a neighbor from sending you private messages.
Next steps
For more information on how moderation generally works on Nextdoor, check out the following blog posts and help articles:
- Blog post: How moderation works on Nextdoor
- Help Article: How to report a post
- Help Article: How to report a neighbor
- Help Article: How to mute a neighbor
- Help Article: Block private messages
Check your knowledge
Understanding how moderation works overall is critical to understanding your role as a volunteer moderator.
4. Vote Consistently
Nextdoor's community moderation system relies on healthy, consistent voting practices. Tap on each step below to learn how to find new reports, gather context on each one, and cast your vote.
Remember: With great power comes great responsibility. Only vote on a report if you feel you can offer an unbiased position on the topic, and keep the identity of all neighbors involved confidential.
Check your knowledge
Consistent voting practices leads to success as a moderator.
5. Empower neighbors
Neighborhood moderators are seen as de facto leaders in their communities, and though not required, many choose to go above and beyond to empower their neighbors with more education and insight into neighborhood conversation. We recommend reading the following guide, along with the tips below: Facilitating hard conversations
Sending private messages
Messaging neighbors directly is a way to add a more personable touch. It is not something that all moderators choose to do, but certainly welcomed! You can send a neighbor a private message to ask for more context, share a guideline, request that they edit a message, or anything else that you think would help improve their conversations in the neighborhood.
Private message tips:
- Make a happy sandwich. Start with a note of thanks, offer the constructive feedback, and then close with a compliment or fun idea.
- Be kind. Never chastise, reprimand, talk down to, or otherwise patronize another neighbor. We will remove moderation privileges if a lead or reviewer is found
- Encourage more contributions. It can feel a little intimidating to get feedback from a moderator. Be sure to encourage your neighbors to continue participating in the community!
Responding in a public comment
Responding with a public comment is a great way to educate the entire thread–including those who are just reading–about the do's and don't's of neighborhood conversation. When doing so, there's a few important things to remember:
- Don't post when you're upset. If you feel your own temperature rising over the nature of the conversation, step away from your keyboard and take a break before responding.
- Model the guidelines. Be thoughtful to not come across as disrespectful or patronizing to your fellow neighbors. Treat folks the way we want them to treat each other.
- Over-emphasize your tone. It's really hard to interpret tone of voice and body language through written text. Instead, use emojis and exclamation points to lighten up your post!
Check your knowledge
Neighborhood moderation gives you the opportunity to lead by example.
6. More Resources
Self-guided education
Go deeper into your online moderation knowledge with these recommended resources.
Videos
- Webinar library << 20+ videos of tips, tricks, and open Q&A!
- How to create good content on Nextdoor
- 2021 Neighborhood Leadership Summit
Templates
Connecting with other moderators
We've got a strong community of over 200,000+ active moderators on Nextdoor. Here's how to meet others!
Neighborhood Teams Forums
Visit our private forums to ask questions to other moderators from across the country, gain access to our upcoming webinars and past replays, and to hear the latest product and policy news from the Nextdoor team.
Nearby Reviewers group
Connect with other moderators in your Nearby Neighborhoods through the Nearby Reviewers group. Both neighborhood leads and reviewers have access to this group.
Contacting Nextdoor
Need to contact Nextdoor Support? No problem! See if you can find your answer in Help Center, or use the Contact form to contact the Nextdoor team, directly.
