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. 

🙋 How moderation works 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:

1. Algorithms to proactively detect harmful content;
2. Product features that enable all neighbors to report both hurtful and harmful content and people, and distribute to the appropriate teams for review; 
3. A team of neighborhood volunteers—Leads and Review team members—who have opted-in to vote on content reports leveraging their local knowledge; and
4. A team of trained Nextdoor employees who review content and profiles that have been flagged, and take appropriate action to support the neighbors involved.

Most content that is reported from the main newsfeed for violating the community guidelines is initially reviewed by volunteer neighborhood moderators. These volunteers are active Nextdoor neighbors, and have the ability to vote on whether or not they feel a piece of reported content violates the guidelines. Group Admins are responsible for moderating reported posts and comments from their individual groups.

Reports that are more sensitive in nature—misinformation, discrimination, etc.—are sent directly to, and handled by Nextdoor Support to ensure consistent outcomes. In addition, Nextdoor Support is responsible for managing all neighbor and moderator profile reports. Neighborhood moderators will never review another neighbor’s profile, and do not have any ability to take action on a neighbor’s account.

🧑‍💻 Your role as a neighborhood moderator

Conversations on Nextdoor should reflect the nature of neighborhoods in the real world, and that's 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 hurtful or harmful to your neighborhood. As such, your primary role is to vote on reported content that appears in your Review Queue in order to help determine if the post or comments should remain visible to your neighbors on Nextdoor. You will learn how to vote on reported content in an upcoming module.

Other neighborhood moderators choose to go above and beyond in their neighborhoods by proactively reporting content and/ or neighbor accounts that may violate the community guidelines. You will learn how to report content and/ or neighbors in an upcoming module.

Some moderators also choose to proactively invite and welcome new neighbors to the platform. Best practices for welcoming new neighbors are available in the Resource Hub.

🤝 Program expectations

Neighborhood leads and Review team members are often seen as leaders in their local communities, both on and off Nextdoor. Participation as a lead or a reviewer is completely optional, though if you choose to opt-in, we do expect adherence to our Community Programs Code of Conduct given the elevated status received in the community.

The full Code of Conduct is available for review in Help Center, but here are the key takeaways:

1. Be a good neighbor. Treat folks the way you want to be treated. Assume positive intent, and be mindful of how your tone may come across to others.
2. Model the community guidelines. The guidelines lie at the core of holding moderation privileges. Please understand them, and give your honest effort in embodying their spirit and intention.
3. Be inclusive. Conduct yourself in a way that puts open-mindedness over judgement, trust over suspicion, and tolerance over prejudice. Embrace our differences as a global community.
4. Maintain confidentiality. Access to additional information is a privilege that comes with being a moderator. Do not disclose details about other neighbors or moderators.

Participants can be removed from any one of Nextdoor's community programs, at our discretion, at any time.

👋 How to opt out

If the above doesn't work for you, or if you're simply no longer interested in participating on Nextdoor as a neighborhood moderator, you can easily opt-out of the program from within your Lead Tools or Review Tools. Follow these steps to opt out:

1. Navigate to your Nextdoor profile, and find the Dashboard section
2. Depending on your role, tap or click Lead Tools or Review Tools
3. Scroll to the bottom of your tools page, and tap or click the Opt out link. Follow the onscreen instructions to confirm.

⭐️ Check your knowledge

⏩ Next module: The Guidelines

Now that you have an understanding of how moderation works on Nextdoor, how your role as a neighborhood lead or reviewer fits in, and the expectations of volunteer moderators, let's dig into the details. Next module: The Guidelines