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The blog post Introducing “The Loop”: A Foundation in Listening by Sara Chipps and Juan M on November 25, 2019, announced upcoming moderator training:

Moderating communities is a skill, and one that’s too often poorly documented, poorly understood, and pursued without robust best practices. Teaching moderator skills through folklore and informal mentorship results in uneven practices at best, and perpetuates problems at its worst. Robust training for moderators is as essential as ensuring that anyone else on our team is getting the proper, ongoing education and training towards world-class skills.

We’re going to create a new system to offer training for our moderators. The training will be a great way for new moderators to learn the ropes, and will be available to all moderators seeking help as they struggle to make important decisions, learn the tools available to them, and plan how to move forward on sensitive issues involving race, gender, and sexuality. We’ll work closely with the moderator advisory team to create the curriculum and resources.

Will the moderator training be required? For all moderators? For some moderators? If for some, then which types of moderators?

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    Moderator training will be extremely useful for new moderators on brand new beta sites, as the users who become moderators there often have little experience with the SE model.
    – Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog
    Dec 9, 2019 at 20:39
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    "We’re going to create a new system to offer training for our moderators." It sounds like the program may still be in it's infancy. Maybe we should wait until it's more fledged out to look for answers?
    – scohe001
    Dec 9, 2019 at 20:39
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    @scohe001 - This has been in the works for something like a year at this point, so I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that such basic decisions have been made already.
    – Mithical
    Dec 9, 2019 at 20:54
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    @SonictheReinstateMonica-hog if it's done well, training should be useful across the board, regardless of how long someone has been a moderator.
    – De Novo
    Dec 9, 2019 at 20:56
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    Considering that one of the failures in managing the community involved a lack of sensitivity to at least one religious date, I hope that religion is included as well as race, gender and sexuality.
    – Andrew Grimm
    Dec 9, 2019 at 21:00
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    Questions about the future are always difficult to answer with certainty. Maybe yes, maybe no.
    – Trilarion
    Dec 9, 2019 at 21:21
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    @Trilarion this is a question about future plans, which is reasonable, answerable, and seems to be in good faith.
    – De Novo
    Dec 9, 2019 at 21:31
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    @AndrewGrimm - I thought that was on management's part, not a moderator insensitivity. Or are we thinking about two different things? I understood you to be referring to management removing Monica's moderator privileges right before her weekly religious day. // Did you notice the Loop post was published the day before Thanksgiving? Which is not a religious holiday, but it did give me a similar feeling, that someone had set a deadline, and by hook or by crook, that deadline was going to be met.
    – aparente001
    Dec 9, 2019 at 21:39
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    @aparente001 I assumed relevant staff will undergo this training as well.
    – Andrew Grimm
    Dec 9, 2019 at 22:01
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    @AndrewGrimm - Perhaps you'd like to pose a question. Perhaps you found something in the blog post or elsewhere to support that interpretation. I didn't see anything there but maybe I missed it. Even without documentation, it's a reasonable jump and it might be a helpful question.
    – aparente001
    Dec 9, 2019 at 22:03
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    I think the question is: why does anyone think SE mods need training at this point in time?
    – Gio
    Dec 9, 2019 at 23:06
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    @Gio - You're welcome to pose that question (as a question).
    – aparente001
    Dec 9, 2019 at 23:07

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There has not been any official statement made one way or another. However, I think it's pretty clear that this is intended to be voluntary training.

For evidence, look carefully at the text of the announcement (emphasis added):

We’re going to create a new system to offer training for our moderators. The training will be a great way for new moderators to learn the ropes, and will be available to all moderators seeking help as they struggle to make important decisions, learn the tools available to them, and plan how to move forward on sensitive issues involving race, gender, and sexuality.

The training is being "offered", not "imposed", "required", or "mandated". This implies that it is voluntary. If I offer you something, you have the option to refuse. Furthermore, the training will be made "available", again implying that I have the option not to avail myself of the resource.

Aside from the text, this moderator training is something that has been under consideration for quite a while, and arose from requests by moderators. It has not been, as far as I can see, concocted as of late as an indoctrination strategy.

If they wanted an indoctrination strategy, they would just add it to the moderator agreement, to which all moderators are obligated to agree and subsequently bound for the duration of their servitude.

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    I can think of required training that isn't indoctrination; I did notice the clues you noticed, but I guess my trust level is lower than yours, that what they say in a slick blog post is necessarily an accurate reflection of what will be implemented. Although I appreciate your analysis; I'm also hoping for an official response.
    – aparente001
    Dec 10, 2019 at 4:00

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