Current practices and focuses of volunteer moderation research: In order to discuss what the future of research in this domain looks like, it is useful to begin with a discussion of the current state. Recently published work has focused on a handful of prominent platforms, notably including Facebook, Reddit, and Twitch. Less attention has been paid to other types of social spaces, from online games to discussion forums. Though the volume of papers on community moderation is relatively low, the methods used thus far have also been relatively homogeneous; a strong majority of this work has used interview methods, with a small number using other ethnographic methods, quantitative analyses, or experiments. This imbalance suggests several questions ripe for exploration—what types of questions in this space are best answered with each methodological approach? What are the challenges of using each method in this particular research space? Has the high volume of qualitative work in this space resulted from the appropriateness of these methods in answering early questions, or is it a result of the backgrounds of researchers who have thus far been involved?

Design interventions and moderation tools: Moderators and community managers are often constrained in the actions they can take to better govern their communities as a result of strict technological affordances of the platforms they use. Without effective tools for scaling content moderation resulting from increasing community size, moderators may be limited in their ability to curb norm and rule violating behavior and risk their communities collapsing into anomie. How can we design sociotechnical systems and tools to better support moderation teams in the future? Are automated (e.g., machine learning) tools to handle the challenges of scale on large communities a solution? How do we design these new technologies with respect to fairness, accountability, transparency, and ethics in socio-algorithmic online governance? How should research involving sociotechnical interventions and testing new technologies be carried out in this space? What is a “successful” online intervention? How should we evaluate the effectiveness of online moderation tools and their long-term impact on the labor of community moderators?

Marginalized or vulnerable communities: Moderators of online communities with marginalized or vulnerable groups may feel a sense of responsibility to provide a safe space online and to protect their members from harassment, hate speech, and other harmful acts more so than in other kinds of online communities. In some cases, this may lead to increased skepticism about the intentions of researchers and the impact that research may have on their communities. What does this mean for studying moderation in marginalized and vulnerable communities? What experience and/or background should researchers focus on developing prior to beginning work in these spaces? What can we learn from studying moderation of these communities that can’t be learned from studying other communities?