We've just launched a new moderation system, so that each first-time posters' initial research note is now held for moderation by our new community moderators group. This very post (actually written by @warren) will have to pass through the new system in order to be shown on the dashboard or the main research note feed.

This is a big change for our community, and we made it despite our reservations -- although it will raise the barrier for publishing on Public Lab a small amount, enough spam (and increasingly offensive spam) was making it onto our main research feed and being sent out to members, that we felt it was necessary to take strong action. New contributors will now see this message if it's their first post:

Welcoming newcomers

However, as originally suggested by Public Lab organizer @cfastie, and expanded on by other organizers, we also saw it as an opportunity to welcome new people more directly into our community.

In that spirit, new posters will see the username of the moderator that accepted their post, along with some encouraging words (thanks, @liz et al!), and moderators are prompted to welcome new contributors personally with a comment. When a new post is approved, an email is sent to the new contributor with the following text:

Hi! Your post was approved by moderator-name (a community moderator) and is now visible in the Public Lab research feed. Thanks for contributing to open research!

If you'd like to be part of the moderators group, please read over our policies on the moderation page and email moderators@publiclab.org to join.

We hope you join the moderators in welcoming newcomers -- thanks for making Public Lab a welcoming (and spam-free) place!

-- @warren (masquerading as a new poster)