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Ask a DEV Community Mod! 🚀

FrancisTRᴅᴇᴠ (っ◔◡◔)っ on June 16, 2026

Disclaimer: Please read the full post before commenting. This post will be refined overtime, so I highly encourage to check back if there are any ...
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jess profile image
Jess Lee

Hey all, just wanted to share that we'll be updating our general moderation guidelines and tooling for the community soon.

A lot goes on behind-the-scenes that's a combination of manual moderation and automated spam detection. There is a lot of nuance here that requires constant adjustment and rebalancing.

I'll note that there are hundreds of mods with the ability to send messages via Sloan, so not all of it has fallen on Francis's shoulders - though we deeply appreciate his dedication to the the community, and he is by far one of our most active volunteer moderators.

We'll share a more substantial update on community moderation and our perspective on AI-assisted content in the next few weeks.

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ben profile image
Ben Halpern

This is a big priority for us going forward after lots of work to catch up with new demands of moderation in this age. I think we'll land in a really good place.

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francistrdev profile image
FrancisTRᴅᴇᴠ (っ◔◡◔)っ

Thanks @jess and @ben! If you believe if there is something I can do to improve, do let me know in the meantime!

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xulingfeng profile image
xulingfeng

I'll ask the first question. How many Sloan warnings does it take before an account gets flagged? And will there be a notification when that happens?

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francistrdev profile image
FrancisTRᴅᴇᴠ (っ◔◡◔)っ

Great first question! and appreciate the communication we had on @dannwaneri's post for this concern.


How many Sloan warnings does it take before an account gets flagged?

In my opinion this depends on the user's activity and how they are using DEV. For example, let's say a person has never been caught but their profile shows the following:

  • Botting views and comments in order to be more visible.
  • Breaking the ToS (Terms of Service) such as spamming advertisements, etc.
  • Not following other DEV rules that are currently in place.

If this was the case, it will be either a single warning message before flag or flagged the account entirely.

However, if it was a genuine mistake and did not know before hand, I usually go with a few warnings before hand. Of course, I make mistakes and it could vary.

There are other deciding factors based on how long they are on DEV and other things, but those are the most common.


will there be a notification when that happens?

I never been Flagged from Sloan before, but I would assume it would be like any other comments (though sometimes dev.to email notification is slow. One time I got an email notification that someone commented on my post 3 days ago lol). Can you clarify to me?


Thanks :D

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xulingfeng profile image
xulingfeng

One more thing — my article "I Spent 3 Months Training An AI. My VP 'Reallocated' It. Then I Got Two Calls At 1 AM." (dev.to/xulingfeng/i-spent-3-months...) still can't be found in search. Could you take a look? The latest article is fine now.🤣

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francistrdev profile image
FrancisTRᴅᴇᴠ (っ◔◡◔)っ • Edited

Yea I did and it wasn't there...

I would recommend re posting it. Nothing on the article is flagged or anything I have done on my end. Sometimes, articles doesn't popup. Happens to me as well and not sure why.

Feel free to repost and let me know if anything!

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xulingfeng profile image
xulingfeng

Got it, I'll republish and test it. I'll let you know how it goes either way.

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xulingfeng profile image
xulingfeng

Update — it worked! I didn't delete the article. I just edited it — literally removed one empty line and saved — and now it shows up in both the feed and search. So a simple re-save re-triggers the search index. Thanks for the help! 🙌@francistrdev

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hemapriya_kanagala profile image
Hemapriya Kanagala • Edited

I feel like I got it entirely wrong 😅. I honestly thought Sloan was an actual person. When I got a Sloan message about a formatting issue on one of my posts, I assumed you had asked Sloan to comment under my post. Since you mentioned in the P.S. of your comment that you had sent a Sloan message, I completely misread that part. My bad 😅

I didn't realize Sloan was more of a moderation system/persona and that the moderator was actually the one sending the message. Thanks for clearing that up!

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francistrdev profile image
FrancisTRᴅᴇᴠ (っ◔◡◔)っ

Yea for sure! I knew Sloan was a bot that Mod can control. It would be crazy if Sloan just say "Hi" and go from there. I would be scared for my life lmao.

I do appreciate it. It seems that people are open after the Sloan message, which is good!

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technogamerz profile image
𝓣𝓱𝓮𝓛𝓪𝔃𝔂 𝓰𝓲𝓻𝓵 ◕⁠‿⁠◕

Great insights! It's always interesting to hear about the experiences and challenges that come with being a community moderator. Thanks for sharing your perspective.

One question: What's the most common mistake new community members make, and how can they avoid it?

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francistrdev profile image
FrancisTRᴅᴇᴠ (っ◔◡◔)っ

Hey! Hope you are well :D

I believe the most common mistake is not reading carefully before commenting/posting. There were instances where people believe that "the most likes in a DEV challenge = Win", which is not the case. According to the rule, it is only use as a Tie breaker situation and not the overall result.

My tip is reading the full post before making conclusions. Right now, there is assumption that the project me and @codingwithjiro did was use to determine if the article is AI or not, which is not the case. It would been best to clarify the practices on how I determine the articles instead of assumptions. In other words, ask questions!

Thanks! :D

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harsh2644 profile image
Harsh

Hi thanks for opening this up I have a question about AI use and disclosure.

I've been writing on DEV for about 6 months My typical workflow is I use AI for about 10% of the writing mostly for structure, research, and organizing thoughts. The remaining 90% is my own voice, my experiences, my tone.

Sometimes I add a disclosure at the bottom of my posts (e.g I used AI to help structure this post. The experiences and opinions are my own.).

My question is - is disclosure required even for minimal AI use like this 10%?

I want to make sure I'm following the guidelines correctly and not risking any flags or suspension. I've seen some people posts get flagged recently and I want to stay on the right side of the rules.

Thanks for your time.

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Gérôme Grignon

Based on the Moderation page (dev.to/community-moderation), 'Community moderator' is a term used for multiple types of moderators (ike tag moderators).

However i've been a tag moderator for years and I feel like your 'Community Moderator' role cover way more responsibilities. Is it right?

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hexzonetwork profile image
HexZo Network

how to get famous '='

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technogamerz profile image
𝓣𝓱𝓮𝓛𝓪𝔃𝔂 𝓰𝓲𝓻𝓵 ◕⁠‿⁠◕ • Edited

I think Don't think about becoming famous. Focus on creating good content and improving your work every day. When you consistently work on quality, recognition and success will come naturally.