<p>It's New Year's Day in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zulu_Time" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Stack Exchange land</a>...</p>

<p>A distinguishing characteristic of these sites is how they are moderated:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>We designed the Stack Exchange network engine to be mostly self-regulating, in that we amortize the overall moderation cost of the system across thousands of teeny-tiny slices of effort contributed by regular, everyday users.<br>
  -- <a href="http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2009/05/a-theory-of-moderation/">A Theory of Moderation</a></p>
</blockquote>

<p>While there certainly are <a href="https://stackoverflow.blog/2018/11/21/our-theory-of-moderation-re-visited/">Moderators</a> here, a significant amount of the <em>moderation</em> is done by ordinary people, using the privileges 
they've earned by virtue of their contributions to the site. Each of you contributes a little bit of time and effort, and together you accomplish much.</p>

<p>As we enter a new year, let's pause and reflect, taking a moment to appreciate the work that we do here together. 
And what could be more festive than a big pile of numbers? 
So here is a breakdown of moderation actions performed on Cross Validated over the past 12 months:</p>

<pre><code>                  Action                  Moderators Community¹
----------------------------------------- ---------- ----------
Users suspended²                                  28         20
Users destroyed³                                  27          0
Users deleted                                      5          0
Users contacted                                   48          0
User suspensions lifted early                      1          0
Tasks reviewed⁴: Suggested Edit queue          1,269      5,164
Tasks reviewed⁴: Reopen Vote queue               840      2,931
Tasks reviewed⁴: Low Quality Posts queue         894      2,164
Tasks reviewed⁴: Late Answer queue                59      2,243
Tasks reviewed⁴: First Post queue                161     16,199
Tasks reviewed⁴: Close Votes queue             4,618     15,084
Tags merged                                        5          0
Tag synonyms proposed                             10          2
Tag synonyms created                              12          2
Questions unprotected                              1          0
Questions reopened                               676         21
Questions protected                               20         58
Questions migrated                               249         17
Questions merged                                  22          0
Questions flagged⁵                                 8      1,931
Questions closed                               7,630      1,961
Question flags handled⁵                          937        996
Posts unlocked                                     1         61
Posts undeleted                                   91        496
Posts locked                                      34        460
Posts deleted⁶                                 1,896     19,944
Posts bumped                                       0      8,617
Escalations to the Community Manager team         11          0
Comments undeleted                                63          0
Comments flagged                                   8      7,182
Comments deleted⁷                              3,338     12,240
Comment flags handled                          2,135      5,055
Bounties canceled                                  8          0
Answers flagged                                   41      3,057
Answer flags handled                           2,827        271
All comments on a post moved to chat              16          0
</code></pre>

<h3>Footnotes</h3>

<p>¹ "Community" here refers both to <a href="https://stats.stackexchange.com/users">the membership of Cross Validated</a> <em>without</em> <a href="https://stats.stackexchange.com/users?tab=moderators">diamonds next to their names</a>, and to the automated systems otherwise known as <a href="https://stats.stackexchange.com/users/-1">user #-1</a>.</p>

<p>² The system will suspend users under three circumstances: when a user is recreated after being previously suspended, when a user is recreated after being destroyed for spam or abuse, and when a network-wide suspension is in effect on an account.</p>

<p>³ A "destroyed" user is deleted along with all that they had posted: questions, answers, comments. <a href="https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/88994/what-is-the-difference-between-a-deleted-user-and-a-destroyed-user">Generally used as an expedient way of getting rid of spam.</a></p>

<p>⁴ This counts every review that was submitted (not skipped) - so the 2 suggested edits reviews needed to approve an edit would count as 2, the goal being to indicate the frequency of moderation actions. This also applies to flags, etc.</p>

<p>⁵ Includes close flags (but <em>not</em> close or reopen votes).</p>

<p>⁶ This ignores numerous deletions that happen automatically in response to some other action.</p>

<p>⁷ This includes comments deleted by their own authors (which also account for some number of handled comment flags).   </p>

<h3>Further reading:</h3>

<ul>
<li><p>Wanna see how these numbers have changed over time? I posted a similar report here last year: <a href="https://stats.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5533/2018-a-year-in-moderation">2018: a year in moderation</a>...</p></li>
<li><p>You can also check out <a href="https://stackexchange.com/search?q=title%3A%222019%3A+a+year+in+moderation%22">this report on other sites</a></p></li>
<li>Or peruse <a href="https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/341507/2019-a-year-in-closing">detailed information on the number of questions closed and reopened across all sites</a></li>
</ul>

<p>Wishing you all a happy new year...</p>
