How do you moderate Shepherd? How do you maintain diversity of thought while not allowing trolls?

Ya, it is tricky to manage 🙂 . 
 
I want to encourage diverse thoughts within the platform, but I don't want to become Twitter, where the loudest trolls attract the most attention. That platform could be amazing for having interesting discussions, but it rewards the most extreme positions and highlights those. This is an "internet" problem and one I will work to avoid. 
 
And because Shepherd actively promotes certain values as part of our mission, that is a tricky line to follow. What are the values that we promote right now?

• Democracy is the best form of government. 
• Science is the best way to understand the physical world around you.
• Feeding our appetite for curiosity with education is one of the best things we can do to improve our society and civilization. That "education" can come in many forms, such as libraries, mentorship, training programs, books, formal schooling, universities, etc. 
• The freedom to choose your religion (or no religion) without governmental persecution is a human right. As long as that religion does not advocate hatred or violence against other members of society or violate core tenets of human rights. 
• Religion is an individual choice that should be used to help you find *your* meaning in the world. It should not be something you impose on others or use to discriminate against your fellow humans. 
• Abortion is a medical decision between a woman and her doctor. 
• Vaccines are one of the most amazing scientific breakthroughs in human history. 
• Climate change is real and will have huge impacts on humans around the planet. We have a lot of work to do to fix the situation we have created. 
• We need to build a lot more housing in order to alleviate the housing crisis and improve economic mobility. There are other things that need to be fixed, but ultimately there is no solution without building a LOT more housing. 
• The government should strongly enforce environmental protections in order to keep our environment free from pollutants. 
• Meritocracy is something we should pursue within our society. It is an impossible goal but one that we should all strive for every day of our lives. A belief in meritocracy should not blind us to the biases we all have or the level of discrimination happening in society; instead, it should inspire us to work harder on how we can establish a better merit-based system in every aspect of our civilization.  

We have other positions we will advocate for, and I will talk more about those as I establish them. You can read more about my ethos at the bottom of this page. 

For example, we don't allow book lists by anti-vaxers making false claims, but we do allow scientists, health professionals, and professional science journalists to speak about gross errors in the past around vaccine testing or implementation. Determining who is qualified to speak to a subject is a big part of making sure we have a range of diverse but qualified experts. 
 
I also don't allow any lists around abortion unless it is from someone with a right to speak to that complex subject. So that is usually women who have had an abortion, people who study it historically or socially, doctors who are involved in it in some way, etc. Shepherd advocates that abortion is between a medical procedure and a decision for a woman and her doctor (and whatever that woman's personal beliefs are). 
 
I also don't allow books by political trolls on the website. That doesn't happen much, but Bill O'Reilly is a good example where his "history books" do not use real sources and are just made up fantasy. If he would market them under historical fiction, we would allow them. We do a case-by-case decision there depending on how they are presented within the list though. 
 
We also don't allow fake books on the website. So far, I had to remove one on WW2 that was created with fake data and finally caught, and another where a woman falsified data about Planned Parenthood and was caught in a myriad of lies. 

I also do not allow professional trolls on the website. So if there is a book by someone whose job is to come on Fox News or CNN and scare people with made-up stories about nonsense, I don't pay them any attention.

So far, there is only 1 personal threat against me over abortion, so this system is working pretty well.