My main use for Lemmy is as a news aggregator, so these appreciation points are a little specific:

What community rules do you like?

(News/politics communities) Basically rules that enforce quality submissions. No blogs, no YouTube/Tiktok/social media posts. No sources MFBC deems low credibility. No link shorteners, etc. All things to help combat mis/disinformation by making it immediately apparent where the news is coming from and that it has been vetted.

What moderation actions do you think are helpful?

Removing infringing submissions as soon as is feasible and enforcing community rules consistently. It’s also appreciated when there’s a follow-up message (either DM from mod or via auto-moderator) letting you know why the action was taken.

What is a helpful way for moderators to interact with their respective communities?

Be a part of it. Interact in the comments, post quality content that acts as an example for submissions and sets the tone for the community.

I liked on IRC (internet relay chat) how all the moderator actions were announced - sometimes even globally.

It was always overt and obvious why someone was kicked or banned, for how long, and a reason was almost always given (even if it was a joking one liner just to piss off the person being kicked).

This (especially that last part) made it clear the mods were just people, it showed their work, and also showed how serious, fair, unfair, or political they were.

Hang around on an IRC channel long enough and you knew what mods were jerks, go to enough channels and you could find which were fair and had well measured rules, and which were just a circus for the mods to play politics in…

It allowed users to find their places, and their levels, and to see the precedents, standards, and who they could appeal to have bans reversed.

It was a lot more public than comments disappearing with no answers as to why, and not even being able to notice if users disappear from a community… Which is how things are on many platforms today.

I pretty much never appreciate moderation, unless somebody is posting outside of the theme of the community. I want to read everything, including the most horrendously offensive stuff.

What community rules do you like?

I like the comment guidelines from Hacker News. E.g.

• Be kind. Don’t be snarky. Converse curiously; don’t cross-examine.
• Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that’s easier to criticize. Assume good faith.

I appreciate not having trolls around but that is very hard to define. Some trolling is harmless and some are there is intentionally start flame wars. Its the flame war crap that makes it impossible to have genuine conversations.

And “don’t be a dick” is always a good one.

I think that basic internet etiquette is enough. I had to deal only with that (someone wasn’t very nice when someone asked regular question) once. Other thing that is good to moderate is off topic posts - it is nothing personal just to give the community “the feel”.

For interaction with others I think that it doesn’t need to be in every thread or answering every comment. Just as regular user would interact-I really don’t understand power users.