[Air-L] Call for Proposals — All Things in Moderation (ATiM) 2026

[Venessa Paech]

Hi everyone,

Call for Proposals — All Things in Moderation (ATiM) 2026

25–26 June 2026 • Fully Online • Theme: “CARE”

All Things in Moderation is the annual global gathering for moderation practitioners, community managers, policy makers, technologists, and researchers working at the intersection of platform governance, community labour, and digital culture.

We invite scholars, researchers and practitioners to submit proposals for ATiM 2026, taking place 25–26 June 2026 in a fully online format designed to maximise accessibility across time zones and contexts. ATiM brings together diverse perspectives on moderation and community governance, emphasising practice, reflection, and interdisciplinary exchange.

While the conference is most attractive to scholars of online community, social media, moderation, platform governance and trust and safety, previous instalments have proven valuable for scholars across domains and disciplines. We welcome interdisciplinary perspectives and collaboration.

The 2026 theme is CARE.

Moderation is a form of care work: protecting participants, establishing and enforcing boundaries, responding to harm, sustaining participation, and navigating organisational and platform-level demands all involve ethical labour. This year’s programme will explore how care is articulated, enacted, and contested across policy, product design, organisational structures, and grassroots practice. We welcome contributions that critically examine care in moderation, including its political, cultural, economic, affective, and infrastructural dimensions.

We invite submissions addressing, but not limited to:

     *   Balancing enforcement, risk management, and organisational or platform demands
     *   Community or social media governance and moderation in practice, across different models and contexts
     *   How power shapes decision-making, authority, and accountability in moderation
     *   How can/does AI support care (or work against it) in governance, moderation, and trust and safety?
     *   Can care practices mitigate online harms such as misogyny and racial hate?
     *   Compliance, regulation, and operational pressure in online communities
     *   What care-informed regulation could look like in practice?
     *   How ideas of care are translated between policy, product, and frontline work?
     *   Moderation across different cultural, regional, and governance contexts
     *   Sustainable approaches to workload, boundaries, and responsibility

Proposals should be clear about conceptual framing and relevance to the theme of care. They may be fully developed papers, research in early or partial stages, conversations and provocations, workshops or panels. We welcome submissions that do not necessarily direct engage with the theme, but otherwise off value to our audience of moderators, community managers, academics, policy makers and technologists concerned with moderation practices.

Full submission details and deadlines are on the ATiM website. Note the slightly different timing of this year’s conference (June, not May - so as not to conflict with RightsCon in Zambia).

I would love to have you join our growing international community of scholars and practitioners advancing critical dialogue about moderation and the futures of online social life.

We are also seeking partners for the event. If you or your institution is interested in working with us, please reach out.

Warm regards,

VENESSA PAECH, BFA, MA
Waddawurrung Country | Geelong

PhD Student | Community in the Age of Machine Culture
Convenor: All Things in Moderation

Department of Media and Communication | Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
Phone: + 61 0435 217 315
Email: venessa.paech at sydney.edu.au