I think it's worth having a small conversation about setting up this place properly. I've been in a few socialist chat rooms, forums, and more, many turning out great, but a lot of the ones that failed or devolved into drama did so because there was just an impulsive decision it should exist, and then reacting to problems after they've arisen.

Now obviously aussie.zone is casual and light, don't even bother writing a manifesto no visitors will read before posting. This is about the basics. In fact, even this OP might be too long.

Because this community is still small, we can have a go at discussing and reaching a consensus on fundamental ideas, like:

• Why we should exist: what usefulness this community serves for aussie.zone and other Aussie Lemmy users (who already have access to general socialist comms on other instances, and who doesn't want political drama pushed upon this lovely place)
• What kind of content and discussion we want to see here, and what we don't want to see
• Community rules to push us in that direction
• Other mechanical and cultural elements to promote these, like avatar and banner choice, choice of pinned threads (perhaps a reading list?), automoderation ideas.
• Other?

I also encourage discussion on what you don't want to see from moderators. The bottom line is, on everywhere from Lemmy, reddit, Discord and any other place with staff, most are there to fill a position and aren't given any training or briefing on expectations. I've seen some communities wait until they get a flood of unexpected attention, bring on new moderators without any instruction, then the new moderators start micromanaging discussion, banning people for flimsy or unclear reasons, or adding personal insults in bans, and other negligent or abusive behaviour. For that reason, I would like for us to also consider setting up some basic expectations for moderators. (Honestly I think all the volunteers so far seem chill, and moderation will be pretty minimal, but this is so much easier to figure out before any drama hits.)