It was September 2016 when my good friend and compatriot in alternate history Matt Mitrovich asked that I take over some moderation duties on Alternate History Online, the single largest Facebook group dedicated to alternate history. He had founded the group when he was in college and he had watched it grow, alongside running a blog (which had shut down in the summer of 2016, until then being the premier blog among the community).

I had gotten to know him after submitting a few articles and a series of interviews to his blog, the Alternate History Weekly Update. We talked theory and scenarios with each other and in the group. Things came up in his life, and so he handed off administratorship of AHO to a few alternate historians he knew well. I was one of them.

Very early I took up the duties of the group’s ‘customs,’ being the one to whom the duty of letting new members in lay. My policy wavered a bit but settled on two criteria:

• Did the prospective member have any obvious ties to hate groups, or anything else that would out them as bigoted or otherwise unsavory?
• Did the prospective member join Facebook recently, and not have any other friends or group memberships? (An account that does not meet this standard is likely a spambot)

For the first few months the communication between the different administrators was sparse. We only got rid of spam or bigoted tripe, things that the alternate history community generally does not like. However, one administrator posted a set of rules unilaterally, which attracted controversy; a series of events of removing administratorships culminated in the creation of an administrator Facebook group that worked to create more standardized policies.

Discussions among the administrators were fruitful, and a general code of conduct has been agreed upon. I to this day believe they are all decent people with passion for history and for alternate history even if our specific opinions differ on issues and historical interpretation. These are people who are educated and passionate, and are committed to our genre.

The thing that surprised me the most about the work of running this group is that there isn’t much. The alternate history community is one that I have found to be mature and knowledgeable about a variety of subjects. Sure, you get the occasional bigot, conspiracy theorist, or creep, and I have dealt with several of them. But even our younger members, as young as middle school even, are polite and decent people who know so much. This group reassured my faith in the alternate history community, and I am certain it will continue to produce great things.