[UPD: MOD PICKED] TF looking for a new MOD!

[AUSSIE_5]

I agree with Darren

We live in diff timezone and can Mod [cleaning / moving posts deleting answering questions and the "job" would be done when you are sleeping or [hum] clubbing


I found this on the INT

Forum moderators are not police officers

The biggest mistake forum owners make when taking on forum moderators is expecting them to police the community.

Many see the main role of moderators as enforcers of the site rules, as people who delete posts they don’t like and lock topics the moment they run off-course. If these are the priorities of your moderators, you are doing it all wrong.


You must never repress your community. You must ensure that you moderate your forum effectively - this means adopting a laissez-faire approach and allowing your members a large amount of freedom.
If you or your moderators crack down on members the second they step out of line, you will be sending a negative signal to your community that free speech is not tolerated on your site.
You will make people nervous and discourage them from getting involved - hardly the ingredients for a successful community!




Forum moderators should promote interaction
The primary role of a forum moderator should be to promote interaction. A forum moderator should be posting new threads and adding new content to the site. They should be helping out members with their queries and they should be keeping threads alive by asking questions.
Forum moderators be allowed to delete or lock threads that are inappropriate - of course this should be one of their roles - this should never be their primary role.


When you take on forum moderators you need to make it clear exactly what you expect from them. Most moderators see themselves as forum police officers and will only edit/delete/lock content without creating any themselves.
This is a mistake - make sure your moderators know that their primary role is to encourage interaction, to encourage member involvement, and to encourage a sense of community within your forum.


Your moderators
Do you have moderators on your forum?
Have you made their role clear to them?

Have you advised them that their primary role should be to create content and encourage member interaction?



Why forum moderation is necessary
If you don’t moderate your forum, it is likely to be overwhelmed with spam - this is the primary reason why I ensure all the forums I run have some degree of moderation.
Many feel moderation is in place to prevent arguments and abuse between members - I don’t disagree with this view; I feel it’s an important role but one that should come secondary to dealing with forum spammers.
Spam and abusive posts are detrimental to your online community - you must moderate your forums to prevent irreversible damage from taking place.
Why moderation should be taken seriously

Many forum administrators will often delete comments they disagree with, or members they suspect of spamming, then think nothing else of it. This is a mistake.
Forum moderation, if done incorrectly, can be worse than having no moderation at all. Over-zealous moderation can result in members ending up feeling alienated and angry when they find their posts or accounts deleted for no understandable reason.
A community relies on its members - before you take decisive action against yours, make sure you are making the right decision.
How to avoid conflict when moderating
As I have said before, it is essential that your online community has a set of rules or guidelines for your members to follow.
Before you have to take action against a member, you should always contact them and try to get them to remove or edit the post themselves by referring them to the rule you feel they have broken.
In this way, you are making your site user feel far more valued on a personal level - this is far preferable to the member simply returning one day to find their post(s) or account deleted.


The key to effective forum moderation

In my opinion, the key to effective forum moderation is the ‘laissez-faire‘ approach. You should only edit the accounts or posts of your members as a last resort.
If you are unhappy with any content they have created, speak directly and confidentially to that person.
This way, you will not end up alienating your community - they will respect you far more as a moderator and will feel far more valued as a member of your community.

Before you have to take action against a member, you should always contact them and try to get them to remove or edit the post themselves by referring them to the rule you feel they have broken.
In this way, you are making your site user feel far more valued on a personal level - this is far preferable to the member simply returning one day to find their post(s) or account deleted.


Sometimes, regardless of what you try to do abusive forum members keep coming back and causing trouble. This article will teach you how to take effective action against abusive forum members to prevent them from ruining your online community.


What are your rules?
Online communities need rules. If you don’t have any published rules, how can you expect members to abide by them? It is impossible for anyone to break the rules if there aren’t any in the first place. You will never be able to deal effectively with abusive forum members unless your site has rules, so make sure you have some in place before you try to deal with abusive members.


Editing posts of abusive forum members
If a forum member makes a post that is against the site rules, you should edit it. If you edit the post of a member, it is important that you contact them to explain the reasons why you have made the edit. Your message should be professional and constructive: you do not want to alienate your forum members. By remaining friendly and professional, you are showing that you still value them, and want them to remain part of your community. You are also reducing the likelihood of them taking offence at your actions, and therefore preventing a potential escalation of the situation.


Why moderator identification is necessary

Giving your moderators personal user names is great - but only if you use another method to advertise their status. It is important for your moderators to be public - for the exact same reasons that people argue for ‘more visible policing’ on the streets.
Publicly visible moderators act as a deterrent to any members who may be thinking about breaking your site rules; if they can see who your staff members are and see them getting involved in your community, they may just think twice before bothering to post that spam link or flame other members.
When visitors come to your community, they will check out the content before making a decision on whether to become a member. If they can identify moderators getting involved in the conversations, your community will benefit in more than one way: not only do they actually see friendly, approachable moderators, but they also see that your forum is actually moderated! They won’t be able to see how friendly your moderators are if they can’t tell them apart from your other members.
Many of us have joined forums only to be disappointed when we come across abuse or spam. We look to moderators to prevent this - if we see that no action has been taken, we start to wonder how much the forum administrator actually cares about us as members. We may even look to help them out by reporting offensive threads. We can’t do this if we don’t know who the moderators are!
Give your moderators a personal but obvious presence

It’s a really good idea to make your staff come across as personable and approachable, and a great way of doing this is by giving them ‘regular’ user names.
If you take this approach though, you must ensure that you make their staff status identifiable in other ways - change the colour of their name, give them a custom rank; just make sure that your members can easily determine just who has those moderator powers. It is pointless having effective, friendly, popular moderators if nobody knows who they are!