Message #8574

[Tom]

A forum does not work without moderation.

I am constantly looking for moderators for the various boards. If you want to be a moderator, send me a PM and tell me which forum you want to mod, ideally those that don't already have moderators.

[Tom]

Some general guidelines for everyone, which the moderators are kindly requested to enforce:

• Be friendly with each other. We're a community.
• Find the proper board for your topic. Misplaced topics may be moved by a moderator.
• Care and feeding of trolls
• This is a public board on the Internet. What you post here will be visible to the world, for many years.

[egamma]

What, exactly, are the duties of the moderators?

So far, I have:
*Move posts that aren't in their proper place.

[Indirik]

Make sure the discussions stay civil.

Prevent/douse the inevitable flame wars.

[Tom]

What, exactly, are the duties of the moderators?

Step in when it is necessary, after due consideration if it really is. Ideally, it will be a rare exception.

I really don't know what exactly the tools available to moderators are. I think you can delete posts, warn and ban users, move topics, etc.

The non-destructive options should always be first choice. Warn users rather than ban (the forum keeps track of warnings, so it helps us identify problem makers), and move rather than delete. But sometimes, like in the case of spam, the delete and ban options are appropriate.

[Indirik]

So far as I can tell, I do not have any ability to officially warn users. I can send private messages, but then so can anyone. I believe all my moderator-type powers are restricted to: editing posts, deleting posts, splitting/merging threads, locking/unlocking threads, and stickying/unstickying threads. (Oh, and posting to certain locked/restricted forums/threads.)

[Tom]

So far as I can tell, I do not have any ability to officially warn users. I can send private messages, but then so can anyone. I believe all my moderator-type powers are restricted to: editing posts, deleting posts, splitting/merging threads, locking/unlocking threads, and stickying/unstickying threads. (Oh, and posting to certain locked/restricted forums/threads.)

I've made a few changes to the permissions, try now.

[Indirik]

It looks like I can now issue warnings, and maybe some more info things. I will have to check more when I'm on a real computer and not my phone. Anyway, that should be enough for anything but the most abusive thing that require account locks. I really hope we won't run into situations where that is necessary, and we generally have a pretty civil community.

[Foundation]

Still can't seem to find the "give warning" button.  I've resorted to editing in a red warning line.

Maybe Rob could help me find it?

[Bedwyr]

Peter,

Click on someone's name, and when you go to their userpage, there should be a tab near the top that says "actions" which should have a "give warning" option.

[LilWolf]

Peter,

Click on someone's name, and when you go to their userpage, there should be a tab near the top that says "actions" which should have a "give warning" option.

No such thing for me at least. Maybe you need to be a global moderator for it and not restricted to one subsection or something?

[egamma]

I don't see a warning option either.

[Foundation]

Peter,

Click on someone's name, and when you go to their userpage, there should be a tab near the top that says "actions" which should have a "give warning" option.

I only see "send message".   

[Indirik]

Actions
Send personal message
Issue a Warning

If you don't have it, then perhaps Tom didn't hand out permission for that to individual board moderators.

If you feel that a warning needs to be issued, the report the post, along with details.

[Foundation]

Though the report only goes to me, right?  I mean, can you see the report on the "troll" in Feature Requests?  If so then I can just ask you to handle it.