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Seeking Advice on Forum Moderation
Foufou
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I’m a moderator on the forums for my roller derby league. I haven’t had a lot of experience with moderation and most of what I think I know about it I’ve gleaned from reading the PA forums. I was hoping to get some tips from current/former PA mods and anyone else with moderation experience.
The main purpose of our forums is to exchange information between skaters and keep everyone up to date on the league’s status. I would like tips on how to better organize information so that it’s as easy to find as possible. Many of our girls have not used a forum before now.
Probably my biggest concern is with keeping the off-topic and negative/inappropriate posts to a minimum. How do you keep things neat, tidy, and civil without making people feel like they are being censored?
Apologies if a topic like this already exists. I searched and found nothing.
The main purpose of our forums is to exchange information between skaters and keep everyone up to date on the league’s status. I would like tips on how to better organize information so that it’s as easy to find as possible. Many of our girls have not used a forum before now.
Probably my biggest concern is with keeping the off-topic and negative/inappropriate posts to a minimum. How do you keep things neat, tidy, and civil without making people feel like they are being censored?
Apologies if a topic like this already exists. I searched and found nothing.
Foufou on
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Posts
For forum structure that depends on the type of forums, and really is just what is logical.
Parent forum based on general topics and sub-forums for specific topics.
Provide an off-topic forum for people to be dumb in as well.
As for making things easy to find, just pin the important stuff and give it a name like "READ THIS" or something descriptive if you have different topics with important stuff.
If it's going to only be used for the league, suggest you only provide accounts to folks in the league and remove/add accounts as people enter and leave the league to keep out the rabble. You can keep boards private as well, both from getting accounts or even reading them.
Most forum software can help filter the wordy-dirds.
And, if worse comes to worse, and someone's clearly being disruptive/bullying, there's no shame in whipping out the
We also have a chat section that is essentially the off-topic area. It's actually very usefull as a catchall when girls don't know where to ask about something or post ideas. Like I said, a lot of these girls have never used an internet forum before. We also have a lot of very social people that need a place just to chat and be dumb.
Some of the ideas mentioned so far are things I've been doing so at least I know I'm on the right track.
@Darkewolfe:
I'm with the Rollergirls of Southern Indiana in Evansville.
@GungHo
The parts of the forum I'm worried about are only for our skaters and refs. The ban hammer becomes a problem because we really do need everyone to be able to participate in discussions and polls. For the most part everyone is very civil. We haven't had any problems with people from outside the league coming to the boards to badmouth us or any of our fans.
@Darkewolfe:
Awsome! We will be bouting them on Feb 7, I believe.
It depends on the forum software, but if it's modular and fairly well known, there's probably functionality to "ban" someone from posting while retaining their right to vote in polls and certain subsections.
You could try creating an off topic forum, or a chat thread, but bear in mind that these will take over the forum to some degree. The best way to get people back on topic is active moderation "please keep to the topic guys". Most of my moderation in that context consists of me posting "this is an on topic forum". If that doesn't work, a warning system is fine, but the smaller the forum the less draconian you should be Your best bet is to be firm, but reasonable. Don't ever let the users push you around, but don't use any more "force" than is necessary for the given situation. I hope this helps.
My new question is how do you keep up with all the posts so that you don’t miss things that need editing or deleting? I tend to favor the “view new posts†button so that I can see anything new that pops up, but I still feel like I miss things. I’ve requested that people use the “report post†feature to help keep things tidy and pleasant, but I think it’s fallen on deaf ears. I’ve asked at least 2 or 3 times now and haven’t received a single report despite the fact that just yesterday there was an entire thread I had to delete because it was getting way out of hand.
Beyond that, be careful with over-moderation. It will be much easier to keep the other threads organized if you have one where people can post lolcat and their social plans for the week. If you're going to be stirct about the on-topic stuff, let people go nuts in there. Once they get used to the idea, they probably will, because as much as you dislike people getting in the way of your topic threads, people who post OT dislike having on-topic stuff get in the way of their silliness after a while. They probably really aren't appreciating having their posts deleted, either.
For the new question... you catch what you can. On PA it's not really possible to read every new post and maintain your sanity as well (I know, I used to do it), but PA has tens of thousands of users. This kind of goes back to overmoderation. If you make a new thread for chat, don't moderate that too much. If you catch someone posting boobs or dicks or tubgirl or whatever and it's an SFW forum, delete the post. After a while, people will start sending you messages if something is really disruptive. Otherwise, stick to moderating the on-topic threads. That should be easier to do once you have another place for chat established. You can read through all the new posts in those if you have to, but try to be a participant in the chat area, rather than just a moderator. If you're just a moderator all the time then everyone will hate you, and anybody hating anybody because of the forum probably isn't good for the league.
Instead, spot-check the threads. Poke your head in. If your forum is such that the mods tend to be active contributors, occasionally make a comment in a thread that you may have zero interest in, just to show presence. People should be of the impression that you're keeping an eye on everything, or at least that you tend to catch most of the significant things happening in the forum, and the more you post the more this will be the case.
Beyond that, keep in mind that you WILL miss things. Even if you get people using the Report function, you will miss things. This is why you want to foster a community that tends to self-moderate. Not in the annoying "OOOOH YOU'RE BREAKING A RUUUULE" manner, but in the sense that the sort of fuckmuppetry that's against the rules is socially unacceptable. If the community gets pissed off when someone is a dick, or when someone is off-topic, people are less likely to be dicks or be off-topic. Social pressure can be a wonderful thing. And the trolls who do things specifically to piss people off will stand out and make it easy to spot them and remove them.
Most of all, try to be a good role model. If you have a rule against being a dick, don't be a dick. If you have a rule against posting off-topic, don't post off-topic. Don't do anything you'd nail others for doing. If people respect you, it's easier to govern. You don't have to be popular or even necessarily well-liked, but you need to be respected.
So far very few threads have had to be outright deleted, but the ones that have, including the one I deleted yesterday, generally center around some drama that occurred in the leagues past. It has been agreed upon by everyone involved that this drama is not to be discussed in any public forum, internet or otherwise. Most of the posters from the thread I deleted agreed that it was the right thing to do so the backlash should be minimal.
So, is it appropriate to actually make a post saying “Pleas stay on-topic†or is it better to go in and make a post that swings it back to the topic by discussing the topic? Or is this the sort of thing that just comes down to my own personal style/personality? I will try to be more visible in as many threads as possible; especially ones that I think might get out of hand.
Personal style, particular circumstances, etc. If things are away off topic, then you should probably explicitly tell people to fall in line. If you were one of the folks responsible for things drifting off-topic - and it'll happen if you like to contribute - then some tact is warranted if you don't want to look like an ass.
You're a mod, so you always have the right to explicitly direct their behavior. Just be polite about it and you're golden. You can also tell them to get back on topic and then contribute something yourself that's on-topic to play off of.
A forum is nice for discussing things and staying in touch, but for actual information sharing it quickly becomes too cluttered and unsearchable.
*edit: I mean, a wiki *and* a forum.
Well, we can't delete posts, but we can "delete" them so that nobody but mods and admins can see that it ever existed. But this is the same soft-delete that users have. Mods are special only in that they can see what was deleted.