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Forum moderator - Powers
Forum moderator
"As a moderator, you have a unique gift called leadership. This gift has given you the opportunity to work as a moderator on whatever board you’re part of. But leadership is simply a raw force -- an energy -- that drives us and influences others. It’s like fire, having the potential to both bring reward and cause harm. It depends on the person who wields that leadership, and the maturity with which he or she uses it."
A forum moderator is someone granted special powers to enforce the rules of ukindian forum. Almost all moderators on this forum can move discussions or topics to different sections of the forum, "close" or "lock" discussions to prevent users from continuing to discuss them, edit the content of individual postings, answer questions (or help people with problems), and "stick" discussions so they remain visible in their forum section even if no new postings are made to them etc.
Among a moderator's enforcement duties is often the duty to stop flaming or spamming and keep the board a friendly place, free of personal insults .We also ban illegal material and outright pornograghy, and restrict the use of profanity and any violent or sexual images.
Powers
Moderators can have some or all of the following powers, depending on the specific board. Some of the powers, where appropriate, may be restricted to a subsection of the board.
Good Leaders Make Tough Decisions:-
As Moderators and Administrators, you will find yourself in tough positions. Should you ban someone, or give them a warning shot? Should you enforce a guideline even though it’s only a small transgression and it probably wasn’t intentional, or should you let it slide so that you don’t appear tough, dictatorial, and uncompromising?
"As a moderator, you have a unique gift called leadership. This gift has given you the opportunity to work as a moderator on whatever board you’re part of. But leadership is simply a raw force -- an energy -- that drives us and influences others. It’s like fire, having the potential to both bring reward and cause harm. It depends on the person who wields that leadership, and the maturity with which he or she uses it."
A forum moderator is someone granted special powers to enforce the rules of ukindian forum. Almost all moderators on this forum can move discussions or topics to different sections of the forum, "close" or "lock" discussions to prevent users from continuing to discuss them, edit the content of individual postings, answer questions (or help people with problems), and "stick" discussions so they remain visible in their forum section even if no new postings are made to them etc.
Among a moderator's enforcement duties is often the duty to stop flaming or spamming and keep the board a friendly place, free of personal insults .We also ban illegal material and outright pornograghy, and restrict the use of profanity and any violent or sexual images.
Powers
Moderators can have some or all of the following powers, depending on the specific board. Some of the powers, where appropriate, may be restricted to a subsection of the board.
- Moving conversations to a different section of the forum. Virtually all forums are organized into various sections by topic to allow users to more easily read what interests them without having to sort through many topics of discussion they find boring. Moderators of most boards/sections are able to move a conversation to a section more suited to it.
- Closing/locking threads Postings to ukindian forum is organized into topics or threads of postings, typically organized sequentially by time of posting to form a conversation of sorts. Most sections allow their moderators to close a given thread to further posting, effectively ending the conversation. This allows the existing content to remain fully visible, so that readers can easily see the moderator's reasons for closing the thread (it's generally customary for the moderator to post an explanation immediately before or after closing a thread). Certain users, generally moderators and administrators, may be able to post in closed threads.
- Editing posts. In the event that a post is made that contains only some content that breaches forum rules, moderators are usually able to remove that content while still leaving any legitimate content. Even if an entire post is removed via editing, users will still be able to see who originally posted it and when it was originally posted, so that users who view the thread later won't be confused by any references to it. Usually this method is used to remove illegal or grossly offensive material that would remain visible in a closed thread, or else to stop a single post from derailing an entire thread.
- Pinning/sticking threads. The threads in a section are usually displayed in reverse chronological order by last post. This means that the threads at the top of the listing for a section will be the ones in which someone has most recently posted, and therefore posting in a thread will "bump" it to the top of the listing. However, pinned threads remain above unpinned threads at all times, no matter how old. This may be used to, for instance, keep a copy of forum rules at the top of every section of the board.
- Deleting posts and threads. There are different kinds of deletion, and different moderators on different sections may be empowered to use different kinds. In general, something that's deleted vanishes from public view, if it continues to exist at all.
The simplest form of deletion is variously called hard-deletion, physical removal, or simply deletion. Essentially, content deleted in this way is not recoverable through the forum software. It may be stored in backups, and some data recovery methods may work, but such methods are usually difficult. We may restrict hard-deletion to only a handful of individuals (Admins and super moderators), requiring lower-level moderators to use more reversible methods.
Other deletion methods can be collectively referred to as soft-deletion. The most basic of these is to move the content in question to a hidden section of the forum, so that only authorized users can view it. Anyone with the proper powers can then move the content back just as easily. - Splitting and merging threads. If two threads exist on similar topics, or multiple topics are being discussed in one thread, the threads can be merged or the thread can be split.
- Banning users. We may allow some of our moderators to restrict or eliminate a troublesome user's posting or even viewing rights. Of course, suspension of a user's account doesn't prevent the user from signing up under a different name, and for this reason ukindian may not allow moderators to ban IP addresses.
- Changing user account information. Some selected Moderators in some cases may alter certain aspects of a user's account, such as the avatar or signiture, in a case of profanity or other circumstances.
- Viewing IP addresses. An IP address is the way Internet-enabled computers communicate with each other, and ukindian log the IP address that all postings are made from. In general, this serves to aid identification of users, in combination with less technological means such as writing style. IP addresses can therefore assist in stopping ban evasion, for instance. In general, ordinary users and moderators are prohibited from seeing others' IP addresses for reasons of privacy and security.
- Whimsical Self-Indulgence. From an important historic point of view, whimsical self-indulgence was once extremely common amongst those who were involved in the administration of internet forums and discussion boards. Narcissistic, undereducated and power-mad individuals, often with poor social and communication skills, would take it upon themselves to interfere with the postings and discussions of other board users, often using intimidating language and various threats including modifying, deleting or otherwise interfering with posts, threads and subjects. In the worst cases, a whimsically self indulgent moderator could threaten to delete another board user's threads, regularly spending vast amounts of time trawling through old posts in a desperate attempt to prove to the ukindian that their actions are somehow justified. Fortunately, as the internet has matured, so has its userbase and today this kind of behaviour is somewhat rare. It is important to note, we will completely ban such moderators from the forum.
Good Leaders Make Tough Decisions:-
As Moderators and Administrators, you will find yourself in tough positions. Should you ban someone, or give them a warning shot? Should you enforce a guideline even though it’s only a small transgression and it probably wasn’t intentional, or should you let it slide so that you don’t appear tough, dictatorial, and uncompromising?
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