As a moderator, what can I do to reduce the degree to which this user consumes moderator resources, without letting him have a negative impact on the site?

The answer to this depends, essentially, on two questions.

• How willing and capable is the user to learn how to better fit your community guidelines?
• Will the user ever be a productive member and can your community help them get there?

##Not willing to change / never be productive

Some people will want their way no matter what. Some people will never receive any feedback well. Some people are, quite frankly, going to be a drain on your site.

There are a few ways to deal with this.

The easiest is to simply engage them less. Whether this is through less chat/messaging, posting, commenting, etc, you can engage less and often this eventually will cause these sorts of people to leave. Most new community members are unwilling to continue to "work" if no one really responds or acknowledges their work (well this is generalizable to all of life...).

Depending on your community, you may be able to be clear on what the site expectations are and what the consequences of not following are. Lay out how your community works. Explain what your expectations as a moderator are and what the consequences of not following are. Ideally you have some sorts of terms/service or forum guidelines to reference for this. Then, if the user does not respect them, you can engage them in disciplinary action (up to removing the user from the site). This requires a clear process - don't randomly do this out of the blue.

But it's important to realize - some users will not actually be assets for your site and may be overall negatives.

##Willing to learn/change and a benefit

If the user shows promise in wanting to fit your site better, then you want a different approach.

Start with engaging them educationally about how the site works. Take care to explain why any time you need to correct the user. If they are actively trying to learn your community culture, this will be greatly beneficial in the long and short term.

Remember - you are coaching and mentoring at this point. If your team can't handle this, push the user up into the above category. Period. Don't feel bad about it. You are a moderator, not a babysitter. Don't be a babysitter. Your job is to maintain and help the community. Sometimes your efforts are beneficial in coaching others. Sometimes you might not have time. That's ok.

Chat is a great place for this sort of discussion. Don't get burdened in constantly chatting, though, and make sure you don't accidentally set this expectation.

Make sure to point out beneficial things the user does for the site. Reward good behavior in this sense, even if only by complementing. A few "hey thanks for those edits! I/we appreciate it!" or "nice work on all the (work doing something)" can go a long way towards making someone feel both valued and desire inclusion. This is also a great protip for anyone wishing to maintain any relationship with anyone, be it friends or significant others or coworkers... Minimal concentrated acknowledgement of benefit is quite meaningful to almost everyone.

Remember, you want a community. In most cases you want people to take ownership of the site/community (especially on SE, but this is often true). So helping people feel included/valued goes a long way.

As this process continues, you will either deepen your level of discussion or find out the user really falls in the above category.

As a moderator, what can I do to reduce the degree to which this user consumes moderator resources, without letting him have a negative impact on the site?

The answer to this depends, essentially, on two questions.

• How willing and capable is the user to learn how to better fit your community guidelines?
• Will the user ever be a productive member and can your community help them get there?

Not willing to change / never be productive

Some people will want their way no matter what. Some people will never receive any feedback well. Some people are, quite frankly, going to be a drain on your site.

There are a few ways to deal with this.

The easiest is to simply engage them less. Whether this is through less chat/messaging, posting, commenting, etc, you can engage less and often this eventually will cause these sorts of people to leave. Most new community members are unwilling to continue to "work" if no one really responds or acknowledges their work (well this is generalizable to all of life...).

Depending on your community, you may be able to be clear on what the site expectations are and what the consequences of not following are. Lay out how your community works. Explain what your expectations as a moderator are and what the consequences of not following are. Ideally you have some sorts of terms/service or forum guidelines to reference for this. Then, if the user does not respect them, you can engage them in disciplinary action (up to removing the user from the site). This requires a clear process - don't randomly do this out of the blue.

But it's important to realize - some users will not actually be assets for your site and may be overall negatives.

Willing to learn/change and a benefit

If the user shows promise in wanting to fit your site better, then you want a different approach.

Start with engaging them educationally about how the site works. Take care to explain why any time you need to correct the user. If they are actively trying to learn your community culture, this will be greatly beneficial in the long and short term.

Remember - you are coaching and mentoring at this point. If your team can't handle this, push the user up into the above category. Period. Don't feel bad about it. You are a moderator, not a babysitter. Don't be a babysitter. Your job is to maintain and help the community. Sometimes your efforts are beneficial in coaching others. Sometimes you might not have time. That's ok.

Chat is a great place for this sort of discussion. Don't get burdened in constantly chatting, though, and make sure you don't accidentally set this expectation.

Make sure to point out beneficial things the user does for the site. Reward good behavior in this sense, even if only by complementing. A few "hey thanks for those edits! I/we appreciate it!" or "nice work on all the (work doing something)" can go a long way towards making someone feel both valued and desire inclusion. This is also a great protip for anyone wishing to maintain any relationship with anyone, be it friends or significant others or coworkers... Minimal concentrated acknowledgement of benefit is quite meaningful to almost everyone.

Remember, you want a community. In most cases you want people to take ownership of the site/community (especially on SE, but this is often true). So helping people feel included/valued goes a long way.

As this process continues, you will either deepen your level of discussion or find out the user really falls in the above category.