All Questions
Tagged with moderator-access or moderators
111 questions
53
votes
2
answers
959
views
How do you justify moderator actions that are based on secret information?
Usually I like moderator actions and the reasons for them to be public. The community can examine them and is either convinced that they are correct, or they can make an argument why they were not.
...
user21
44
votes
7
answers
944
views
Am I a moderator or a user?
How should I behave as a user when I'm also a moderator, especially in cases of inter-user disagreement over content or policy?
I have my own reasons for thinking I'm right, of course, but I don't ...
- 1,023
36
votes
9
answers
750
views
How do you moderate the moderators?
How can you have a self regulating group of moderators in a community?
Moderators regulate the community, but there is not an official way to moderate the moderators themselves.
Here in Stack ...
- 709
29
votes
5
answers
420
views
Should moderators always be denoted as such to the community?
Most communities across the Internet have always denoted moderators in some way. Forums very commonly use different colors for the usernames to indicate they are a moderator, or what level of ...
- 1,116
27
votes
2
answers
325
views
How to handle moderation of users known personally?
I have several co-workers or friends who are active on a site that I moderate, they also know that I'm a moderator. I've come across a situation where one of these users has been participating in ...
- 879
25
votes
5
answers
217
views
How can I encourage and promote community moderation?
One of the struggles I have found with having elevated moderator abilities in a small community moderated site is the risk of other members growing used to the fact that moderation is already "taken ...
- 788
23
votes
3
answers
287
views
How do you handle community backlash over an incorrect action taken by a moderator?
Sometimes people on the team make mistakes. As an example, I used to moderate a video game server, and on a couple of occasions, users were banned/suspended by individuals from the administrative ...
- 331
21
votes
5
answers
283
views
Is it an abuse of mod powers to reveal aspects of user behaviour should users wish to apply to be moderators?
As a current moderator we get to view many actions that users carry out that are not visible to regular users (primarily speaking we know the type of posts that they flag and sometimes the type of ...
- 456
21
votes
5
answers
231
views
When should you stop trying to reach a consensus with a user over a decision you have made?
As a moderator, you are inevitably faced with users who legitimately have problems with decisions you make. Often, you may be able to discuss the decision with them and reach a consensus, but ...
- 5,943
20
votes
2
answers
210
views
How should issues with which the moderators have no expertise be dealt with?
If a small group of moderators is moderating a large group of experts, it is inevitable that issues occur relating to small areas of expertise which do not fall within those covered by the moderator ...
- 1,081
20
votes
4
answers
319
views
A problematic, yet popular user is running for moderator. How can we make sure things don't get out of hand?
A popular, yet divisive user is running in a moderator election. The user, while having a strong record of participation in the site, is problematic in that they frequently disagree with existing ...
- 1,081
20
votes
3
answers
331
views
How should I deal with an active and important community member who is overly concerned with their self-importance?
How should I deal with an active and important community member who is overly concerned with their self-importance?
Some may go so far as to label this behavior a "god complex". This member believes ...
- 1,023
19
votes
5
answers
268
views
How to handle users who contact moderators offsite?
As a moderator our actions are always under some sort of scrutiny, as a result, users tend to try to track down our personal contact details to request clarification or to discuss our actions.
How ...
- 879
19
votes
4
answers
297
views
My community has just had a major, divisive fight; how can I as a moderator move it forward?
My community has just had a major fight, with prominent, long-term contributors weighing in on both sides with much heat. Several key people have left in anger, the issue they were fighting over ...
- 10.7k
18
votes
4
answers
719
views
Formally promoted staff members, technically the same as before - is this a good idea?
I've been part of a gaming community since its very beginning, and I've seen many decisions in these years. The most recent decision is quite confusing to me because it seems irrational to me.
Before ...
- 3,755
17
votes
7
answers
275
views
How can I tell if I should step down as a moderator?
Most sites require moderators to dedicate a portion of time daily to help with the workload. Stack Overflow Moderators are required to dedicate at least 30 minutes a day to help.
My offsite ...
- 879
17
votes
6
answers
172
views
If a user is complaining about an action you made, how involved should you be in its resolution?
Say you've just taken some sort of negative action on a post, like deleting it. Now another user (perhaps not even the post's owner) has become upset with the action you took and has started ...
- 1,116
17
votes
4
answers
2k
views
How to stop a behaviour that certainly is negative but technically does not break the rules?
On a Q&A site a user occasionally breaks the rules a bit here and there, but not so that their posts get flagged. For example, they post comments like "It would be so great if moderators were ...
17
votes
3
answers
225
views
Should I intervene if my community acts contrary to its own policies?
I am a moderator on Cooking Stack Exchange. Our activity is quite low compared to the tech-oriented sites on the network, but we do have a bunch of users with sufficient reputation to cast close votes,...
- 929
17
votes
4
answers
256
views
How can I discourage a behavior without drawing attention to it?
As a moderator, we get to see patterns of behavior from user(s) that start to spread to others in the community. Whether it is snarky or rude comments, we want to nip it in the bud as soon as possible....
- 879
16
votes
2
answers
233
views
Community Leader is not productive and hurts site growth
I am one of 4 co-founders for a Minecraft community that is going live in January. In addition to the 4 of us, we have two administrators and a few moderators.
Founder A is the guy that provides the ...
- 466
16
votes
4
answers
208
views
How can I promote my site/forum?
As a moderator on a young Stack Exchange site, I've been wondering how I can promote my site. This is a general question, so it shouldn't be Stack Exchange specific. Many forum moderators face this ...
- 271
16
votes
5
answers
428
views
How frequently or infrequently should one moderate their site?
New moderators for new sites can at times be overeager and over-moderate, and spend more time than they should on their site(s), neglecting other priorities (or vice versa, too focused on life to ...
- 345
16
votes
6
answers
236
views
As a moderator, how can I prevent alienation from non-moderator users?
I have been a moderator on a number of websites, and I have always noticed the same trend: when I first join, people appreciate me for whatever I add to the website, and I'm just one of the many ...
- 605
16
votes
3
answers
201
views
How to avoid being put on a pedestal by users?
I am aware that my high-visibility position in the community means that I am under higher scrutiny, and that I should act with more responsibility than the regular users. But the question is not about ...
- 929
16
votes
1
answer
134
views
What does a Community Manager do?
My community has moderators and administrators. Basically, the moderators run the day to day community and the administrators run the day to day business of the community. The administrators are ...
- 323
15
votes
3
answers
341
views
How cooperative should a small site moderator be towards a drama queen?
Moderators have thankless tasks including intervening in existing conflicts, or also enforcing rules users were not aware of. Of course, users are unpleasantly surprised at such intrusions, and not ...
- 929
15
votes
1
answer
173
views
How to help an unskilled person become a good community leader/content moderator?
My job is to build a new site. It is supposed to be a kind of knowledge repository, fed with user-generated content. Users who have a certain kind of know-how are going to describe it, so it becomes ...
- 929
15
votes
2
answers
131
views
How to de-escalate a situation when a user balances on the edge but others who want to correct them go beyond the rules?
The described situation happens on a Q&A site. An active user spends a lot of time on posting comments with recommendations on how to improve others’ posts. The comments are kind of short and even ...
14
votes
4
answers
340
views
As a moderator, what should I do when I find a community divided over a certain decision?
We have a place called Meta where we discuss about policies. Voting on meta usually indicates the consensus of community. Recently I've found that some of users in community is divided into two groups,...
- 423
14
votes
3
answers
167
views
User with multiple accounts isn't technically breaking rules but is annoying the community; how should I respond as a moderator?
On Stack Exchange, there is no rule against a user having more than one account so long as the extra accounts aren't used to cheat (sockpuppet voting and the like). In fact, on some sites it might be ...
- 10.7k
14
votes
1
answer
102
views
Are applicants less likely to apply as moderators if their nomination is open to public scrutiny?
I moderate a community where transparency of moderator actions is highly valued, and we recently opened applications for new moderators. The applications were to be posted publicly, so that members ...
- 1,162
14
votes
2
answers
130
views
How to handle lack of policy consistency between moderators?
Until recently I was related to a team of about 30 moderators on a kind of chat server.
The official rules pretty much only include "Be nice" and "Do not post advertisment links twice per day". There ...
- 243
14
votes
3
answers
156
views
How reasonable is it to hold chatbot authors accountable for their bots' behavior?
In a non-Stack Exchange online community, there is a chatbot that runs with the permission of the administrators. The primary purpose of the bot is to analyze the posts of others and suggest helpful ...
- 461
13
votes
5
answers
338
views
Moderator bans user in the course of an on-topic argument
Let's say Bob (User) and Jake (Moderator) are in a discussion. Things get heated, and Jake starts calling Bob names, and threatens to ban him. Bob is not doing anything he shouldn't be doing, but when ...
- 407
13
votes
4
answers
1k
views
How can the community be rescued, after a very harmful problem-user has managed to split the moderator/administrator team?
We are a young small community, who is still working on building up a stable user base. Already a few months ago, it happend that a user appeared who is interested in the topic of the site, but he is ...
- 1,470
13
votes
3
answers
210
views
Authoritative reference works on best practices in online community building
In responding to this question about inducing someone who would moderate an online forum to learn how to be a good moderator, I suggested, based on advice on The Workplace Stack Exchange, introducing ...
- 619
13
votes
3
answers
216
views
How to attract experts of the field to my community?
I'm a moderator on a brand new site, how can I help drive expert users to it?
This will help grow the community as well as improving the content on the site.
- 879
13
votes
2
answers
125
views
How to handle repeat offenders — and how to rein in fellow moderators?
Every community has them: the two or three users that every moderator knows. They constantly show up, cause a bit of trouble, and they bring rage to every moderator's head.
Often, the mere mention of ...
- 1,356
13
votes
2
answers
113
views
Periodic confirmation votes for moderators and administrators
When moderators or administrators are selected by community election, what are the pros and cons of scheduled confirmation votes?
For example on English Wikipedia, barring death or extreme events, ...
- 1,096
13
votes
4
answers
116
views
How do you get a job as a Community worker? Can volunteering hurt your chances?
I volunteer as a moderator for a pretty popular online game. The game’s still relatively young - it’s five years old now; I’ve been a player since it opened and a moderator for over three years.
I’m ...
- 131
13
votes
1
answer
82
views
How can a leader set expectations for response times to flags?
I moderate a forum with a dedicated following of 150-200 users. In general, there are a couple posts an hour throughout the day from my users. There are times that a spambot will find us though and ...
- 355
13
votes
1
answer
143
views
When is it acceptable to single out a user?
In a physical community, I've often wondered when it's crossing the line when calling out a specific user upon their behavior after general "warnings." I've personally never done it, but I was ...
- 2,719
13
votes
3
answers
132
views
How do you handle moderation with early stages of a community?
With small and starter communities, many feel like it's painful to suspend or even warn offending users, because the community is small and there aren't many people as is it on it.
How do you ...
- 1,034
13
votes
3
answers
149
views
What privileges should I grant to expert users vs site moderators?
On Stack Exchange sites and others, moderation privileges are managed by a reputation score which is essentially a way of capturing subject authority as well as capturing how well that member engages ...
- 628
13
votes
4
answers
234
views
How do you deal with users that don't break the rules, but are always walking the line?
We had several users that tried very hard to walk just above the line of breaking the rules and not actually break them.
How should they be handled?
- 709
13
votes
0
answers
78
views
How can I run a remote open space?
I have participated in several open space events at technical conferences, and I found them to be effective for getting people to loosen up and learn and contribute.
I conduct frequent technical ...
- 231
12
votes
5
answers
279
views
How do I tell an active member but not a good moderator that I want to remove her rank?
I have a Minecraft server and there's a very active group. Among others this is X. X is a moderator on my server but she doesn't really do a good job. Or let's be completely honest and say she doesn't ...
- 439
12
votes
6
answers
318
views
Aside from moderation, what can I do to keep my online community as polite as possible?
I'm starting a new online community from scratch and I want to keep it professional and polite. What 'tips & trick' would you suggest to minimise the risk of it turning into a 'troll-cave'.
...
- 223
12
votes
3
answers
254
views
Where is the line between Moderator and Administrator?
I am currently developing a site basically from scratch; the only third-party tools I'm using are web development libraries like jQuery and Kohana. This means I have full control over user permissions,...
- 223