I have been made a moderator of a new pc tech site :clap: .

The problem is i have absolutely NO experience in moderating so i would appreciate any tips from the moderators on here.

All advice is appreciated ;)


P*** takers are welcome to reply as well :hihi:

Congratulations!

Remembering the words of my mentor in such matters, 'Conan The Moderator'.....'The finest thing in the world is hear the lamentations of the widows of your enemies as you grind their menfolk's bones to dust under the iron clad wheels of your war chariots'

You get the idea... Just replace 'enemies' with 'users'....:D

Seriously, if it's a technical forum then the main job is ikely to be keeping things on topic. Is there a set of guidelines? If not, get one drawn up because you need something to help you decide what's acceptable - without guidelines everything comes down to personal taste and that can be VERY variable in a site with multiple moderators.

And don't mod threads you're actually contributing to.

Don't lose your rag in public.

Count ten and think hard before banning people.

Never moderate when angry, depressed or drunk. :)

Hope this helps!

Joe

Thanks Joe, thats a great help ;) .

I'm not too sure about the 'don't moderate while drunk' bit though :hihi:

From what i have been told my job will be to:

1. Keep posts in the right forum
2. Stop spammers
3. Delete abusive posts
Etc....etc.....etc.....

It all seems like pretty standard stuff but it's not stopping me s******g myself. Luckily the forum is only 1 day old so i will be able to grow with the forum.

According to some, just read a copy of Mein Kampf ;)

Oh and the most important thing to note is make sure you enjoy what you are doing... cos if it becomes a chore then its not worth your free time :P

Have a thick skin and stick to what you think is right.

Mein Kampf?

That liberal hogwash!

Actually, just a few other things occurred to me whilst wallowing in the bath this morning - and I'm afraid that sometimes for me these are honoured more in the breach than the observance!

Give the other person space to save face, unless they're being a REAL pain in the bum.

Try to see things form their perspective before making a judgement call.

If you're wrong, and by being wrong you've caused a problem, admit it quickly and openly and get the whole thing in the open.

I know it sounds twee and old fashioned, but the old book 'How to make friends and influence people' has some good points to make, even if it's a bit old fashioned now. If you're after a more up to date book in the same area, look at some of the stuff by Steven Covey - 'Principle Centered Leadership' and 'The Seven Habits of highly effective people'

They're good for life in general as well as modding!

And, as has been said, enjoy it!

Joe :)

Great advice so far Guys :thumbsup: .

Congratulations Vidster:thumbsup:
Good luck!!

Originally posted by Draggletail
Congratulations Vidster:thumbsup:
Good luck!!

Thanks Draggletail :)

I hope you all come and join us :thumbsup:

personally I like to think that the best modding is occuring when no one even remembers that you're a mod. That relies somewhat on having a well trained userbase.
The strongest mod action i've had to take for last 6 months on planetjitsu.com is to remove duplicate posts when people have clicked submit several times.

Originally posted by Cyclone
personally I like to think that the best modding is occuring when no one even remembers that you're a mod. That relies somewhat on having a well trained userbase.
The strongest mod action i've had to take for last 6 months on planetjitsu.com is to remove duplicate posts when people have clicked submit several times.

Hopefully this will be the strongest action i will need to take ;)

One rule of thumb that I always find myself applying or if I'm more honest, wishing I'd applied it more often, is the "if in doubt you're probably about to FUBAR yourself, so don't do it"

In that instance the best course of action is to post a "thoughts" thread in the moderator only forum or ask someone else to handle it and see how they do it...

Sounds like you mod somewhere else Martin...
Whats FUBAR (I should be able to work it out I suppose):)

Originally posted by Martin_s
One rule of thumb that I always find myself applying or if I'm more honest, wishing I'd applied it more often, is the "if in doubt you're probably about to FUBAR yourself, so don't do it"

In that instance the best course of action is to post a "thoughts" thread in the moderator only forum or ask someone else to handle it and see how they do it...

We obviously think along the same lines somewhat Martin_s. I have already asked several questions in the moderators forum instead of jumping in feet first.

One example. I never knew what Warez was! (don't laugh). Well obviously i knew what it was all along, I'm just not used to the terminology just yet.

Originally posted by Draggletail
Sounds like you mod somewhere else Martin...
Whats FUBAR (I should be able to work it out I suppose):)

Good question Draggletail.....I couldn't find anything legit in my search?

Originally posted by Draggletail
Whats FUBAR (I should be able to work it out I suppose):)

Never seen Saving Private Ryan then?

Never. Sex, Lies and Videotape is one of my favourite films. And Brazil. and Local Hero Oh, and that John Malcovitch film - whats it called. I digress:rolleyes:

Originally posted by Draggletail
Whats FUBAR (I should be able to work it out I suppose):)
F**ked Up Beyond All Recognition.

Originally posted by Lurch
F**ked Up Beyond All Recognition.

Clear as crystal now. Thanks Lurch :thumbsup:

Originally posted by Draggletail
Sounds like you mod somewhere else Martin...
Whats FUBAR (I should be able to work it out I suppose):)
Well Lurch has provided the answer to the acronym but yes I admin and own a couple of other forum sites so I have something of a different perspective on what goes on in the moderation side of things...

The other piece of advice I would give is that you will never please all of the people all of the time. Not everyone will like you, and that's not something you want to aspire to. But if you apply the rules with thought, fairness and admit when you got it wrong, you'll get the best you can hope for which is respect. Although many would rather walk to the north pole than admit it ;)