How do you moderate?

[CTXMedia]

No, not what you moderate or who you moderate - we'll all be pretty similar in that regard - no, I'm talking about the technical process of moderation at your site?

For example, do you use the Report Centre for everything? Do you have reports going to a forum and work out sanctions, PMs etc. from there?

Global moderators or lots of category/forum-specific moderators?

Do you have a modding framework - violations, what mods should do when they appear on the site? PM, warning, ban escalation process?

Do you use the XF warning points system to move people into restricted usergroups or into moderation?

Do you keep notes on all modding / mmbership communication / actions?

You get the idea - how do you moderate at your site?

Cheers,
Shaun

 

[Ingenious]

We don't use an infraction system - caused riots both times we tried to introduce it. Or any formal warning system. It's all done case by case with a "friendly PM", as much help/patience/forgiveness as possible and an intent to include everyone, even the challenging ones. An attitude of assuming people are genuine. The onus then is on a problem member giving assurances of future good behaviour, so if/when this is broken, a ban cannot really be argued against.

The exception is spamming or gross violation of the community rules by newbies with no previous record - both are banned.

We use a staff forum to discuss things and have threads created there for reported posts. The report centre is awful to use and we don't use it. Reported posts are sent by email and text message for speedy attention by staff.

 

[karll]

Everything Ingenious said, except we do use the report centre even though it has, let's say, room for improvement. We do discuss issues in the mod forum as well.

I've got two co-admins and 3 forum moderators who each are responsible for specific categories of the board.

I've drafted some moderator guidelines, and beyond that I just ask the staff to try and imagine what I would have done. (WWKD?)

 

[Sheldon]

Moderating? What's that?

 

[Moshe1010]

I use many things. Mainly I have an add-on the reports every ban/warning by the moderator. It also has a direct link to this warning or a ban that took place (it crates the thread automatically by the moderator who performed the action in the restricted are for moderators). This add-on makes things much easier to follow. In addition, we discuss about certain warnings/bans if necessary at these threads.
Apart from that, I use the integrated warning points system to ban users automatically.
PM is automatically sent to users when a thread/message is deleted/moved. A PM is also sent automatically if the specific moderator hasn't logged in for more than x days.
I believe in global moderating, so all my moderators have global access to all forums (to delete/move threads, etc`). Only admins have a panel access, but moderators can ban.

 

[Carlos]

If user posts in the wrong forum (wrong place) - move thread to correct forum.
If there's duplicate (same exact thread as wrong forum) - It's moved to dedicated thread, warn the user not to do it again and follow the rules stated, or read the stickies.
If user repeats the problem, I warn them again until it hits the third strike or the fourth strike - depending how my patience is. You are lucky if you ever get the 4th strike.
If user spams for the intention of SEO, or whatever malicious behavior - delete post, and ban.

On a case by case basis, I send a user a "friendly" PM. Pointing them to the rules, or a sticky thread, or reminding them of the notice that's hanging as you log in. (I hate that last one - How hard is it to see the notice!? Really.)