How to moderate your forum?

[Cedric]

As a discussion from my recent article: Starting a new forum in 2023 - Moderating your forum is an important aspect of maintaining a positive and productive atmosphere. Here are a few tips for moderating your forum effectively:

1. Set clear rules and guidelines: Clearly define the rules and expectations for behavior on your forum, and make sure that all members are aware of them.
2. Monitor activity: Regularly check in on your forum to ensure that discussions are staying on topic and that users are following the rules.
3. Address inappropriate behavior: If you see inappropriate or disruptive behavior on your forum, address it promptly and fairly. This can include deleting inappropriate posts, issuing warnings, or banning users who repeatedly violate the rules.
4. Use moderation tools: Most forum software includes moderation tools, such as the ability to delete or edit posts, ban users, or mark discussions as resolved. Familiarize yourself with these tools and use them as needed to keep your forum running smoothly.
5. Involve the community: Consider setting up a system for users to report inappropriate or disruptive behavior, or recruit trusted members to help moderate the forum.

I hope these tips are helpful! Let me know if you have any other questions. If you have some tips, feel free to share these in this thread.

 

[Kale]

1. Involve the community: Consider setting up a system for users to report inappropriate or disruptive behavior, or recruit trusted members to help moderate the forum.

A good suggestion for XenForo is the ticket system if you want to allow users to submit stuff only viewable by Admins and/or Moderators.

Tickets by NixFifty

Tickets

This add-on is not affiliated with XenForo Ltd. Tickets is a support system solution for XenForo 2 aiming to collate all your helpdesk needs in to one easy to use solution. Features: Allow users to create new tickets in configurable...

xenforo.com

It is expensive, and if you think your forum or community could benefit from this then by all means.

 

[Shawn Gossman]

I typically use whatever is default from the start.

As the forum grows, if we need to add additional tools to automate a process or allow for better moderation, then we can do that when it comes time.

I create fair-use guidelines and try to keep the community fairly positive and friendly.

I try to set an example with my own behavior. I think that's extremely important on a forum.

 

[Kale]

I typically use whatever is default from the start.

Could maybe do a forum where only staff can view it and respond alongside the OP. I've yet to learn how to do that on XF. That ticket system I posted I have used on one forum I was a mod on.

 

[Cedric]

I typically use whatever is default from the start.

As the forum grows, if we need to add additional tools to automate a process or allow for better moderation, then we can do that when it comes time.

I create fair-use guidelines and try to keep the community fairly positive and friendly.

I try to set an example with my own behavior. I think that's extremely important on a forum.

Allow me to say that you have a very positive mindset and I enjoy having you around.

 

[Shawn Gossman]

Allow me to say that you have a very positive mindset and I enjoy having you around.

I like hearing that.

The internet makes it hard for us to interpret emotions and feelings.

I try my best to choose words that help show people I'm easy going and super friendly, especially in a controversial and debate topic.

It's too easy to get the wrong idea.

I'm glad you said that because it means I'm doing the right things haha. I also enjoy your attitude on everything. I enjoy seeing your content everywhere

 

[Cory]

I usually try to not make the guidelines overwhelmingly long. After all, the forum software's TOS is what contains most of the guidelines for every forum.

I haven't had to do much moderation on my forum, really. Even having over 1300 members I seem to not run into much if any trouble. Most people register for the resources I assume and leave, considering most people that register never post.

I remember back in the days of InvisionFree spambots were at large and we had a topic we combined all spambot posts into and I think this topic had thousands of replies. I'm glad those days are over with where most forum software has enhanced security features to help deter that.

 

[Cedric]

I usually try to not make the guidelines overwhelmingly long. After all, the forum software's TOS is what contains most of the guidelines for every forum.

I haven't had to do much moderation on my forum, really. Even having over 1300 members I seem to not run into much if any trouble. Most people register for the resources I assume and leave, considering most people that register never post.

I remember back in the days of InvisionFree spambots were at large and we had a topic we combined all spambot posts into and I think this topic had thousands of replies. I'm glad those days are over with where most forum software has enhanced security features to help deter that.

I remember the days when we had pre-registered accounts requiring to have 10 decent posts in order to see the resources. Every resource board quickly adapted that method and it gave a huge activity boost. Would you consider such thing Cory?

 

[Cory]

I remember the days when we had pre-registered accounts requiring to have 10 decent posts in order to see the resources. Every resource board quickly adapted that method and it gave a huge activity boost. Would you consider such thing Cory?

I can understand it generating activity, but I'm happy with the current state of registering to view the resources. Requiring a minimum post count to view the resources could lead to spam and irrelevant posts.

 

[Cedric]

I can understand it generating activity, but I'm happy with the current state of registering to view the resources. Requiring a minimum post count to view the resources could lead to spam and irrelevant posts.

Yeah definitely. Which also required a pretty heavy staff team back in the day. But still though, I kinda miss those days.

 

[Heatman]

If you're not always available to keep an eye on everything that's going on in your forum, it would be great idea to hire at least one or two staff (probably moderators) for them to help keep things in check. Even if you're online in your forum 24/7 which is almost impossible, you can't see everything alone.

 

[Kale]

I remember the days when we had pre-registered accounts requiring to have 10 decent posts in order to see the resources. Every resource board quickly adapted that method and it gave a huge activity boost. Would you consider such thing Cory?

Gosh, I remember that too. It was just so easy to respond or make threads to get the 10 decent posts requirement. I've never ran into any issues with it back then. Also yes, it could lead to spam or unrelated posts as said above..

If you're not always available to keep an eye on everything that's going on in your forum, it would be great idea to hire at least one or two staff (probably moderators) for them to help keep things in check. Even if you're online in your forum 24/7 which is almost impossible, you can't see everything alone.

Yep, agreed. I likely am not going to open with any mods besides my sock mod account just to check out perms, etc. Maybe once the board gets going I'll hire 1 or 2.

 

[Heatman]

Yep, agreed. I likely am not going to open with any mods besides my sock mod account just to check out perms, etc. Maybe once the board gets going I'll hire 1 or 2.

If the forum is new and probably you don't have enough funds to hire and pay mods immediately, you can put up the position to be on none paid. There are always members that are willing to help up and learn more about how to run a forum.

 

[Henrywrites]

If the forum is new and probably you don't have enough funds to hire and pay mods immediately, you can put up the position to be on none paid. There are always members that are willing to help up and learn more about how to run a forum.

I have worked as a moderator, on forums, just to gain the experience. I didn't charge anything and it was a great experience for me as well. It is important to know why you are working and what you stand to gain even when it is not money related.

 

[Heatman]

I have worked as a moderator, on forums, just to gain the experience. I didn't charge anything and it was a great experience for me as well. It is important to know why you are working and what you stand to gain even when it is not money related.

I did that too in the past and it helped me a lot in learning how to even work from the backend of forum website.

Now, I believe to have a good knowledge of how to work on both ends and I don't render free services as a mod or admin.

 

[Shortie]

When it comes to moderating a forum, it's about getting yourself into a routine so you can check things regularly throughout the day and also being able to create not only fresh content on your forum but also reply to content that is already there to keep things flowing. It's also about knowing how to deal with trouble causers as well as you would need to deal with them in a professional manner but also keep your staff members up to date on what is happening and also what steps you took in terms of penalizing the trouble causer you had to deal with.

 

[Heatman]

When it comes to moderating a forum, it's about getting yourself into a routine so you can check things regularly throughout the day and also being able to create not only fresh content on your forum but also reply to content that is already there to keep things flowing. It's also about knowing how to deal with trouble causers as well as you would need to deal with them in a professional manner but also keep your staff members up to date on what is happening and also what steps you took in terms of penalizing the trouble causer you had to deal with.

I'm the Mod Team Lead on RIF and we set up a training session that lasts for 30 days for any new mod that will be hired. It helps to bring them up to speed on how to do the job.

 

[Cedric]

I'm the Mod Team Lead on RIF and we set up a training session that lasts for 30 days for any new mod that will be hired. It helps to bring them up to speed on how to do the job.

I’ve seen that. Care to elaborate?

 

[Kale]

I’ve seen that. Care to elaborate?

I have always seen 30 day trial periods for any new staff member before on forums. You basically would read documents. Most of the time it was just a training thread with text, screenshots, etc showing the mod how to do their job.

 

[Sparr]

If you notice that you're getting a lot of spam from new members in your forum, you should have their first 10 posts moderated before they are allowed to post without their posts being put on moderation. If you don't do it this why, they will mess up your entire board with spam.