“Dear Moderator, Here is a Post That Requires Attention. Sincerely, Moderator”
Some communities have moderators who only have power in individual forums. This post is not about these communities. This post is about communities who give their moderators power in most if not all forums. Some would call them “Super Moderators,” but I just call them moderators because, for the most part, the guidelines will be the same across your entire site, so they may as well have power in all forums, in case they spot something.
On forums like this, you want to make it clear to your moderators that if they see it, they deal with it. The report posts function is for regular members to help staff members. It is not for staff members to be lazy or, worse, condescending, by dumping violations onto other moderators.
I don’t care if they are “officially” the moderator of an individual section. If they have power in all forums, they should be expected to handle what they see and it should be a part of their responsibilities. I have seen moderators report something and leave it for days and days because they expected a certain moderator or group of moderators to handle it, full well knowing that it was a violation. This is unacceptable and this attitude would tend to betray a lack of understanding of what a moderator is actually supposed to do.
Moderators are there to support one another and the administrator. They are not there to bicker over which violation is whose responsibility.
Truth! I implement the “Global Moderator” strategy as well, but I am beginning to also add moderators to individual forums. The “global” moderators are one rung up the ladder from the regular moderators, and do have authority over them. I’ve found that this hierarchal model is an effective way to manage a large team.
Thanks for the comment. :) Yeah, that can be a great way to set up your team!
Patrick
“They are not there to bicker over which violation is whose responsibility”.
Interesting article, but in a way I consider that scenario highly unlikely to happen in practice. If there are indeed issues with Moderators, then the Moderator most likely has not been selected properly in the first place. As with all similar “Moderator problems” are commonly reported (trust issues, rogueness, etc.).
Also, this article in my opinion ignores the fact that one simply might not know what to do in a certain situation, in which case though, I would ask a fellow Moderator in a more friendly tone what he or she thinks about a post. Or PM the Administrator(s) straight away.
Hi Vincent,
Thanks for the comment.
This article doesn’t ignore the scenario in your second paragraph. It’s just not about that scenario. I didn’t say you can’t ask another moderator for advice. I encourage that. What I said is that a moderator shouldn’t pass the buck to another moderator.
This sort of thing does happen. Poor moderator selection could be one reason. In addition, people change and moderators can slide over time without management. There is both personal responsibility (for the moderator) and management responsibility.
Thanks,
Patrick
Yes, indeed, that might have come across incorrectly, in which case I apologize. :) The article does not explicitly state the thing with Moderators not knowing about stuff (I think that should do now :D ).
Of course, the initial phrase of the article is non-acceptable behavior. I myself have not seen this though, yet.
But then again, a nicer way to put this (by a Moderator) would be something along the lines of “Hey, I need to leave very quickly – could you check on the posts in this or that section ? Thanks for now”. And there would be no problem in this case.
Of course, if the same Mod does this “too often”, then it certainly looks suspicious, to say the least.
That would be a nicer way to put it, but again, that’s not really what this post is about. :) Working together, collaborating, etc. is great. Thanks.