Misplaced Pages

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A forum moderator is someone granted special powers to enforce the rules of an Internet forum (or, as the case may be, their personal whim; the title refers to the powers more than the intent). Almost all moderators on all forums can move discussions to different sections of the forum, "close" or "lock" discussions to prevent users from continuing to discuss them, edit the content of individual postings, and "pin" or "stick" discussions so they remain visible in their forum section even if no new postings are made to them; different forums may give their moderators further powers (see Moderator powers below).

Moderator powers

Moderators can have some or all of the following powers, depending on the specific forum. Some of the powers, where appropriate, may be restricted to a subsection of the board (see Division of power, below).

• Moving conversations to a different section of the forum. Virtually all forums are organized into various sections by topic to allow users to more easily read what interests them without having to sort through many topics of discussion they find boring. Moderators of most forums are able to move a conversation to a section more suited to it. On most modern forum software packages, a notice may be left in the original section so that those who contributed to the conversation earlier will be able to find it where they left it, at least for a few days.

  (Note: forum sections are often ambiguously referred to themselves as "boards" or "forums". For instance, "I posted in the Misplaced Pages forum on the MediaWiki board" would be unexceptional in most communities, meaning "I posted in the section of the MediaWiki forum devoted to Misplaced Pages". For the sake of clarity, this article uses section to refer to sections of a board and forum or board to refer to an entire board.)

• Closing/locking threads (which term is used varies from community to community and software package to software package). Postings to Internet forums are organized into topics or threads of postings, typically organized sequentially by time of posting to form a conversation of sorts (see Internet forum). Most forums allow their moderators to close a given thread to further posting, effectively ending the conversation. This allows the existing content to remain fully visible, so that readers can easily see the moderator's reasons for closing the thread (it's generally customary for the moderator to post an explanation immediately before or after closing a thread). Certain users, generally moderators and administrators, may be able to post in closed threads, depending on the specific software package and configuration, although of course allowing too many users to post in closed threads defeats the purpose of closing the thread in the first place.

• Editing posts. In the event that a post is made that contains only some content that breaches forum rules, moderators are usually able to remove that content while still leaving any legitimate content. Even if an entire post is removed via editing, users will still be able to see who originally posted it and when it was originally posted, so that users who view the thread later won't be confused by any references to it. Usually this method is used to remove illegal or grossly offensive material that would remain visible in a closed thread, or else to stop a single post from derailing an entire thread.

  Most forum software shows an edit notice whenever a post is edited, to prevent words from being put in a user's mouth (or to prevent a user from erasing evidence that he said something objectionable). This option can typically be made optional for certain categories of users if desired.

• Pinning/sticking threads (again, the term used varies). The threads in a section are usually displayed in reverse chronological order by last post. This means that the threads at the top of the listing for a section will be the ones in which someone has most recently posted, and therefore posting in a thread will "bump" it to the top of the listing. However, pinned threads remain above unpinned threads at all times, no matter how old. This may be used to, for instance, keep a copy of forum rules at the top of every section of the board.

• Deleting posts and threads. There are different kinds of deletion, and different moderators on different forums may be empowered to use different kinds. In general, something that's deleted vanishes from public view, if it continues to exist at all.

  The simplest form of deletion is variously called hard-deletion, physical removal, or (on forums that don't support other deletion options) simply deletion. Essentially, content deleted in this way is not recoverable through the forum software. It may be stored in backups, and some data recovery methods may work, but such methods are usually difficult. Many forums restrict hard-deletion to only a handful of individuals, requiring lower-level moderators to use more reversible methods.

  Other deletion methods can be collectively referred to as soft-deletion. The most basic of these is to move the content in question to a hidden section of the forum, so that only authorized users can view it. Anyone with the proper powers can then move the content back just as easily. One or two software packages, as of October 2005, have inbuilt support for soft-deletion—specific groups of users can be allowed to view a deletion notice but not the deleted content, or to view and undelete the deleted content. This allows more convenient soft-deletion of individual posts, which would otherwise have to be split from the thread (thereby obscuring their connection to their original context).

• Splitting and merging threads. If two threads exist on similar topics, or multiple topics are being discussed in one thread, the threads can be merged or the thread can be split.
• Banning users. Some forums allow some or all moderators to restrict or eliminate a troublesome user's posting or even viewing rights. Other boards restrict this ability to administrators. Of course, suspension of a user's account doesn't prevent the user from signing up under a different name, and for this reason a few forums also allow moderators to ban IP addresses. (Many boards that allow moderators to ban restrict the ability to IP-ban to administrators, however. Indeed, on vBulletin moderators can't be assigned the ability to ban an IP address.)
• Viewing IP addresses. An IP address is the way Internet-enabled computers communicate with each other, and most forums log the IP address that all postings are made from. In general, this serves to aid identification of users, in combination with less technological means such as writing style, but it is by no means foolproof (see Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol and proxy server for two main ways in which it can be thwarted). IP addresses can therefore assist in stopping ban evasion, for instance. In general, ordinary users are prohibited from seeing others' IP addresses for reasons of privacy and security—if a hacker or otherwise technologically-savvy individual knows an IP address, it's possible for him to "attack" it in various ways, possibly taking revenge for the expression of views he disagrees with or the like.

Many other powers can be allocated to moderators, but the above are all the most important ones.

Choosing a moderator

They are usually hand picked by the owner of the forum and tend to either be long standing members of the community who have proven themselves or people he/she trusts already (either in real life or online.) They are almost never paid and do it simply out of a desire for law and order in the forum to prevail, or less commonly a desire for power or a flashy title. Companies (usually gaming companies) regularly hire people to moderate their forums. However these moderators tend to be unfamiliar with internet and forum slang as well as what constitutes flaming or trolling and often fail to perform well in their capacity as a moderator, either because they do not feel that posts violate a rule, or they know their supervisors do not really check on them and am trying to slack off.

Division of power

Moderators are usually divided into areas of responsibility. John Doe might only have powers for the off-topic sub forum for example, while Bob Smith might be responsible for general discussions. An alternative method is to simply give them all powers for every sub-forum, so if the respective moderator is not available to take care of a rule breaker, someone else who is online can.

Less commonly used is a hierarchy system whereby "admins" are the "higher ups" (that have access to every sub forum, ability to ban, etc) and moderators take care of editing out bad posts and such, while submitting people who need to be banned to the admins for consideration. Moderating that teams tend to be a highly informal network of acquaintances and friends and do not usually bother with this kind of system.

Contacting moderators

Ways to alert moderators to rule breakers commonly include private messaging them, emailing them, contacting them using instant messaging, or if the forum software permits, reporting the post with the "report post" button. Good moderators however do not normally let posts, threads or users that violate the rules stay for longer than 24 hours.

Good and bad moderators

Good moderators that frequently check the forum every day, are fair and can dispense justice correctly are extremely rare and hard to find. All too common moderators either slack off and do not do their jobs at all (resulting in widespread flaming and a breakdown of rational discussion) or they just give rule breakers slaps on the wrist (which further encourages them as they know they will not be banned).

There are also instances of moderators that are "biased" (letting favored forum users get away with repeated rule violations, siding with them, etc.) or are “corrupted." It is uncommon to see this, but some game companies are known to have moderators "on the take," taking money in exchange for allowing certain users to do anything they want (short of obvious things like pornographic links.) Since these usually involve most, if not all of the moderating team's superiors (administrators), complaints about the moderating team are sent to them; these complaints are ignored, or the user who sent them is earmarked for a campaign of harassment (such as repeatedly claiming he posted threads that violated some rule or other, or random deletion of posts/threads.)