ORE Forum Moderators

[mike]

About our Moderators: Forum Moderators are community volunteers that give up
their time to help build a better community. They will assist with focusing topics
and enforcing guidelines. They have the ability to edit/delete posts, to move, close or
delete topics, and to temporarily moderate users’ posts. Abuse of moderators will NOT
be tolerated, please see the guidelines re suspension and deletion of your account

Generally, moderators have a threefold responsibility: to foster lively
discussion, to ensure that members are following the community rules, and to
assist new members. A good moderator ensures that his/her forum is
inviting, active, and an asset to the community as a whole.

Moderator Etiquette
The moderators should always be familiar with the specific rules and
regulations of their board, but these are some general guidelines for good
moderation. Please be aware ORE is not just a tech site and has grown into a
thriving community site. all the community and offtopic chat needs to ke
kept in its respective area, if someone is posting chitchat in a tech
section perhaps remind them to move this to an offtopic area.


When to edit a message
· Contains profanity and/or adult material, rememver ORE is a family site
and is often viewed in workplaces that have internet policies that forbid
viewing this content.
· Contains off-topic content to that thread ie chitchat in a 4wd tech thread
· Violates the board rules in some other way (contains advertising, etc.)

Editing is always visible to the community; whenever a message is edited,
the date/time/edit author are shown within the message.

In general, it is preferable to edit a message rather than delete it
entirely.

When to delete a topic or message
· Unacceptable behavior (as determined by the tone of the community; e.g.,
profanity)
· Completely off-topic discussion
· No part of the topic/message is salvageable by editing
· Illegal/defamatory statements

Basically, whenever there is no value to the community that demands leaving
the topic/message in place. It is good practice to
e-mail the topic initiator to explain why it was deleted, unless the reason
is totally obvious.

When to move a topic
· Off-topic discussion

When you move a topic, you have the choice to either leave a copy of the
thread in the original forum, or completely move it to
the new forum location. It is usually a good idea to leave a copy pointing
to the new location so those returning can find it.

When to ban a member
· Repeated violation of the stated board rules or forum rules
· Offensive behavior (e.g., posting offensive material, harassing other
members)
· Attempts at hacking or destroying the forum
· Repeated attempts to circumvent moderation or banning

Banning a member means that he/she can no longer post messages on your board
(it is not limited to a specific forum).
Normally, unruly members are given a warning prior to actually being banned,
since that is a fairly serious step. The level of
discipline should correspond to the seriousness of the offense. (And
remember…it is always reversible.)

When to close a topic
· Discussion is heading off-topic, but does not merit deletion
· The initial message and replies contain valuable information, but further
discussion is not desired
· The thread is becoming too lengthy

Mike