Lack of interest [Suggestion] Moderator 'Column' (already implemented?)

[KURTZ]

just curious, is this already implmented?

if not this is my suggestion: put the name of the moderator/s under the forum title linked to their profiles.

 

[Grover]

... it stroked my ego when I was mod....but now everything changed.

Glad to read you have made progress in your inner/personal development ...

 

[Grover]

From experience, the mods listing on the forum home is used a lot and not just in specific markets either. I think that it is quite important when you have forum mods and not just all super mods as users do need to be able to find out quickly who to contact if they need to contact a mod for a section. There is nothing more frustrating as a user than contacting a mod to find out why a thread/post was deleted only to be given the run around becuse the mod you have contacted doesnt have powers in the forum you are talking about.

? Hmmm... isn't that what the [Report]-button is for? The beauty of that functionality is that it automatically serves the report to the moderators assigned to the specific forum. So why is it important to know which moderators manages which forum? A perfect example is in fact this very forum overhere at XenForo's. When I report something I do not really care if Lawrence or Peggy moderates the forum I am reporting a post from... I just press [Report] and that is... it. They are not listed as specific moderators on any forum and why should they if I do not need to know this?

I can see it was important to list Moderators before the times of Report functionality in forum software. But surely, with sophisticated Report stuff being brought to us, I do not see the benefits of a moderator column anymore.

 

[feldon30]

If I want to announce who is a moderator of a subforum, I'll include "Moderators: x,y,z" in the forum description.

 

[Peggy]

If I want to announce who is a moderator of a subforum, I'll include "Moderators: x,y,z" in the forum description.

And here ^ is another good idea.

 

[Kerry-Anne]

? Hmmm... isn't that what the [Report]-button is for? The beauty of that functionality is that it automatically serves the report to the moderators assigned to the specific forum. So why is it important to know which moderators manages which forum? A perfect example is in fact this very forum overhere at XenForo's. When I report something I do not really care if Lawrence or Peggy moderates the forum I am reporting a post from... I just press [Report] and that is... it. They are not listed as specific moderators on any forum and why should they if I do not need to know this?

I can see it was important to list Moderators before the times of Report functionality in forum software. But surely, with sophisticated Report stuff being brought to us, I do not see the benefits of a moderator column anymore.

The report button is for reporting a post, not for contacting a moderator about a mod action when the post/thread no longer exists.

Please remember that we here are all savvy when it comes to forums as we are all admins, but the average user isn't anywhere near as savvy. I deal a lot with communities whose main audiences are housewifes and young people (pre-teens to about 16-17 yo's) and this does make a big difference in how things are used and seen. From experience, these groups will contact the first moderator on the list if they can't see a list of moderators for a specific forum or if they can't find the staff listing easily will just post threads asking why something was closed/deleted/edited. If they can see who the moderator is for that forum without having to go hunting for the information then they will send them a PM and ask them, although 9/10 times it ends up as a VM as they can't work out the difference between PMs and VMs.

 

[Grover]

The report button is for reporting a post, not for contacting a moderator about a mod action when the post/thread no longer exists.

Please remember that we here are all savvy when it comes to forums as we are all admins, but the average user isn't anywhere near as savvy. I deal a lot with communities whose main audiences are housewifes and young people (pre-teens to about 16-17 yo's) and this does make a big difference in how things are used and seen. From experience, these groups will contact the first moderator on the list if they can't see a list of moderators for a specific forum or if they can't find the staff listing easily will just post threads asking why something was closed/deleted/edited. If they can see who the moderator is for that forum without having to go hunting for the information then they will send them a PM and ask them, although 9/10 times it ends up as a VM as they can't work out the difference between PMs and VMs.

I do get the point that we are deeply experienced admins and I realize once again thanks to your posting that every situation is different. My audience is very divers really (also teenagers and housewifes or housefathers for that matter...) on the platform I am managing and I have really almost never ever had any question about why a thread has been moved. Really if this is your problem (as it is clearly for your board, reading your explanation) then I would ask myself the question: what am I trying to solve here?! (Obviously I don't know your specific situation/reason to manage it like you do, so this reply of me is of course not aimed at you/your board... I am speaking generally ) If people have the urge to bother me and my team all the bl**dy time with questions why something was closed/deleted/edited... I am sorry, but what exactly is the root of the problem then? If I provide those members with links to forum-specific moderator-names I would actually stimulate those irrelevant questions!

In my role as an savvy admin it is my responsabilty to manage my forums in the best way possible. Stimulating (by providing links) and even replying to emails/PM's where members are asking pointless questions why a thread has been closed/deleted/moved... is something I would prevent at all costs. Do I really want to spend any time and energy explaining to my users WHY our team has decided to perform their duties? No, I have so much better things to do. Leave the management of the forum to... the forum management. Discussion on this with members is pointless. They talk. We manage. Amen.

 

[Kerry-Anne]

@Grover This is actually where it gets tricky, because it's something that I completely agree with you about, but as I do oversee a lot of communities that are on the other side of the coin, I have to stick up for their wants and needs too, which has a habit of making me sound a bit crazy because I have contradicting views between my own thoughts and those that I also need to relay.

If it was up to me, I'd drop a PM to the user whose thread/post was moved when it was moved including where it was moved to as well as leaving a reply in the thread saying 'moved to xyz forum from abc forum' and if deleting or editing then I'd drop a warning via the infraction system to remind about the rules and why.

The communities I oversee find the use of the warnings part of the infraction system for this to be heavy handed and prefer for their moderators to be approachable and therefore for the users to be able to contact the moderators of a specific forum if they have a question about something in that forum. These same communities don't use smods because each category has a different ethos and user base and so requires different levels of moderation so it isn't a one-size-fits-all interpretation of the rules either. What it means is that something that might be allowed in one category because the main userbase of that category can use it responsibly isn't allowed in another category even though the main forum rules don't prohibit it. Because of this, most deletions or edits are due to differences in the required strictness of moderation between categories and are usually resolved after a pm or two, often because a user has seen a thread that looks interesting but is in a different category to where they primarily post.

I think possibly a big difference here is that I am not involved in the day-to-day running of the forums but mearly oversee them and jump in when something goes wrong or when the FA (forum admin) is unavailable for whatever reason and something needs urgent admin attention or the FA needs assistance with something technical that is outside their knowledge.

 

[Russ]

Every board does have its own need so as much as you sit here saying well there's the staff page, or the report button, each owner is different. With that said there's a reason for modifications and if this doesn't get rolled out initially I'm sure someone will pick it up as a mod.

 

[Alpha1]

Why not list moderators within the forum a user is browsing? That allows users to see which moderators to contact, while it doesnt clutter up the forum index.
Maybe a 'contact forum moderator' button?

 

[Russ]

Why not list moderators within the forum a user is browsing? That allows users to see which moderators to contact, while it doesnt clutter up the forum index.
Maybe a 'contact forum moderator' button?

That's practically what the Report option is there for side from private messaging the moderator.

 

[Dean]

Why not list moderators within the forum a user is browsing?

I am used to seeing a list of applicable moderators to choose from at the bottom of a subforum. That works well.

To me it is important to know who the moderators of a subforum is, because not all moderators are created equal, and would like to pick one out.

Often the super mods have the super mod title and they are easy to spot. So... possibly Peggy should have the xenSMod title

 

[Peggy]

Hey I am not a SMod!

 

[Forsaken]

A solution would be displaying it in the forum display rather then on the front of the forum, and I would honestly prefer this.

Placement for moderators can go underneath the forum description in the forumdisplay. 

 

[Grover]

@Grover This is actually where it gets tricky, because it's something that I completely agree with you about...

Thank God.

... but as I do oversee a lot of communities that are on the other side of the coin, I have to stick up for their wants and needs too, which has a habit of making me sound a bit crazy because I have contradicting views between my own thoughts and those that I also need to relay.

If it was up to me, I'd drop a PM to the user whose thread/post was moved when it was moved including where it was moved to as well as leaving a reply in the thread saying 'moved to xyz forum from abc forum' and if deleting or editing then I'd drop a warning via the infraction system to remind about the rules and why.

Although everyone has different views, I have problems understanding why a board (not you) wants/allows/stimulates their members to get into discussion with staff about how they do their job! I find it puzzling... really this should not be part of any workload of an admin or mod on a day-to-day basis. We have more then enough to do already! Again, discussing moderator tasks is completely pointless: where does it lead to?! However, informing your members about a Mod-action (like you propose by using PM) is a nice gesture. Then... if I would use the PM system for something like that... I would hope there is an option to '[x] disallow a reply on this PM' ... because otherwise I find myself yet again in a -pointless- discussion with a user that I then even initiated myself!

I can understand that it can be convenient for the member to get a message that a thread or post has been moved and I can understand that some admins want to have that kind of servicelevel to their members. But if I have to manually contact every single member that has her/his post or thread moved... this is also something I wouldn't want as a staff member on a very lively board. Again, we have automatic software-functionality at hand and it is called... redirects. . Yes, I know it doesn't cover everything, but my vision (on my board) is: the workload of staff has to be as less and automated as possible and the software we are using offers plenty of automated tools to achieve that. Having said that: the automated process must never come in the way of the friendly staff <> memberbase atmosphere I want to achieve and keep on my board. The dreaded infraction system in vBulletin is a perfect example of that: http://xenforo.com/community/thread...to-the-enduser.2194/ : from a social point of view the implementation (showing infractions on a users personal profile for example!) of this system is often counter-productive.

So I surely agree with this point:

The communities I oversee find the use of the warnings part of the infraction system for this to be heavy handed and prefer for their moderators to be approachable and therefore for the users to be able to contact the moderators of a specific forum if they have a question about something in that forum.

And this explanation of you below made it very clear to me why you need it on the boards you manage: Thanks, I understand where you are coming from now! (discussing things electronically can sometimes be difficult and one might come to a conclusion a bit too quick )

These same communities don't use smods because each category has a different ethos and user base and so requires different levels of moderation so it isn't a one-size-fits-all interpretation of the rules either. What it means is that something that might be allowed in one category because the main userbase of that category can use it responsibly isn't allowed in another category even though the main forum rules don't prohibit it. Because of this, most deletions or edits are due to differences in the required strictness of moderation between categories and are usually resolved after a pm or two, often because a user has seen a thread that looks interesting but is in a different category to where they primarily post.

But it must be not that easy (as has been made clear in your explanations indeed) to manage a board like that, where you have different rules/strictness for different categories? Wow...