Note:
I have been the administrator for seven forums in the course of well over a decade. In that time I have gained a good bit of insight on the problems moderators face, and what is necessary to ensure a fun and productive community. Not everyone is cut out to be a moderator, though, as it demands a great deal of patience, but those who can follow these guidelines are more than likely to be successful.

These guidelines were formulated for my own staff, but I impart my knowledge to you here in the hopes that it will help strengthen your community, by guiding those who ultimately architect the atmosphere of your forum.

Thank you.

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How to be a Moderator

Let’s be clear. Moderating is a responsibility, not a privilege. It is hard, tedious work. You have volunteered for it. Not for personal gain, but because you believe in this community. You will not abuse your power. You will not misuse it. You are still a poster like everyone else, charged with a single duty: promote a positive atmosphere.

Read these guidelines. Follow these guidelines. Breathe these goddamn guidelines. I will not repeat myself again.


1. Promote a Positive Atmosphere. I want this to be a fun and enjoyable community for everyone. All of the guidelines fall under this leading principle.


2. Be Calm. Think Clearly. If you feel any kind of emotion, such as anger, while in the midst of performing your moderating duties, walk away. Come back with a clear head, this job demands it. Excuses such as, "I'm sorry I overreacted toward that user, I was having a bad day" don't fly with me. Don't even get involved until you can work out any external issues, or calm internal ones.


3. Be Respectful. Never talk down to other users as if you were somehow higher than them. Yes, you have powers they don't, but you're still a poster and they're still a human being. Treat them as you would like them to treat you, even if they don't reciprocate. You can make a lot more progress with someone if you take the first steps in bridging the gap. Also, a lot of problems stem from simple ignorance, and being authoritative or haughty towards someone can turn them defensive or make them feel ostracized.


4. Be Fair. I refuse to play favorites, to put others first for unfair reasons. I'm just as likely to reprimand a user as I am a moderator should the cause be justified. Even if it’s your own girlfriend, the rules must apply to all. To emphasize, an actual quote: “Hercanic is a fair person. He does not play favorites on this forum [STF’s Bootcamp]. I am his girlfriend and I have had posts edited, threads locked, and I have even been denied moderator status.” Was she really that accepting at first? Hell no, but I had good reason for every action. In explaining those she came to understand that I stick by my principles, and she respected me for it -- even if it did result in a few nights kicked out on the couch. =oP As special treatment should be averted, so too should singling anyone out. Grudges are not becoming of a moderator. You have power, they don’t. It’s petty. Be even-handed and remain consistent.


5. Don't Nitpick. If you spot what might be considered a very minor infraction, don't get overzealous. Correcting the slightest discrepancies can cause more problems than it solves, and can give users a feeling of being dictated. If the post has at least some valid content, let it be. What constitutes very minor and big enough to do something about is definitely a judgment call. Just consider: Is this glaringly offensive to most people? Does it significantly clog or derail a thread? If it's only very minor, is it being done excessively to a point where altogether it becomes worse? What will be accomplished by correcting it? Default to guideline #1.


6. Avoid Bias. Judgment calls are a big part of the job, so this can be tricky. However, whether or not you like “Money Maps”, you should never lock posts or carry out any administrative action based solely on your personal preference. You must do what is best for the community, not yourself. Empathy is the skill of choice here. A moderator was once very adamant about locking a silly “3-word post” thread. He felt such spam was unbecoming of our community. However, the post broke no rules, and the community was having fun in it. When in doubt, default to #1. Does it promote a positive atmosphere? Normally, spam is detrimental because it derails a thread’s original topic and is only fun for a few at the expense of others. Mutual spam isolated within its own thread, however, is a different situation. While we generally want to avoid a lot of spam topics, as they push down genuine threads from view, a few can be tolerated when it benefits the community as a whole. You don’t always have to be serious, and sometimes it’s nice to be a little irrelevant. The thread remained open as an outlet to blow off steam and just have fun, and enjoyed much success. At the end of the day, isn’t that what the community is about?


7. Lead By Example. As a moderator, you must maintain a higher standard for yourself and an air of respectability. Getting into senseless flame or spam wars would not do so well for that image. “Do what I say, not what I do” won’t fly with the community. If you behave in a way that would not be okay for a normal user, you shouldn’t act that way. Be fair, #4 applies to you as well.


8. Listen. As right as we sometimes think we are, sometimes we’re just plain wrong. Or we made a mistake. Or we overlooked something. Or we misunderstood what someone said. Glancing over even a single word in a sentence can sometimes drastically change the way we perceive what someone is trying to say. This is particularly affected when #2 is ignored. Point is, when a complaint is made, don’t immediately dismiss it. Understand where it comes from, don’t assume you know. Ask questions, provide reasons, but most of all, be diplomatic. During the course of this dialogue, you may realize just where and how things went wrong, and it may actually be your fault. There is no lasting shame for the genuine soul. Ignoring the issue and denying responsibility does far more damage to the community than the injured pride that correcting and learning from your mistakes bring. The community will have far more respect and confidence in you as a result.


9. Proofread. So basic, yet so very crucial, a lack of simple quality control can cause problems all on its own. Review what you wrote and imagine a different voice, a different tone or emotion behind it. How do you come across? Use this same technique when reading the posts of people you are replying to, reinforcing #8. You may find in both cases that unconscious assumptions altered how you approached writing, and may need to be reevaluated.


10. Test on Yourself. If you are unsure how a particular power works, do not test on the posts of others. Create your own for the sake of testing. Never risk destroying what you cannot repair.


11. Record Your Actions. Any measures you take as a moderator should be done with care. Not haste. Therefore, you should have ample time to take the extra steps necessary to document your changes, both before and after. The extent of this depends largely on what the forum system is already capable of logging and preserving. This rule serves many functions. If the administrator is unable to see what transpired, they will be unable to make a judgment call should the need arise for further disciplinary action. Also, having a full record of a user's transgressions helps keep the moderating team together and united, as we can all know what everyone has been doing; and should it come up in the public forums, we can support one another accurately.


12. Use Lock Sparingly. If a thread is initially viable, but others turn it into spam, do not close the thread. That is not fair to those who participated in the thread legitimately, wasting their time and discouraging future contributions. Locking represents a failure in the moderating process. Instead, either moderate the spam by deletion (if post is completely without value), or edit the key tangents out with appropriate warnings to the instigators. If dealing with a flame war, call for a stop and remove any attempts to continue as per with spam. If the thread is a personal question and it has been answered to the satisfaction of the original poster, then locking is the logical choice, but not always necessary if the answer can help multiple people. As long as there is still active substance in a thread, and it isn't from the very start spam, keep locking to a minimum, unless there is just no other choice.


13. Warn Before Punishment. Unless something outright breaks a rule, beyond a shadow of a doubt, and it is plain that the user knew what they were doing, do not immediately dish out rash punishments. Consider, warn, and work with the individual. I believe in being respectful, diplomatic, and forgiving first. If they prove unwilling to cooperate, then yes, stronger measures should be taken, but not before. I use a three-step warning system before resorting to bans, temporary or otherwise.

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Step 1, Private Warning: Contact the person through PM, introduce yourself and your role on the forum, and explain the situation and why their actions are against policy. Give the benefit of the doubt, especially with new members, as breeches are often times are the result of innocent ignorance rather than malign intent. The purpose is to educate, handled in private to avoid social embarrassment or defensiveness. #3 is absolutely crucial here. Be positive and proactive, but firm. Being rude or demanding is unacceptable. Answer any questions they may have and ensure they come to a full understanding.

Example of a Warning PM sent to a new user committing thread necromancy:

Quote from Hercanic

“Hello, I am Hercanic, administrator of these boards and creator of STF. I'm sending this message to inform you that you are in slight violation of certain rules. When you make a post, please be aware of the date of the last poster, which beyond the first page it rapidly increases in age. If the thread is not of significant value and you cannot add something equally important to the topic, then please avoid posting in such threads. As you've witnessed, many forum users do not appreciate it. This is a rule of interpretation, so good judgment is a must, but the best policy is to largely ignore page two and beyond in the Mess Hall. Reviving a single topic with good input is generally what's considered the exception to the rule, but rooting out multiple threads on the same day is immediately frowned upon, and is considered a form of spam. This community is rather friendly, but quickly grows agitated when policies and general forum etiquette are ignored. You're new, so I understand. This is a friendly warning, so please take it to heart. Thank you.”

We're not here to police every single thread. We're here to make sure people stay in line. Work with the person, not their posts. It's important that people understand the reason behind our actions; otherwise, problems are more likely to be unduly repeated.

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Step 2, Public Warning: If they do not heed, a public warning is needed. It is similar to the PM, but made as a post or edit at the source of their misdeed. This makes it plain where the problem is, and serves as an example to onlookers (so ideally they don’t make the same mistake). The tone of the message should be far more stern and to the point, but without breaking any of the above guidelines. Make it clear what will happen if they continue to ignore your warnings.

Example of a Public Warning given to an exploit abuser:

Quote from Hercanic

“You stand guilty of manipulating the money system by secretly adding thousands of spaces to your posts to gain extra money. You shall be charged a ludicrous fine for this, dropping you well into the negatives, and if you are caught doing it again you will receive a Spammer rank. If you disregard this warning, you risk being banned. Take it seriously, and desist. Thank you.”

When private counseling fails, social pressure is your next tool. The intent is always to reform the person, though, not drive them away. Take care to remember that when drafting your messages.

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Step 3, Mark of Shame: If the user is still uncooperative, administrative action is taken against their account. They are given a humiliation rank, signifying their offense. The rank remains until they improve their behavior. They are just one step away from being banned, and the alteration of their account signifies on a visceral level how real that possibility is.

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Final Step, Ban: This may be temporary as a form of “time-out”, or permanent for remorseless or unforgivable transgressions.

Most of those rules are something that should be obvious. But for some reason, some of the current moderators are not following them.

I think the rules are good, fair, etc.

However, I hope you're aware that walking up to the staff of any organization and handing them a list saying "This is the right way to run your shop" is a tad insulting, no matter how good your ideas are.

Nonetheless, you have shown remarkable maturity at this forum, and for the record, I like your moderating philosophy, even if I found the topic a bit audacious at first.

In my opinion, if you need to read this, you arent qualified to be a moderator. Moderators should be community veterans who know how to do their job properly. Never the less, as Doodan said, it is well written and i like it very much.

Wow, thanks for typing all that out for us. And I agree, some of the moderators arn't following your guidelines/rules. I wont point or say names tho....

Quote from Hug A Zergling

Wow, thanks for typing all that out for us. And I agree, some of the moderators arn't following your guidelines/rules. I wont point or say names tho....

Just keep in mind that that his rules are not SEN's rules, and even staff has been punished for not following SEN's rules.

Quote from s(Doodan)9

I think the rules are good, fair, etc.

However, I hope you're aware that walking up to the staff of any organization and handing them a list saying "This is the right way to run your shop" is a tad insulting, no matter how good your ideas are.

Nonetheless, you have shown remarkable maturity at this forum, and for the record, I like your moderating philosophy, even if I found the topic a bit audacious at first.

I'm going to have to agree here. SeN is an established forum and community, and (most of) the staff here has plenty of experience. If anyone is going to be making a list of guidelines like this, it should be Moose, Yoshi, or IP.

Quote from Doodan

However, I hope you're aware that walking up to the staff of any organization and handing them a list saying "This is the right way to run your shop" is a tad insulting, no matter how good your ideas are.

Oh, I am aware, and ordinarily I would not post this information. However, having had a number of bad experiences here, such as a former moderator curse me out in PM and threaten to get me banned on any forum I was a member of, I felt, if anything, a list is far more polite than pointing fingers.

I do not know if you have anything similar posted in a moderator-only forum, but if not you are welcome to adopt any of these guidelines for both your current and, most importantly, future staff. While many of these guidelines seem like common sense, Mark Twain once said, "Sometimes common sense just ain't so common." Structure and clear policies are essential for ensuring a smooth operation. Granted, there will always be bumps and hiccups, but by having what you require written out, there is little room for excuse from the moderators.

There's a short copy of a "Moderation Handbook" sitting around, but like Clokr said, most of what you wrote up is (or ought to be), simple common sense. And, like he said, sadly some Staff are not showing that common sense.

Can this please be approved by an administrator, and maybe put into the faq? If it's not approved, can it be stated in the topic? Anybody can make a set of guidelines, but unless they are posted in an approved location, i don't think they should be pointed towards. As of now, this is just saying "This is how I think the job should be done.". Hell, I could make my own version, a very opposite version and point others towards it saying they should do things that it says.

Quote from Hercanic

Cursing others out is distasteful, and getting pissed off over your teammate's skill is silly and immature (it's just a game, breathe some oxygen). I sympathize with your story, Esponeo (it might be good etiquette to leave a game when you know you've lost, but demanding someone leave a game is no one's right). If you knew it was an abuse of power when you made the idle threat, why did you allow your emotions to cloud your better judgement and actually make true on the promise?

KrazyZee was pissy and wanted to push your buttons. He accomplished just that. This is why #2 is so damn important.

No, these are not official for SEN. However it has been expressed that these guidelines are reasonable and even "common sense." I point to this article so I don't have to keep repeating myself.

Yes, but the stages to suspend/ban people may be different for SEN. If you direct this guide to members or moderators, they see some good advice here and follow it. Your guide may say to suspend people if they do x, but SEN only warns them if they do x. This guide will be wrongly telling moderators what to do and how to do it. Making moderators or members doing wrong things. Which in turn will get them in trouble.
I'm not saying this guide is bad. I like it, but I just don't think it's right to be telling members/moderators to follow information that isn't the right information to follow.
I feel that administrators should tell moderators how to do their job, not members.

I understand, but my opening paragraph already explains the intention of this post and its unofficial nature. I hope a moderator is aware enough to not mistake this as an official SEN mandate.

The escalating warning system is certainly less general in regards to the "Mark of Shame" category, and not necessarily applicable to SEN. However, no where does it state that someone should be suspended/banned for x. It is quite general in that regard, because everything hinges on judgement calls. You can remain at any step if escalation is not yet appropriate.

Also, please note:

Quote from Hercanic

I use a three-step warning system before resorting to bans, temporary or otherwise.

In other words, I am once again stating that this is my own system, and explaining the steps as an example for the "Warn Before Punishment" category.

Quote

In my opinion, if you need to read this, you arent qualified to be a moderator

Lol, that was exactly what I was thinking while reading this, it's all pretty much common sense. Still, I think that if all users listened to some of this, it could make the whole community better.

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@chuiu: don't worry no staff will be affected by this. Perhaps it will affect moderators in the future.

The dealing with other members via pm (in all forms), which I see you touched on here (I didn't take the time to read the whole thing but I get the idea) is important, and should be common sense, but it's obviously not. It's something I do a lot when I'm actively moderating and it definitely is the way to go. I pride myself on it.

Well Chuiu, this is the kind of website where members get to speak up when they don't exactly appreciate the ways in which things are run. That's a tad ironic considering that you gave us that bit about free speech when you told Moose to provide a link to the Outfoxed documentary (which I just finished watching). While we have no power ourselves short of hacking the website (which I am quite incapable of), the website does rely upon us to actually... I'm not quite sure how to say this, function? Hercanic is a terrific member of this community to handle this subject (especially in the wake of the Esponeo thread) with a fair measure of eloquence. More than any post that I have read before, he pinpoints that moderators must be respectful to be respected and common decency applies to all. Of course, we all are prone to be rude at times, but is there any reason that those guidelines should not be made into effect? Other than that they were suggested by a non-administrative member (which is the only adverse distinction that I've read so far). Now, if Hercanic were to write up guidelines of comparable quality for members (though they were almost certainly not be followed as often), SEN might increase its respectability as a community - at least in my eyes.

I was skimming his post and misread something he said, edited my post it was a misunderstanding. I still think there are more proper ways to go about something like this rather than posting it in plain sight undermining the authority of the admins.

I now understand why I can never be a moderator unless I start my own forum.

=P There are several reasons. Very good reasons.