Eek! I'm a mod (on another board)! Advice please?

My employer has had a public message board up for a year or so. Until recently, we barely monitored the board at all; maybe once a week someone would take a spin through, but we’d never really done much with it.

Last week, we started getting complaints about one poster. Since no one else in my department seemed to want to do it, I volunteered to be the mod. I checked out the poster who was causing trouble, sent him an e-mail telling him to knock it off, and when he didn’t I banned him (and when he came back with a sock I banned his IP address).

Those were done anonymously, but I decided to take it upon myself to be The Mod. I registered, using my real full name as username since I figured not being anonymous would help people take it seriously, and announced that there were going to be some changes made. I drew up a list of rules for posting (borrowing liberally from the SDMB rules), and tomorrow I’ll post those along with some stern warnings about following them.

So far the posters seem to be pretty welcoming, and they’re mostly thankful that I banned the clown who deserved it. So my questions:

• First off, what exactly does it mean to ban someone’s IP address? I hope it doesn’t mean other folks who use his ISP can’t register.

• Other than that, are any of you mods? Any general advice?

• How stern should I be? So far I’m trying to take a Cecil-esque tone; serious, but not afraid to post a deadpan joke. A sample from my first post, in which I announced myself: “I’ll be moderating this forum from now on, so get used to me; e-mail is publicly viewable in my profile. Complaints and bribes (I like scotch) should be sent to me or to the webmaster account or, ideally, to both.”

• What’s generally the difference between a Mod and an Admin? I can be whichever I want, since it’s just me doing it, but I chose “Mod” because that way I can list myself as the “official” moderator of the various forums. (Our board software is relatively primitive; for one thing, I can’t make a thread a sticky, which already sucks.)

• Anything else I need to know? Bring on the advice; I’ve never done this before, but I’ve been watching and admiring the SDMB mods for a couple of years now.

Advice from SDMB mods is of course welcome, as well as from those who moderate other boards.

Thanks!

If I ever became a mod, I always promised myself I would immediately create a cult of personality. And then a secret police.

Don’t be a jerk!

What board system is this? And, if I may ask, what is the board “about”?

When you ban someone’s IP address, you are simply doing that. You’ll need to ban their username as well. Sometimes this doesn’t work as some people still have dial-up and have dynamic IP addresses. Also, ISPs such as AOL have 387465874365 users on one IP (don’t ask me the how or why, it just happens like that on the two other boards I mod.

Your style is how you want to be. On my own, personal board I am laid-back. I am an Admin at the official Red Hot Chili Peppers’ board and there I try to be more professional (but I also post as a regular poster and that does not mean deserving people are immune from a flame from me).

Admin and Mod are basically the same thing, however, an Admin more than likely has more powers and duties than a regular mod.

When you ban someone, be prepared for some fallout and and grow a thick skin.

(Also, CYA and make sure the bannee has violated some rule…people will be quick to check)
Good luck.

Banning an IP address can be futile, as if they are on a dial up system they can simply redial and get a new number (the last 3 numbers change). They work on an octet system- or did when I hosted for MSN years ago.

Develop your own style, but borrow freely. You don’t have to reinvent everything.

You get to wield the ban stick? Lucky you.

I’ve modded at a couple of boards. Currently actively moderating on one board, but we really have very few problems, and we have incredibly loose moderation (stuff that really wouldn’t fly on the Dope is just fine there.) The main rule we have is “no personal attacks”, and that’s subject to the call of the mod team.

Be prepared for a drama flare-up sometime during the life of the messageboard no matter how small it is or how focussed the topic.

You said it’s a board run by your employer- if it’s related to your company you might want to assess how much on-topic and off-topic posting goes on, and how much you want to regulate that. Off-topic posting is often the glue that makes a messageboard about a particular topic into a community, but it’s also by far the hardest to moderate.

Good luck, have fun.

Well, it’s best if they respect you - but of course they don’t have to like you. This isn’t a popularity contest, as you’ve already discovered.

The best mods are the ones whose presence doesn’t interrupt the flow of the message board. Think of yourself as the referee in a hockey game. Call too many penalties, and the game will take a long time to play - and everyone’ll hate your guts. Call too few, and you have anarchy. You need to strike a balance, that’s all.

It’s good to get the rules down so they know to what standard they’ll be held. And if they do break one of them, you have a written record of the rule. You’re not just making it up on the fly.

First, you have to decide which conspiracy you want to be a part of. Are you going to be the evil fascist conservative that oppresses all the liberals or the evil hippy Marxist that oppresses all the conservative? This will save time when the name-calling starts.

Second, I think there’s a certain pecentage of the population that’s going to bitch no matter what you do. Just realize it, accept it, and ignore them.

Thanks for all the replies, folks; I think I’m getting the hang of it, since I’ve already had one banned poster send me a weepy e-mail about how hard his life has been up to now and this is, I guess, why he’s a troll.

The board is an “InstaBoard.” I’m not entirely sure if that’s the software or what, but it doesn’t hold a candle to our beloved vBulletin. As I noted above, I can’t even make a thread a sticky.

The board is a general-interest board; news and sports are the main topics of discussion. Actually in the “news” forum it’s extremely predictable that every single thread will turn into tree-huggers vs. Nazis (or something; I didn’t read too closely), but as long as the insults don’t turn into threats I’m letting them go for now.

Seems to be working OK so far. If I suddenly drop off the board for a couple weeks, alert vibrotronica and he can come bang on my door and make sure I’m alive.

On the RHCP board we’ve tried to install a policy of “once you’re banned, that’s it” so we don’t get sob stories like you got. Of course that doesn’t prevent them. But it makes for better behavior. They know that once they are off the board no amount of back pedaling will get them back on. They are given quite a few warnings before they are booted, so if they have been banned it’s a good indication that they were quite obnoxious.

It’s up to you how “strict” you want to be. I’m more on the stricter side (probably because of this board and what it has taught me).

Over on Fathom, I posted this set of guidelines for the Forum for which I’m Mod.
If you want to see my “style,” just search that Forum for Moderator. (Since Fathom is fairly laid back and not at all huge, I don’t have to be a good moderator, just a present one.)

Others have ansewered , but the easiest way to look at it , is basically call block on your telephone. Once you have decided to do that , basically you also want to follow up with his/her isp , let them handle the recalairant person , usually most isps will have some sort of policy on internet abuse.

Dont be stern, be factual.

Sort of like a judge on the bench , decide on your rules and terms of conduct that everyone agrees to. Enforce your rules rationally , most posters know who is gone for the highjump , and will applaud.

That being said , leave an administration forum for redress of greivances , or hauling someone to the back of the wood shed. Trolls are easy to deal with , its heated conversations that will tax you.

A moderator will monitor the various threads and step in when required to bring order and sanity , protect the forum against internet legal situations (ala hatespeech, death threats etc.

An Admin is generally the person who takes care of the technical end of the forum, backing up threads , pruning old topics , archiving , and so forth.

Generally its usually ranked , Admin , Moderator, forum moderator. Depending on the size of your forums.

Try and keep from over moderating. Generally the best boards are self moderating, with people keeping a sense of politeness and decorum. Select people that you think are moderator material and have them mod the forums, while you keep the supreme court.

Other than that , its basically trial and error

Declan

I have no advice to offer, but I think you should slap yourself for causing me to have “Eeek, I’m a mod on a-nuuuther board” running through my head to the tune of the Moody Blues’ “I’m just a singer in a rock 'n roll band”.

My biggest piece of advice (that hasn’t been said in so many words yet) is when you write something in your official mod voice, take all the time you need to make sure its the right thing to post. In some bad situations that some boards have (usually personality conflicts) a well thought out post is MUCH more important than a hasty one.

My two coppers.

Thanks for the advice, all; it’s going pretty well so far. Most of the posters seem glad to have some standards for folks to live up to, and I’ve gotten a bunch of thank-yous for banning the original troll.

Unfortunately the original troll is still sending me e-mail, but I think he’ll stop soon.

robgruver, that’s good advice; I’m being careful to keep things kinda serious-but-light in my posts, and also taking care to remain only a mod, i.e., NOT actually taking part in any of the discussions, sorely as I’ve been tempted to call them all a bunch of reactionary morons.

And AHunter3, if it makes you feel any better I’m singing it now too.

Some of the things I’ve learned…

Nothing you do will please everyone. Some things will please no-one, but must be done anyway. Your personal physical, mental, and emotional health are far more important than a message board. It doesn’t matter why someone is trolling, just ban that person. Don’t feel obliged to reply to a troll’s emails, unless it’s for your own amusement. Trolls almost NEVER reform. The message board is NOT a substitute for psychiatric help, and anyone using it in such a manner should be discouraged from doing so. If necessary, ban the person…it’s not good for the sick person OR for the message board OR for YOUR mental health.

I had a long post written out about how I deal with static and dynamic IPs, but frankly, I revealed too much information as to how we at the SDMB try to keep trolls from posting here, so I’m sorry, but I’m NOT gonna post it.

Encourage people to send you bribes, but don’t let bribes or the lack of them affect how you do your job.

AHunter3, why don’t you slap your own damn self now… God dammit… Thanks a wad…

Then why mention that you prepared the reply? All you did was get people curious.

As long as you tell people upfront that the bribes won’t get the briber any special favors, fine with me. To do otherwise would be unethical.

Not flaming, just commenting.

Banning posters or locking threads needs to be done with a witty remark, preferably in context of the thread, and with bad puns.

Really, I see this as the hardest challenge of the moderators here.

On the site where I’m a mod, we have a hidden folder that only the mods (and the site owner, of course) can see. I didn’t know how useful it would be, but it turned out to come in handy when we started getting a few monkeys there- I could explain what a monkey is, but you probably don’t want to know . We haven’t banned anyone yet, but there’s one poster on the chopping block at the moment…she did comply with the request to change her nickname to something other than “fuckyou[insert poster she doesn’t like’s name]” so maybe she’ll shape up.

I’m not sure if you have the option or not, but we can move “hot” threads into the mods folder until people have a chance to cool down. That cuts down on snippiness quite a bit.