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How much time is spent scanning threads for violations vs responding to reports. IOW…how much do you rely on reporting?
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What priority is placed on certain violations? For example, giving incorrect responses that aren’t adequately hedged vs giving opinions vs shitting in a thread vs hijacking too early vs zombies.
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What priority is given to certain actions… attemting to get a thread back on track vs moving vs closing?
It’s not entirely clear-cut how much time mods spend moderating. They’re posters like the rest of us, and look for threads that are interesting to them to read. If a mod is reading a thread because they’re interested in it, and come across a rule violation, is the time spent reading that thread “on the clock”, so to speak, or is it just leisure?
I personally don’t spend much time just looking through threads for rules violations. One of the reasons we require moderators to participate in the forums that we moderate is that we will be reading a lot of the threads there anyway. I read posts that interest me, and if I see a topic that is perhaps a hot button issue I might check it periodically to make sure that it is staying within the guidelines of the forum that it’s in. I don’t read every single thread in GQ. I do read every post in ATMB, the Marketplace, and the Barn House, but they don’t get so many posts.
When I’m at work, I keep my “home” e-mail in a browser window off to the side of the screen in the background. Most of the e-mails I get are SDMB post reports, so if I see a message come in then that’s usually what it is. While I can see it at a glance, if I get too focused on something I am doing for work I may not notice that I’ve received a message right away. But mostly I get to them reasonably quickly, I think. At home, I keep my e-mail up on one computer while I’m doing something on another, so again I can see fairly quickly if a post report comes in. So while I do read the forums that I moderate, I also rely fairly heavily on post reports. I especially rely on them for issues in the threads that I haven’t read.
As far as priorities go, I don’t really think of things in terms of priorities. Instead, I look at each situation and try to figure out what the best solution is for each issue. Some threads are hard to keep on-topic just because of the nature of their subject. Some threads end up a complete train wreck and the best thing you can do for them is to close them and put them out of their misery. Some threads straddle the fence between forums (this often happens with things that are factual but also end up involving opinions). Sometimes the best thing to do is let the factual parts of it be answered about as well as they can be, then punt the thread over to IMHO where folks can give their opinions. It all depends on the thread and the issue.
There’s no one way to moderate. Other mods will have different ways of doing things.
ecg, does your boss know about this stuff?
I’m sure Tubadiva knows and she’s cool with it.
Nope. But then I do spend most of my work time working, so it’s not like he has any reason to care.