Forum-Specific Moderators

as it stands, there are no section-specific mods on the community I'm involved with. There are only global mods. I like the idea of assigning mods to have abilities in a section or two, it works well when the forum is large/active and the mods don't have lots of time to dedicate to undertake global mod duties.
 
I've always liked having forum-specific mods. As a few of you have said, the main reason for me liking this is that they can focus on their specific forum(s) and help keep those parts active rather than having to focus on the whole forum where there might be sections where they would never even post or look at if they weren't mods.
I give them the power to warn in their specific forums and have full mod powers there, but outside of that forum, they are just like a regular member.

I do like to have a couple global mods though on bigger forums as it's something to work towards and so that they can be around if needed rather than waiting for an admin.
 
I think having a forum specific moderator is a very good idea. This is how I usually rank my moderators on my own forums:

Head Moderator
>>Moderator of Forum 1
>>Moderator of Forum 2
>>Moderator of Forum 3

I would then go on to have a staff forum for only the head moderators, but also have a staff forum so that ordinary forum moderators can have a chance to discuss or ask questions.
 
Appointing users as forum-specific mods is a great way of testing them. Although on my forum, all of my mods have global powers.
 
I've used forum/section mods in the past, with global mods above that for the whole forum, which then allowed me as the admin to focus more on the back end with the global mods doing the "mod supervising" I would normally do.

It's a good idea for a large forum, and that's typically where I've seen it done the most. For a small and especially a new forum, I don't see the point.

As for "testing the person" out before making them a global mod, you can do that by seeing how they post on the forum before they gain any mod/staff role at all.
 
I would do this when my forum was much bigger, and assign moderators to categories that they would mod. Right now, we only have global mods because that's what works the best currently.
 
Along with the size of the forums i thin kit also depends on the experience level of the person. On my forum, I've some Global Moderators who are, on an average, of 35+ years in their respective fields. OTOH, there are other Moderators who are good in their job but are not experienced -- so I've kept them as Moderators so that they give themselves enough time to learn how to moderate it globally.

In both the cases, the trust level is same - I'd say.
 
Anuj Dhawan said:
Along with the size of the forums i thin kit also depends on the experience level of the person. On my forum, I've some Global Moderators who are, on an average, of 35+ years in their respective fields. OTOH, there are other Moderators who are good in their job but are not experienced -- so I've kept them as Moderators so that they give themselves enough time to learn how to moderate it globally.

In both the cases, the trust level is same - I'd say.
How would you say the trust level for a moderator of a single or couple sections and a moderator of the entire forum is the same? We're talking about someone who can remove all of the posts in the forums they have access to.
 
Geoffrey said:
Anuj Dhawan said:
Along with the size of the forums i thin kit also depends on the experience level of the person. On my forum, I've some Global Moderators who are, on an average, of 35+ years in their respective fields. OTOH, there are other Moderators who are good in their job but are not experienced -- so I've kept them as Moderators so that they give themselves enough time to learn how to moderate it globally.

In both the cases, the trust level is same - I'd say.
How would you say the trust level for a moderator of a single or couple sections and a moderator of the entire forum is the same? We're talking about someone who can remove all of the posts in the forums they have access to.
I made the statement keeping in mind that I've met most (all) of the (Global) Moderators in person. Also I know them from other forums.

If you are "hiring" a stranger with the power to delete posts -- I would not allow that from first day and it takes considerable effort from one to qualify for the role and build the trust. Said that, you as admin has to figure this out!
 
Anuj Dhawan said:
I made the statement keeping in mind that I've met most (all) of the (Global) Moderators in person. Also I know them from other forums.

Do you mean to say that regardless of moderator or global moderator, you still require them to go through same procedure to make sure you can trust them all equally? In that case I agree.

Anuj Dhawan said:
If you are "hiring" a stranger with the power to delete posts -- I would not allow that from first day and it takes considerable effort from one to qualify for the role and build the trust. Said that, you as admin has to figure this out!

Yes, that is right too. That's why administrators usually hire someone they know or members who have been around for a while and made considerable amount of posts as the first 'screening' criteria to avoid giving power to some random 'strangers'.
 
Migi said:
Anuj Dhawan said:
I made the statement keeping in mind that I've met most (all) of the (Global) Moderators in person. Also I know them from other forums.

Do you mean to say that regardless of moderator or global moderator, you still require them to go through same procedure to make sure you can trust them all equally? In that case I agree.

Anuj Dhawan said:
If you are "hiring" a stranger with the power to delete posts -- I would not allow that from first day and it takes considerable effort from one to qualify for the role and build the trust. Said that, you as admin has to figure this out!

Yes, that is right too. That's why administrators usually hire someone they know or members who have been around for a while and made considerable amount of posts as the first 'screening' criteria to avoid giving power to some random 'strangers'.

I agree with Migi. Most people, when hiring someone to become staff, will usually hire someone they know or someone that has been on the forum awhile. Another solution is giving them kind of a trial run before turning them loose with full powers.
 
I completely agree first it should always be forum specific moderator and once trust is gained then promote to a global moderator. Currently my forum is small so all the moderators are GM.
I like the idea behind forum specific moderators, as this position will help them to gain experience and they can concentrate more in the assigned forums.
I agree that forum specific mods should not be given the permission to ban or delete threads/posts until they are fully qualified, if mods can report the issues to admin or global moderators then they will get to learn as to what has to be done in that particular situation and also will gain experience. I dont think it is necessary for them to take immediate actions as the issue can wait for 1-3 hours until an administrator or global mod advices them.
Once the forum specific moderators gain good experience and you trust them then you can promote him/her to be global moderator or give the permissions for banning and deleting threads or posts if necessary.

For forums to succeed forum specific moderators and global moderators both are required, the only difference is the responsibility and powers you give them.
 
When I had a general discussion forum I only had global moderators. I don't see the point of having forum specific mods unless your forum is massive where there are like 1000s of people posting daily.
 
Personally I use global moderators but do assign them to do specific tasks, for example one may be on Community suggestions duty while another may have to moderate the off-topic forums, if feel this gives them a task to do, like forum moderators, but also let's them had our bans and warnings to members say if there was a spammer not in there moderated section.
 
I think it's a bit of a waste to be quite honest with you.

I mean sure, sectional moderators might work and it keeps things less busy however all mods should have global powers just in case. It's kinda a waste of moderation and staff space to be quite honest.
 
I've never really understood the point of section moderators. I think that if you have an effective team of Global Moderators, there shouldn't be a need/purpose for section mods, as the global mods should be looking after the whole board.
 
Mr.Snuggles said:
I've never really understood the point of section moderators. I think that if you have an effective team of Global Moderators, there shouldn't be a need/purpose for section mods, as the global mods should be looking after the whole board.
For example, consider a Forum on a "niche technology framework" - let's assume this "niche technology framework" talks about 10 different technologies in different sections (sub-forums); out of which, say, technology-7, is a rare to very rare technology. If you have a global Moderator to moderate who does not have the knowledge of this technology-7 but you've got a volunteer to reply/participate on technology-7 and nothing else -- what would you like to do?

I've seen that such individuals are more happy to be called as "technology-7 Moderator" rather than a "Global Moderator".

Just my $ .02...
 
I think this idea is okay but I think it would be better if forum moderators get a few forums to moderate rather than one. Unless you are at a very active forum, one forum isn't much to moderate. While it is like a training process, I think they will need more than one forum to learn about being a mod. However, I do like the idea that forum moderators gets less privileges than senior moderators since you will be able to observe them before giving them power.

Another problem with this is that you will need a pretty large number of moderators as you will need enough senior moderators to manage the whole forum as the forum moderators only get privileges in specific forums.

I think it would be a better idea if you have forum moderators which gets the ability to move/edit/delete posts and deal with spam on all forums but not allowed to deal with reports and other things and then when they are promoted to senior moderators then they can deal with the higher profile cases.
 
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