Moderators are just ordinary people that perhaps have just a little bit more tenure on the site than most. Their username and avatar is often recognized due to their frequency of posts, even if the reader is themself an infrequent visitor.
A Moderator also tends to be someone whom has for the most part had a track record of providing help to their forum community. Someone whom has not run seriously afoul in disputes with other members but tends to be intermediaries. The do not allow themselves to be ‘called out’ by the bullies that wish to engage them in verbal bashings.
If the person genuinely contributes to the forum and is helpful to their fellow postees, they are a valuable resource to the forum. A go-to person for advice or direction. Some they may ask questions of regarding an answer to a problem, or who can direct them to another resource to find their answer.
All forums have the potential to get a little rowdy sometimes. Tempers and personal tantrums between users occur. Flame wars erupt. Sometimes a moderator needs to quell these personal disputes by reminding the combatants that they are addressing a public or quasi-public pulpit. Their voice is being carried to all members. Other members whom might take serious offense to what is occurring and the disruption it causes are witness to the abuser’s outrages.
The ol’ ‘if you don’t like it, go somewhere else!‘ excuse favors only the antagonist. It never serves anyone else. Sure, -if it is gunfire you bet your ass I’m going somewhere else but that does not solve the problem of the gunfire, does it?
“Go somewhere else’ as an excuse really doesn’t cover personal flame wars and trolling behavior because the forum belongs to everyone sanctioned to have access to it. Abuses posted by one user to another are shared to the forum by all. Even if the disparate issues are not shared, -we all heard the gunshots in the air. A peacekeeper is needed.
A Moderator is a peacemaker, even if ‘the peace’ means locking the thread, editing some particularly vehement comments or even in some cases, the outright deletion of a post. Often, the person whom posted vile and defamatory remarks a day later regrets them and wishes they could be removed. -Enter a Moderator with the awesome powers of Forum editing and in some cases, post deletion.
Generally, moderators do not approve of deleting posts in principle because a forum was meant to share ideas, not hide them. Deleting a post is like tearing a page out of a book. Even if it is really necessary in the venue of a forum, removing even unhelpful posts is almost always viewed across the readership as censoring. Some feel it violates their concept of Free Speech.
‘Free speech’ is a privilege as well as a right. Incitement through hateful words is not necessarily covered under ‘free speech’ interpretation. Usually the only thing deemed worse than a Moderator is a troll that offends even worse than the most boisterous and inciting postees. Then the Moderator’s presence is appreciated by everyone, even those opposed to moderators in principle.
Nobody likes a cop. -That is until your house is being robbed or your liberty is being abused. Then you’ve got us up on speed-dial.
A Moderator’s job is also like that of a janitor. They remove non-productive and spammy posts. They ‘clean up’ the garbage.
They remove the posts that link to porn and pharma, online gambling, those low interest loans and bank cards offers, as well as many of the repeated & unrelated affiliate link posts. Moderators are the ‘junk mail’ collector and garbageman. We’re are not the ban-hammer moral authority that most people would make us out to be.
As a Moderator on several forums over the years I really have found very few posts that were sickening enough for me to actually remove just on individual merit. Mostly, posts that were removed by me are of the spammy type. The off-topic ones leading to sites that would seek to bilk the visitor of their money or time. Many so-called ‘Nigerian scam’ posts are quickly and silently removed by Moderators. You never got to see these. Not during our watch anyway.
We clean up the mess so most visitors don’t even know about the crap that gets onto the site.
People complain about moderators on forums the same way they complain about construction crews on highways and for the very same reasons. These people are interfering with that user’s sense of entitlement to use the resource at hand. They feel that their sense of freedom is compromised. Affecting their definition of what rights they feel we are taking away from them with our very presence. They seem to miss the fact that we are in our way, helping to build the forum not dismantle it.
On a well-moderated forum, one tends to hardly notice that it is in fact, moderated. Most Moderators are actually avid participants in many discussions and threads in their own right. Moderators help maintain the forum with their ideas, their energy and willingness to share.
Moderators are just ordinary people whom try to keep everyone engaged with what the forum was built for, -a clearinghouse of information for the free exchange of ideas among its valued users.
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