What is a Moderator?

Introduction
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Thank you very much for volunteering your time in helping us to keep the forums tidy. The task of a moderator is very important in keeping the community together and helping it remain attractive to newcomers. Here are some simple guidelines. If you have any questions at all, please feel free to contact the Noles or Mr. Hero for questions/concerns.

Conduct
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Within our forum, we expect that you will always take the high road. Do not belittle members, do not air dirty laundry in public, etc. If you have a problem with a member, PM them or e-mail them.

Confidentiality
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It is important that staff members have a place to discuss matters frankly without worrying about confidentiality. We expect you to keep all discussions in this section confidential. If you will not stick to this, please notify me so that I can remove your access. If we discover that you have breached confidentiality, you will be removed immediately.

Forum Duties
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The main thing is to care enough about the site to make it a priority. This will manifest differently per person. If you feel that maintaining and nurturing the forum has become a burden or that you simply do not have enough time, please notify me and I will remove you from the staff team, and/or talk to you personally about different options for you whilst keeping your position.

Maintaining the forums will basically mean regularly visiting to make sure that there is no spam, multiple topics, or problems to take care of. If you need to take a break from the forums, please ensure that you let us all know so that we can be sure to have an idea of what is going on.

Moving Threads
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If there are any threads that need to be "deleted", simply use the topic multi-moderation feature and archive them. If the thread is complete spam, please purge them using this same feature so that the administration can look over it.

Editing Posts
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If ever you need to edit a member's post, which should not be many times, please be sure to add a comment on the boom letting them know exactly why you edited the post and what they did wrong (not following rule #3 for example).

Language
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No violent, discriminatory langauge or personal attacks are tolerated in the forum (as you know from the forum rules). If you see any inappropriate posts, edit the post immediately. Remove the offending portion or entire post body and insert a edit note explaining your action. If an excessive amount of profanity is used in a post, remove it. If both parties are having fun and joking around, it would be best to just leave it as is and double-check with said members to be sure of this.

Advertisement
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No advertisement of any form is tolerated in any forum. Website links in the signature are fine as long as it doesn't have too many links in it. Use your best judgment. Actual links to other sites are discouraged.

Spam
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The following are considered spam:
Posts that obviously serve no purpose other than uping one's post counts. This is up to the staff team to decide.
Responses to spam posts should be considered as spam and be removed. However, spam warnings should not be given in such cases except in severe cases.
Posts that contain large amounts of smileys and/or spaces to make it look like they contain useful information often don't. Be aware of those tactics to quickly up post count.

Give out official spam warnings to repeat offenders. Give a bit of leeway to new posters (you can tell by their join date).

Relevancy
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When you found a thread that is not relevant to a forum, immediately move it to the appropriate forum. If it is a popular topic, leave a "trail" for the topic, but in almost all cases just move it without adding one.

Sexual Content
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Sexual content is not permitted except in the most general context. Anything which could be hurtful to someone else (within reason) is course for a warning to be given. This includes sexually explicit avatars, sexist jokes, use of violent sexual language, unwanted sexual advances, and anything else that could be hurtful and offensive. This site is rated for all ages.

Closing Threads
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Don't close threads, ever. If people should no longer be discussing whatever that topic might be about (Viagra spam for instance) just purge the thread and leave it for the administration.

Pinned/Unpinned
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Do not unpin or pin any topic without approval from Noles or Mr. Hero.

Forum Specific Rules
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Please follow the assigned rules, and embrace them at all times.

Suspensions and Banning
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Unless the account is specially a spam bot, do not under any circumstance ban another member without notifying Noles or Mr. Hero.

Note from us
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It's a hard job, and I understand that. Dedication and consistency is a big part of our mindset here, and if you do not have those, this might not be the right thing for you to be spending your time with. Hopefully above all else you will enjoy yourself here and valiantly work hard at your new position! I wish you all the best of luck, and if ever there is a problem, don't hesitate to let us know.

Do you have what it takes to become a Moderator on Hubapple? Apply now!