What do you think makes a good moderator of a subject on this board? We have many and I certainly appreciate them taking on the responsibility. I am just curious about what members think about what a moderator should do and what makes a person a good moderator. Thay have much power as we know - they can make a post by a member disappear and post something instead. What makes a good moderator and why and who is a good or not good a moderator in your view and why?
1) They either encourage or lead by example in the creation of new threads,
2) They either encourage or lead by example in making threads interesting, humorous, or whatever else it takes (except that which would make the thread get moved to The Coliseum section) to get the topic "rolling".
3) They get more posters to post in their section.
4) If they edit a post, they make it obvious in one way or another that it has been edited (even if it's just by having it say something which the original poster never would have posted; sort of in the vein of Larry Flynt's defense against his being sued by Jerry Falwell over an ad parodying him)
5) They diffuse flaming, they diffuse bullying, especially if it's some "clique" which ends up "crowding out" meaningful discussion by not tolerating any other point of view than their own (example: a great review of a high end body rub place getting snide comments of the ilk "You've got to a moron to pay $220 for a HJ" )
6) Gets rid of spam, self posts, etc. and roots out bullshit in general (like shilling, users with 2 handles backing "each other" up to boost their credibility)
7) Stops "group think" (giving the impression that something is only allowed to be talked about one way on this site, like back when - on other sites - everyone would go apeshit when someone even suggested a girl provided BBFS when the guys doing it themselves ); and encourages diversity of discussion (like when someone posts about something which may not be a common practice, and other posters respond with "you re so gay" or other derogatory remarks).
8) Rewards good behaviour and punishes bad behaviour, because whatever behaviour gets rewarded that is what you get more of. So if someone writes a review which is believable and legitimate, doesn't allow posters to make derogatory remarks about the poster of the review, because all that would do is discourage people from writing reviews.
9) By whatever means, gets supply siders to become contributors to their section (as long as they are adding to the discussion and not just looking for free promotion).
10) They keep staff in the loop if they see a problem occurring, asking for a poster to get a "time out" for bad behaviour, etc.
11) They cajole posters to post "the full story" when it looks like they have something interesting thing to say, but only make a vague allusion to it somewhere.
12) They contact the subject of threads who are not board members to alert them of the discussion and encourage them to join UG and enter in on the discussion.
13) They call posters out when they feel they are obviously misleading the members of UG about something, ESPECIALLY if they think it is a "disinformation tactic".
14) They sway conversations where posters have legitimate differences of opinions to keep the discussion and disagreements about the SUBJECT and not
ad hominem attacks.
15) They point out rules violations. They identify spammers. They root out shills or stealth "self posters".
more later maybe.
