In a recent interview with Lisa Irby she highlighted very clearly how important forum moderators are for your forum. Forum moderators is self-explanatory. They help moderate your forum by deleting unwanted posts and infracting users so that they stay in line withun the forum rules.

When Your Forum Is Too Large

The best time to hire a forum moderator is when you feel that you can no longer control your forum by your own. There is no exact formula to find out when the time is right to hire a moderator, you just have to feel it own your own. A good rule of thumb to go by is can I read all the posts in my forum in a day? If no then it’s time to hire a moderator.

Moderators Keep The Forum User Friendly

Moderators will keep your forum user friendly. Their job is to specifically read through threads and delete the posts that they think that other users may find offensive or that break the forum rules. Having a user friendly forum shows professionalism and makes your forum look clean which in turn will promote activity.

Hiring That Moderator

As Lisa Stated in the interview one of the mistakes she made as a forum administrator was that she hired a moderator that she never really knew. This is a common mistake you see in many forums and sometimes can have disastrous consequences. As Lisa said before you hire get to know their posting habits. That includes going through recent posts, checking their behaviour and looking through previous infractions/bans.  You don’t generally want to hire a person who has a ban history but people do mature on the forums and change their posting habits.

Get to know the person your want to hire. Make sure they have the correct personality to moderate. You want to hire someone that has a helpful personality as they will be willing to commit to the community and give something back.

Last but not least have global moderators. Global moderators have the privileges to moderate anywhere on the forum not just a specific forum. Global moderators are there to solve disputes between moderators and members aswell as filling in for any absent moderators whether they be sick or just on holiday.

Wrapping It Up

Moderators are a great pair of extra hands to help keep your board look professional and clean. These people should be chosen with care as you give them access to delete threads and posts but the right person will do the world of good.

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