# Moderators - What are their roles?



## ecwinch (Mar 17, 2009)

What is the role of the moderator on TUG?

Are they to moderate the discussion, or simply to enforce the rules of the board (i.e. no ads, shills, personal attacks, etc.)?


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## TUGBrian (Mar 17, 2009)

all moderators are timeshare owners just like you who have taken it upon themselves to donate their time to maintain the forums here by enforcing the TUG posting guidelines along with regular participation as TUG members here on the forums.

There are individual moderators for each section of the TUGBBS, however all moderators help each other out as its simply not possible for every moderator to moderate 24x7.  Thankfully there are enough of these wonderful people to ensure there is at least one of us online just about any given time of day to handle the spammers and such.

The fact that most of you dont see the spam posts and other activities we dont care for here, is a tribute to the good job they do =)


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## T_R_Oglodyte (Mar 17, 2009)

ecwinch said:


> What is the role of the moderator on TUG?
> 
> Are they to moderate the discussion, or simply to enforce the rules of the board (i.e. no ads, shills, personal attacks, etc.)?


As moderators their role is the latter.  The only exception is when a moderator steps in, officially wearing the moderator hat, and posts information about posting rules or the rationale for certain decisions that might have been.

Apart from that, discussions by moderators is in their role as members, not as moderators.


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## geekette (Mar 17, 2009)

One thing we all can do to keep the board spam-free is to report problem posts using the red triangle icon.

I expect that the mods lead full lives away from the board so when I see something that needs to be removed, I hit the icon, which alerts them to the problem post.  A box comes up to input what the problem is.  Usually, it's spam in the form of advertising.

They are participating members, not discussion leaders (except when they start their own threads).  They aren't censors, except to the extent that a post or discussion may be going against rules.

THanks Mods!


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## Makai Guy (Mar 17, 2009)

In former times, the Moderators had more of an administrative role than they do today, in addition to their job of watching the boards and making sure their forums run smoothly.   Former versions of these forums, and the servers on which they were run, had some severe limitations that forced the Mods to have to spend a lot of time pruning out old, inactive posts so that we didn't run out of room, or overtax the meager software we were using at the time.  Thankfully, our current setup doesn't require much maintenance of this sort.  

For the most part, we prefer not to "moderate", as in _*direct*_ the course of the discussion, but wish to have the users be able to express themselves as they see fit.  The moderators do not, for instance, monitor eveyone's posts and approve them before they are allowed to be posted to the board, which is one possible interpretation of "moderation".  But the board DOES have rules that everyone must follow, and it is the Mods' responsibility to jump in when the rules are violated.

Of course, in addition to being Moderators, they are also users of the board, just like everyone else, and are free to post in any discussion they wish.  Many are long time timeshare owners and have lots of knowledge to share.  When not posting in an official capacity to enforce the rules, the Moderator tag on a Mod's post should not be viewed as giving it any special status and their posts should be evaluated as you would a post from any other board user.


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## ecwinch (Apr 2, 2009)

If someone is a moderator, can they moderator (modify) any post or are they limited to certain forums?

Maybe we should call them modifiers instead - since they do not moderate? Just kidding.


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## Makai Guy (Apr 2, 2009)

All of our Moderators and Administrators have the ability to perform moderating activities in all public forums.   It is much more efficient that way, especially when reacting to spam posts.


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## pammex (Apr 2, 2009)

Just thought I would thank all the moderators for the wonderful job they do!!!


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## ecwinch (Apr 2, 2009)

Makai Guy said:


> All of our Moderators and Administrators have the ability to perform moderating activities in all public forums.   It is much more efficient that way, especially when reacting to spam posts.



I agree - was just curious. 

Dovetailing into everyone else's post, I think you guys/gals do a great job - I never see any spam.


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## tombo (Apr 3, 2009)

Makai Guy said:


> All of our Moderators and Administrators have the ability to perform moderating activities in all public forums.   It is much more efficient that way, especially when reacting to spam posts.



Besides spam, obscenities, and personal attacks, what other things can moderators edit and change? Can they change things that change the posts and direction of posts in a forum to please an individual's wishes over the wishes of the majority of members? 

I know being a moderator is a hard unpaid job, but none of us who post here except for salesmen or developers are paid to read or post here either. In fact other than guests who are here for free, all of us pay to be here.


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## TUGBrian (Apr 3, 2009)

see other post on this subject above.


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