I had the chance today to moderate a forum whilst users posted abuse, spam and other content. This gave me a chance to get to understand the skills behind successfully moderating an active community.

We used PHPbb, a free and open-source bulletin board. I had unheard of this software before and was unfamiliar with it’s layout.

This is the topic list on the Ravensbourne Moderation Test Forum. It displayed all of the topics that users have created in order of last post. This meant that the last reply is at the top of the list.

It makes it easy for users to see how the active topics, but also for moderators to easy see where the latest comments/replies are and therefore can act on it.

Here is the Moderator Control Panel. This allows moderators to control and manage the content that users are creating on the website. It shows the latest reports made by users that they find offensive or as spam. From here the moderator can view the content and assess for themselves if the content violates any of the forum rules which have been set such as spamming, promotion, racism etc.

This is the banning panel on PHPbb. It is a function that Moderators have the power to control and is used in relation to the forums escalation plan. If a user has violated the rules set by the admins/owners then the moderator can decide to ban the user.

There violation can also impact on their length of ban. For example spam is considered just annoying and would result in a short ban (24 hours or so), whereas racism or pornography is considered much more offensive and could result in a lengthier ban, even permanently through username or IP.

The moderator also has the power take action to posts without the need for a user to report it first. As moderators in a forum are usually long term members that have been very active, they love the community and respect its rules. They can directly delete the post without taking any action. They can also report it for review from another Moderator to review if they are unsure. A warning can also be made to the user directly. This notifies then and is in place for the forums escalation plan.

The Moderation Test was very fun and I felt like the process taught me a lot for when I look to build a community for myself.

Tom.