What exactly would the job entail? For example, how many hours per day does a mod need to be on? etc.
I mean i have a good idea what they do since i have been here for a number of years, i just dont know what goes on behind the scenes.
Happy, being a moderator in this forum, with the shape it's in right now is going to take a monumental amount of work by a small group of people (moderators) who respect one another and get along. That doesn't mean that they would necessarily have to agree with everything the other one does, it just means that they must respect and like each other enough to LISTEN to what the other one has to say.
In my present "job", we have a thread in my forum called, "The Staff Conference Room". This thread cannot be seen by anyone who is not staff. It is in that thread that we often take posts that we are having to "moderate" to get EVERYONE's take on the situation. Now, of course, I'm not talking about FLAMINGLY OBVIOUS posts that need to be removed, those you act on quickly and accordingly. The Staff Conference Room is for those posts that are borderline, and you just want someone else's thoughts on the matter. If one of us sees a "troublesome" post, we copy the link to it and put it in the conference thread and go from there.
A deleted post can take a moderator a lot more time than one might think. You don't just click on delete and go on your merry way.
After deleting a post, I PM the author of the post explaining what policy/rule they "violated" (though in my forum on the other site, that word isn't used), highlighting the offensive portion of their post, and try to work with them on not making the same mistakes in the future.
In the forum I work in, because of it's sensitive nature, not much in the way of "offensiveness" is tolerated. If the poster doesn't step up to the plate, correct their critical thinking errors, and start posting without flaming others, etc., they will soon find themselves on a temporary vacation that will turn into a full time one very quickly after that if they come back doing the same thing they were before.
It's a rewarding "job", but it is very time consuming. If the moderators don't get along well, it will make the job gruelling.
In order to "whip this forum into shape" it's going to take moderators who have the time to be here LOTS, and who are willing to address each and every infraction, no matter how small, quickly and fairly.
What I observe in this forum is that posters have a difficult time in addressing the body, or the message of another's post, and appear to go straight to personally attacking the author.
I would not tolerate this. I'm just being plain up front, and I don't care who the "perpetrator" was.
I AM fair, and as long as someone approaches me respectfully, I am more than willing to discuss the issue. But I will NOT argue over it.
Policies and guidelines need to be clearly posted, so that when a post has to be deleted due to an infraction, a link to those can be provided to the author so that they can re-familiarize themselves with such.
In short Happy, it's a huge job, it takes up lots of time, and it can often be a thankless one...though I have not found that to be the case on my site. I often see entire threads starting for the purpose of thanking the staff for their hard work, by members.
What matters here is just what do the members expect? What is it they want to see accomplished? If it's a slipshod, anything goes type of forum, then I would not "be your girl". If it's a forum run by guidelines that are clearly outlined and enforced, then I might be your girl.
Oh, and TrustAndObey?
***THWACK***
te amo tu tambien, mi hermana
Boy, is my spanish rusty. I'm not even sure I spelled all of that right, lol.
