10 Rules for Bad Moderators

Discussion in 'Member Articles & Tutorials' started by Kentaurus, Jun 19, 2009.

  1. Kentaurus

    Kentaurus Regular Member

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    Far from being a set of rules these are some guidelines that I wrote about "how to be a bad moderator", they don't cover every topic and is only an approach of what not-to-do.

    I give them to my moderators. Some of them told me "wow, I never though about that" or "well.. most of them are obvious". Sometimes it is easier to think about what we don't like

    How to be a bad moderator:


    • Don't visit the forums you are moderating often. Twice a month is enough. Nobody cares.

    • Don't start new threads at your forum. That's the users' responsibility. You are only there for editing and deleting threads.

    • Argue with users as much as you can. You don't have anything to loose since you are the moderator. Never bring personal matters to private messages. And remember that your opinion is the only one that counts.

    • Don't respect the other members, make fun of them. If they make spelling errors then criticize them, if they have a poor or unargumented opinion destroy them with words. If they ask for help about using the forum don't help them.

    • If nobody answers a thread don't answer yourself, the user didn't wanted an answer anyway.

    • If a user makes a dupe thread in the forum don't be nice, it's the users’ fault not to know the 40+ pages that the forum has in search of a similar thread. And never ever give him a link to the content he is searching for.

    • Don't edit the bad words in posts. Fights are fun!

    • If a user is misbehaving ban him immediately, don't try sending him a private message or a warning, it's useless.

    • Close all the threads you want. Users love to see closed threads.

    • A way to be cool is to talk about the private forum threads in the public forum. Administrators love the fact that you tell all the users about the content of the private threads.
    Feel free to comment on them or add any that I am missing. Remember that the purpose is to be a really bad moderator ;)

    This post has been promoted to an article
     
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  2. Kentaurus

    Kentaurus Regular Member

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    Not unknown source, I published it on some other forum, a while ago (threadid: 738)
    I'll not link to it :)

    It's something that I have had in my forums for a while and that I hand out to new moderators.

    It's ok to use it, tough. And I'd love to read the AdminAddict's opinions ;)
     
  3. Nick

    Nick Regular Member

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    Hm, I just checked and I know what forum you're talking about, but that isn't the one I found it on. I found it on another admin forum and it said that the source was unknown.

    I'm going to see if I can change the post author to you instead of me. :D
     
  4. Nick

    Nick Regular Member

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    Okay, all fixed Kentaurus. :D
     
  5. Soliloquy

    Soliloquy Regular Member

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    Don't forget to whine about how the forum owner must be raking in the cash while you obviously do all the work!
     
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  6. Abomination

    Abomination Zealot

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    If a topic keeps getting brought up, simply lock the new threads and say "that has been talked about many times before". Do not post any links to those previous threads. It makes no difference that the topic is 3 letters long and is unsearchable in the forums software. That is the users problem, not the mods.



    Yes there is a mod on a forum that keeps doing that.
     
  7. Tyler

    Tyler The Badministrator

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    Creative article. Nice job!
     
  8. 3Phase

    3Phase Champion

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    Tell the admin that you are not going to pm members who are breaking rules because you don't want to. List all the other moderator tasks you aren't going to do as well. This will leave you free to read and comment on all the management forum activity, uninterrupted by reading the actual forum, not to mention moderating.

    Post publicly that you question the direction the management is taking the forum. Invite members with similar concerns to pm you.

    Be floored, flabbergasted, astonished, shocked when you get a polite note from the admin letting you know that your position as mod isn't really working out, so you are going to get a regular paid membership, free forever. Express your thunderstruck-ness by posting on another forum things about about this forum's private management conversations. The more likely to be misunderstood out of context, the better.

    Then get back in touch with the admin asking if you can come back as a mod ... to do the same thing as you were before (or not do the same things you weren't doing before.) Which should be fine as your sniping comments in the management forum were so valuable.
     
  9. Alfa1

    Alfa1 Regular Member

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    Somehow I have the faint suspicion that this is no generic example there. Phase.
     
  10. 3Phase

    3Phase Champion

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    Never pull that * if you live in the same town as the admin ... I will totally track someone down and explain in person so as to be better understood. Ex-mod finally took the parting gift for all her >ahem< service to the forum (she'd been doing nothing with a mod title for years, even before I got the forum.) And behaves herself. No big noisy messy exit, after all. :p

    Some mods are friends not worth keeping.
     

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