Forum Moderators: rogerd
I'm curious what experience our members have had with community moderation and rating tools? At the minimal end of the spectrum, there are tools like "report this post" which allow community members to call a problem to the attention of moderators. One can use "member rating" or "thread rating". Some communities automatically grant some mod powers when a forum member reaches a specific level of seniority. Nathanso describes (in the thread referenced above) an interesting approach which makes posts fade away as enough members rate them poorly.
The downside of the more aggressive techniques is the potential for abuse, perhaps by coordinated effort by some members. Many communities have very vigorous discussions, and it's easy to see how a discussion could head downhill and instead of members flaming each other they could use their community powers to try to harm the other side.
What works for you?
You're right.. heated forum discussions invariably lead to biased post ratings, which is why on my site I was forced to develop a method of revoking select members' post rating privileges. I've always believed it's best to have as few impediments to participation as possible, hence my site has never required logins, and anyone can moderate until they abuse the privilege.
One of my main concerns with mob rule, er, peer enforcement ;) is that it might lead to a competitive environment that eventually turns into hostility.
I saw this happen on a website that specializes in information on broadband providers but has forums on a wide range of subjects. Members could vote a post up or down, the results were shown publicly, and it eventually led to flame wars via voting. Eventually the voting system was abandoned.
A classic example of mob rule is /. where people get modded up and down and marked insightful, troll-bait, et cetera based on mob rule aka the anonymous moderator of the moment. It works, sort of. But it also creates a lot of animosity toward the anonymous moderators.
I have always liked the member rating approach. I've spent quite a lot of time developing and tweaking a formula that ranks members according to their contributions to the website. How-To articles and reviews get you major points. Posting in certain forums earn you more points than others. Mix in some points for length of membership and level of activity in any 30 day period of time and you've got what I call a Member Weight.
It's proved helpful in a number of ways.
Members with sufficient weight can temporarily hide a message and notify a moderator who makes the final decision. Another level of weight earns you access to extra features.
Perhaps the biggest benefit to the Member Weight system is it gives our members a very realistic indicator of how much they can trust the advice another member is giving them.
In general I've found that in over 20 years of running messages boards of one type or another the best way to avoid problems is to seek community moderation/cooperation. It makes people feel like they're a part of the community's governing council; if you'll pardon a terrible mixed metaphor. That can only have positive benefits. Especially versus a policy of mob rule, public humiliation, flame-wars and other things that, IMO ultimately make your community look undesirable enough that it eventually fails.
In conclusion, I don't see a fine line between mob rule and community moderation. Properly encouraged community moderation is great. Mob rule is a recipe for failure. There's a wide line dividing the two. :)
