Do I need a moderator for my forum?

Low resources but in need of stickyness

[tomthumb2000]

I was recently advised that my travel site needed more stickyness.

I don't have enough traffic to really generate massive forum posting so i thought to begin with some kind of a discussion board, asking a question or posing a topic each week.

I'm not online enough to be moderating 24/7 though and i wondered how much vigilance the forum might need?

I could just have visitors make comments in a form and later post them myself but then there would be no instant gratification....

[rogerd]

If your site is very low volume, consider starting a blog with moderated comments. If you do unmoderated comments, users will get instant gratification but so will spammers. As your traffic grows, you could transition to a forum. Or, if you think visitors will post questions and the like, go to the forum format right away since that is more friendly to visitor posting on new topics.

A lot depends on how you perceive your users. If a spam message was up for a few hours, or a day, would that be a big problem? If so, you need to moderate posts or have a more timely solution for cleanup.

Whether you use a blog or forum, be sure you get an email notification of all new posts - that will give you a quick alert of any problems.

[Marketing Guy]

You could consider embracing promotional type posts by having a commerical forum - this way the majority will be restricted to a single forum and will be unlikely to bother users as much - you can also moderate these posts at your leisure.

However, spammers will still post in random forums, so some moderation will no doubt be needed.

Also consider that moderators will be able to contribute to your forum and help it grow as well, therefore taking some of the burden from you.

[tomthumb2000]

Thanks for the responses. Having automatic email notification is a good idea.

What i fail to really understand is who are all these moderators who are online 24/7 and don't have better things to do than read the posts in whining forums? (present forums excepted!)

Okay, maybe some forums are more entertaining than others but I don't quite understand how forums get reliable moderators who give their time for nothing - or am i missing the point, that moderators are always employed?

If so, how does a site starting out afford to get moderators involved? I can see someone pitching in a few hours a day just for the thrill of being involved but I can't expect them to cover set shifts, can I?

Maybe there's good thread that covers this, i couldn't find it...

[Pfui]

Methinks one way you'll get anyone to even think about moderating for you -- volunteer or paid -- is to truly appreciate the amount of work involved.

Try doing it yourself for a few weeks straight, even babysitting a budding forum, and chances are you'll quickly find out that moderating even "a few hours a day just for the thrill of being involved" ain't no thrill, neither does it pay the bills.

I'm paid to moderate but major factors keeping me engaged and interested (and repeatedly drawing on reserves of patience when tending to rule-breakers and spammers) are the genuine respect and appreciation of the site's owner.

If his attitude was that I didn't "have better things to do than read the posts...", he couldn't pay me enough.

[rogerd]

>>I can see someone pitching in a few hours a day just for the thrill of being involved but I can't expect them to cover set shifts, can I?

It's very difficult to get volunteer moderators to cover specific times - I'd say close to impossible, unless the time frames are very short and the request is for limited duration.

Your best bet is to find volunteers from different time zones. If you are US-based, find a few mods in Europe, Australia, Asia, etc. Their natural surfing habits will put them online at different times and achieve some time zone diversity.

If you must have specific shifts, you'll probably end up with paid moderators.

[tomthumb2000]

Pfui - point taken. I'm sure it's a pretty unrewarding job.

Okay, so i think i know enough people in different time zones who would be able to put in some hours.

So it isn't really necessary to have total coverage for the moderation? As long as someone can check a few times a day that no one is being abusive or spammy.

There won't be very strict rules on the forum so i don't suppose it will need too much attention.

So on most sites where i see a forum there are either very dedicated webmasters or else paid moderators?

[Beagle]

...or dedicated mods. Although if the webmaster isn't dedicated it'll be hard to find mods who will be. The man who runs the large forum I mod for really puts himself out in major ways to keep it going and heading in the right direction, and everyone there knows it and appreciates it. So if you've been an active member for a few years and are getting something of value from it (which you are, or you wouldn't have been an active member for a few years), it's considered "giving something back to the community" to take on a modding job if asked.

I think the "if asked" is an important part of why it works - you don't volunteer to be a mod. There are people who've been active members for a long time who would never be offered a moderating position simply because they're not right for the job. When a new mod is needed, the current ones discuss among themselves who should be asked, with particular attention paid to the opinions of mods who are most familiar with the part of the forum that needs someone.

As part of the volunteer nature, no, there isn't someone "watching things" at all times. A mod is expected to check the new posts in their section two or three times a day. If a mod is going to be away for a few days, another one is asked to fill in while they're gone. So it's possible for something against the TOS to be posted for a few hours before it gets taken down. I suppose in some types of forums that could be a bigger problem than it is in ours.