Tips for Moderating a Forum Online

It is important for an online forum or message board to have one or more moderators, to ensure that its rules are followed and harmful or disruptive messages are removed. Otherwise, a few problematic users may cause others to leave, and content could be posted which violates the hosting provider's acceptable use policy or is even illegal. While the best methods for moderating a forum are in some ways debatable, the following tips can be applied to moderating just about any online forum or message board...

1. Make sure there is an obvious and easy way for forum users (or anyone who happens to visit the forum) to notify the moderator of offensive messages, such as those involving pornography, promotion of illegal activities, or disclosure of someone else's personal information. The e-mail account where such notifications are sent should be checked regularly. If the moderator receives a large amount of other e-mail, it might be preferable to make this a separate address.

2. Other types of messages which the moderator should look for, and members should be encouraged to report, include those created solely for the purpose of offending a particular forum user (or all members of the forum in general), postings which encourage racism or attack a particular religion, advertisements (unless permitted by the forum), miscategorized postings (these can be moved to the correct category or deleted), postings which are unrelated to the forum's general subject, accidental or intentional duplicates, and use of obscene language.

3. Warning a user who is not following a rule or being otherwise disruptive is often sufficient; the person may not have been aware of the rule, or might not have realized that the moderator disapproves of his or her actions. However, in some of the more extreme moderating situations (such as those listed in tip #1), it is appropriate to immediately prohibit them from using the forum.

4. Some issues faced while moderating forums or message boards can be more complicated. For example, an individual or small group of members might frequently bring up a legitimate, but controversial issue for a long period of time, causing complaints from other members who no longer want to discuss it. One moderating option would be to sympathize with their concerns but warn them to stop bringing up the issue, because it is what the majority of the users want. Another method would be to restrict discussion of the issue to a particular message category or thread.

5. While moderating forums adequately is important, don't allow it to consume an excessive amount of your time. If you are also the administrator of the website, you might appoint one or more trustworthy forum members as additional moderators (perhaps without the power to ban users) if the forum software allows for this. Consider instituting an approval process for members before they can begin posting messages, so that they can be prevented from signing up for multiple accounts and causing greater problems which consume more time. Also, make sure the forum rules are clearly stated on a page users can easily locate, so you won't have to spend much time clarifying and explaining the rules which apply; a set of moderating rules might be provided as well if the forum has several moderators.