Moderated forums?

[poululla]

Anyone know what the benefits of a moderated forum, like BikeForums, are? The reason I am asking, is because a discussion group I am part of, is considering to go "moderated". To help them make up their minds, I would like to give them a little more info regarding the pros and cons of having a moderated forum.

Thanks in advance

Poululla

[RonH]

The moderators help control spam, referee the "fighting" and back-stabbing, get rid of the undesirables, answer questions posed by newbies, etc.
Without moderators things could get out of control on a regular basis.

[DnvrFox]

There are a couple of types of "moderation," I guess.

A common form is where every post needs to be approved prior to posting. Very cumbersome.

I have a group where only the first post from a newbie needs to be moderated. This stops people who join just to spam from spamming, as their post never gets out there.

Or, as in bike forume, the moderators seem to work behind the scenes, cleaning up messes and problems after things are posted.

[georgesnatcher]

If you go into some other forums, one in particular comes to mind, the level of discussion is at best distasteful. I used to go onto the Cycling+ forum run by the magazine of that name in the UK. This forum was alleged to be moderated which I found hard to believe. There were threads where posters were begging the mods to come in and stop the nonsense and no action was taken. Personal attacks were the norm rather than the exception.
On a site like BF where you have "strong" moderation I think most of the member/readers have a more informative and enjoyable experience compared to the sandbox behavior of an allegedly "moderated" forum.

[Chris L]

I haven't always been a mod here, so maybe I can comment from both sides of the fence so to speak. It's basically as Ron said above, moderation keeps spam and childish insults out of a forum. I've been to a few other forums and found things like that very tiresome to sort through.

[Revenig]

Who are the moderators on this forum? Is there a list somewhere? Is it a secret?

Just curious,
Dan

[Raiyn]

Who are the moderators on this forum? Is there a list somewhere? Is it a secret?

Just curious,
Dan
Anybody with a Blue star

[Revenig]

Anybody with a Blue star
Thanks Raiyn, I was wondering what that blue star signified.