Forum Suggestions & User Assistance - Mod philosophy

Just a quick, highly off topic question.

How many mods does Bikeforums have? I'm asking as I participate in another non-bike related forum that's fairly young. It has 264 members, and 12, count 'em, TWELVE somewhat overzealous moderators. I think this is over a bit ott. What do you guys think?

Also, could any moderators out there share the general bikeforums moderating philosophy. Seems to me it's a pretty hands off, but nevertheless carefully monitored approach. Only particularly malicious spamming seems to get deleted but otherwise threads are permitted to drift where they will (with perhaps the occasional gentle prodding from a mod). I'm interested in the reasoning behind this approach. Not because I disagree with it, but mainly because I think the mods on this other forum could learn a thing or two from it.

That wasn't as quick as I initially suggested. :shrug:

Cheers.

It's based on what the mod as a person feels like.

It is a lot of how the mod feels. There is some degree of work to it. Depending on the sub forum and the people who participate you could have different needs per different groups of people. Thats where it gets sticky.

12 mods to 264 users...thats nuts. Being overzealous ends up creating 2 atmospheres...very childish or very elitist. Neither of which facilitate growth. You have to find that balance as a whole forums and then a little play here in there in the subforums. We aren't as hands off as you think, we just pick and choose what needs to be worked on. Spammers, aolese etc get the priority...beyond that we work on a report to basis or obviously bad posts.

14 total mods including myself.

The only thing I really ask from the mods: Help make the forums a better place.

1 mod for every 1430 users approx

That site 1 mod for every 22 users :eek:

12 mods to 264 users...thats nuts. ... We aren't as hands off as you think, we just pick and choose what needs to be worked on. Spammers, aolese etc get the priority...beyond that we work on a report to basis or obviously bad posts.

The magic of that is that what you do is reasonably invisible, and that's the key to good moderation. These guys leave their dirty footprints all over the place.

Anyway, thanks for the info.

Im impressed still with the mods here, i think you guys do a much better job than most placse. I was an IRcop and Mod for a chatroom on IRC. Well they called it "super operator". And sheesh, those people suck. THe mods are arrogant a..holes (the bulk of them). So yea, good job

The only comment/suggestion I have pertains to communication. There doesn't seem to be any communication between the mod & 'offender' when action is taken. For example, when moving a thread to the proper forum, the thread originator isn't notified. I don't know if members are notified when their threads &/or posts are deleted, but they should be. The same thing with locking threads, the mod who locks it should post why they're locking it as the last post in the thread. I make these suggestions from experience: I'm a Senior Moderator on another board. We're required to notify the members whenever we take action so as to help them not make the same mistakes in the future. Most of the time it works. Sometimes there's a dip$#!+ who just doesn't get it. Yeah, not all mods are good, and the best ones are nearly invisible. I have noticed that, lately, mod activity here has been good, in my opinion.

There is more communication going on than appears. Methinks a lot of what is suggested above is done already (communicating reasons for move/edit/delete/lock), but not all of it is public. And we don't systematically reply to every [SPAM!]-report as a rule, but my guess is quite a few people who report posts also receive a comment from whichever mod it is that handles the report in question.

--J