atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums General General Telephone & Systems Information Qualifications for moderator?

I was just wondering if there were some rules in print concerting the ability of moderators.

For instance I received a childish missive from a boy who shall remain nameless lest this person be embarrased by his inability to refrain from throwing a gallon of gasoline on a match with dying embers.

Perhaps the ability to huff and puff over minutia is a requirement, if so I wonder why.

If a moderator sent you a long, long missive that lacked spelling, grammer, punctuation and the inability to form a paragraph, should you be obliged to consider this person a master of communications?

Are there any moderators who pretend to be installers but are in reality mothers in law with incurable PMS?

Are there any moderators who flunked psychology 101 but enjoy practising psychological profiling?

Sometimes little boys are so silly I get belly laughs that just don't stop.

Yawn....BTW you misspelled practicing. LMAO.

And embarrassed!!

Will anyone here answer the her question?

I too have wondered what qualifications are required for the MOD's. And also, what rules if any, are they required to follow?

This board IMO has some very good MOD's. The Moderator's in most cases are very helpful in respect to their categories. They all seem to be top notch professionals that know their products.

Lets define it:

Moderator \Mod"er*a`tor\, n. [L.: cf. F. mod['e]rateur.]
1. One who, or that which, moderates, restrains, or pacifies.
--Sir W. Raleigh.
[1913 Webster]

2. The officer who presides over an assembly or discussion to
preserve order, propose questions, regulate the
proceedings, and declare the votes.
[1913 Webster]
3. In the University of Oxford, an examiner for moderations;
at Cambridge, the superintendant of examinations for
degrees; at Dublin, either the first (senior) or second
(junior) in rank in an examination for the degree of
Bachelor of Arts.
[1913 Webster]

4. A mechanical arrangement for regulating motion in a
machine, or producing equality of effect.
[1913 Webster]


A moderator is supposed to be held in higher esteem than the rest. Again I will state that I have alot of respect for some of the moderator's here that stick to their duties as moderator's and don't let their personal feelings get in the way of the job they were assigned to do.

Can a moderator have biased opinions and still be an effective moderator? I am not saying that MOD's can't have opinions. IMO they should'nt be made known to the open forum of which they preside over. That does not fit the description's listed above. I suspect thats the reason for the moderator's private forum category.

Are the Moderator's here periodically changed? Or is it an exclusive club with a lifetime membership? What REALLY goes on in the Moderator forum?? :shrug:

and grammar...

Of course we have biased opinions. This is a telephone BBS, we're not here to solve all of the world's problems, just the ones that involve phones.

The moderators here are generally suggested by other moderators and appoved by the site Admin. Some of the qualifications are that we must have pleny of time on our hands, be able to spell at least 50% of the words we use correctly, and we must come to the board on a regular basis.

We do not have lifetime appointments. Test-OK can fire us at any time. He is not even obligated to send us our last pay check. That's part of the contract we sign.

Oh yeah and we get a new truck and dictionary every 12 months.

At other sites where I have been a moderator the primary rule is that if you want to be or ask to be a moderator you are not qualified. The good moderators are those who don't ask for the job and don't want the job. They do the job because it is a nasty job but someone has to do it and they've been tagged. Ideally, it's a non-paying job -- which allows the moderators to tell the site owner to 'take this job and shove it' if/when the site owner goes off the deep end. Likewise, the site owner can terminate any user, including a moderator, on a whim. Or even pull the plug on the whole site.

If a moderator ticks you off you can complain to the site owner. 99% of the time a worthless effort. You can then either continue with the forum or you can walk.

As for the rules - they tend to be rather changable. As Captain Barbossa said, "more what you'd call "guidelines" than actual rules."

If you are not having fun it is not worth it.

I think that it's generally understood that the primary function of moderators in this forum is to patrol blatant advertising, inappropriate language and bad attitudes. This is in an effort to keep the entire forum presentable and professional in the public environment.

We are also members here, we come here for help ourselves and do the best that we can to maintain peace. We are entitled to have our own opinions just as other members, however I think that most of us do a pretty good job of keeping them as professional and accurate as possible. We also patrol and correct each other, so none of us is without sin.

Most of what goes on in the moderator's private forum is to ask each others' advice on handling questionable posts. We also use this area to correct each other in the event that maybe we have made a questionable post. There's no party going on there, it's just an off-line area to discuss issues. Consider it "the teacher's lounge".

In the grand scheme of things, I think that this site is very professionally run and moderated. We all have a good time, but at the same time, we give and receive a lot of helpful advice.

Well said Ed!