Moderating 101

Add Features No One Wants or Cares About

Moderators in the wild.The most important responsibility of a forum is to stay pretty. A forum is like a woman, tender and loving but intrinsically unstable. Keeping your forum beautiful is the first step to a happy forum. Buy it perfume, handbags, and new outfits for "just because I love you" occasions.

Make sure your forum conforms to Web 2.0 standards. Every post, preferably every letter, must be subject to a rating system where users can vote posts or individual letters thumbs up or thumbs down. It's all in the details and even a poster's misplaced 't' can mean the difference between Big-Boards.com and BangBros.com.

There may be fundamental problems with the way your forum operates but as long as the buttons and graphics are trendy and modern posters tend to overlook these flaws. Consider the following example.

MODERATOR: Howdy folks. I just wanted to comment on some of the changes we've made around here in the past few weeks. Here is the change log for March.

-Changed the color of the post button from gray to silver.

We hope these upgrades make your forum experience more streamlined. Please feel free to post any comments about the changes here. Thank you!

Poster #1: While I applaud the color change I must say that posting on Thursdays still doesn't work. Any idea of when this is going to be fixed?

MODERATOR: As I've said before the ability to post on Thursdays is still being worked on. Shouldn't you be at work then anyway? God forbid you tear yourself away from the forum for one day.

Poster #2: Uh, I seem to be having problems as well. It's probably nothing, but every time I update my Naruto megathread thousands of volts of electricity enter my heart and put me into a temporary coma. I mean, I'm fine with it, but I'm not sure my heart is... If you could fix this that would be great.

(THIS POST DOES NOT ADHERE TO COMMUNITY STANDARDS AND THE OFFENDING POSTER HAS BEEN BANNED FOR YOUR SAFETY)

A 4-chan moderator poses for the camera.As you can see your users will really appreciate the hard work that goes into keeping the forum experience as captivating as possible. As always, remember to remove trouble makers who just want to belittle all your hard work and everything it stands for, which is America. Don't let them belittle America.

Wacky Forums With No Rules Give Users a Place to Hang Out and Relax

Posting is a stressful activity. That's why posters like to relax in an informal setting with their "shoes off" so to speak. Of course, wacky forums with no rules are the forums that need the most rules of all, because it can get too wacky you see.

Keep posters from having personal conversations with each other, a dreadful activity otherwise known as "circle jerking". Make sure you create examples of this circle jerking with other moderators to show everyone what not to do.

Make Sure Everyone is Happy With Every Little Thing

As a moderator it's your job to please everyone. Are a bunch of posters asking for a new forum about ducks? Give them their forum. Is another group of posters complaining that the new forum about ducks isn't needed and should just be rolled into the general bird forum? Get rid of the duck forum!

Are the original posters who asked for the duck forum now calling your home and threatening to saw your children's skulls open and shit on their faces if you don't bring the duck forum back? Bring back the duck forum! You may be wondering how it's physically possible to please everyone all the time but that's what great moderators do.

I know what you're thinking, that moderating an Internet forum is a waste of time and that you should probably focus on more important things, real life things like family, career and friends, rather than trying to make a bunch of anonymous Internet nerds, with silly names based on animes or obscure Star Wars characters, like you, and to that I can only say one thing!

Maybe you're just not cut out for this job.

– Hassan "Acetone" Mikal