What does it take to be a member of the X Marks Staff?

[Steve Ashton]

As you should know by now effective 30 Nov '13 the forum will be instituting a method where each year, on the anniversary of their induction each member of the staff will be asked if they wish to remain on staff or return to forum member.

There are a couple of reasons for this.
One, and perhaps the most important is that the position of Forum Moderator is a hard, time consuming job. After two, three or five years it really starts to take its toll. You can't enjoy the forum like regular members and anything you do post has the stigma of the title bar under your name.

Second it is always good to get a new perspective and some new ideas.

Each year I will ask each member of the staff if they wish to remain on staff or return to the Forum. They are welcome to remain but I will at least offer them a chance to leave.

This means of course that new members of the staff will have to be approached and asked if they would like to take on the job.

So, what are the requirements and duties of Forum Moderator?

To become a Forum Moderator you must have been a member of the forum for at least two years.
You do not have to meet any minimum post level but you must be an active, participating member.
You must have shown a willingness to help and assist other members. Have shown a willingness to act selflessly for the forum.
And finally, most important, you must have a record of, and be seen by your peers to be able to be Moderate. This does not mean without an opinion, but it does mean that your opinion is presented in a moderate way. It also means a strength. The Forum Moderators are the protection for the forum against the forum taking on or presenting any one person's personality, morals, beliefs or ethics over another. Sometime this means speaking out strongly.

It is not required, but we do take into account the member's location. We try to have as wide a time zone representation as possible. Spammers love to hit us in the middle of the night and it is always night, somewhere.

To be asked to join the staff you must be nominated. You cannot volunteer or put your own name forward. The nomination must come from among your peers. These nomination are usually, but do not have to be, from the current and former staff.

What are the duties of Forum Moderator?
I require each member of the staff to log onto the forum regularly. Most staff are on the forum at least once a day and many spend four or five hours on the forum each day. I don't require that much time but the other staff need to be able to rely on you when an issue comes up for a vote.

The largest part of the job is casting a vote on issues that come before the staff. Every post or thread that is flagged to the staff for a possible infraction has a poll attached. Each Forum Moderator casts one vote on the issue. There is also discussion and deliberation on the issue but the tally of the votes is the final determiner. (Oh, and by the way, I, as Forum Owner, do not get a vote on these polls. I am the executive branch, I give guidance and insight when asked or when necessary, but I do not vote.)

The Forum Moderators also discuss and deliberate on any other issue brought before them. It may be as simple as a new forum section or a suggestion from the membership and may include a significant rules re-write.

The Forum moderators monitor the posts of new members. The first 10 posts of each new member goes into a Moderation queue to be reviewed before it is released to the public forum. This is not censorship but a preventative against spammers.

The Forum Moderators keep an eye on the forum. They do not read every post, but between them the majority of the forum is seen. They are looking for a spammer post that got though somehow. They are mindful of heated arguments breaking out or even the inadvertent post in innocence of something untoward.

But the Forum Moderators, and I cannot stress this enough, are not the Forum Police. They do not glean the forum looking for violations. That job is up to our members. But when an issue is brought before them they must be able to separate their personal beliefs and look at each issue based on our rules and treat each as fairly and honestly as humanly possible. They must be able to always remember that our members are human too.

[Steve Ashton]

If anyone has any questions or would like to comment I would like to hear them.

[Laird_M]

Thanks for giving us an insight into this Steve. By doing this I think will strengthen the whole community and hopefully give the Mods a bit more undestanding from the rest of us when they do have to deal with something.

[sailortats]

Steve, thanks for providing us with this information. Now, according to my time stamp on your post this was written a 3:46 AM. When do you sleep guy?

[BCAC]

Thanks for putting this info out there, Steve. Now we know!

[TheOfficialBren]

Thank you, Steve. Good to know.

[artificer]

Well done, Steve!

Every insight onto how the forum works as well as it does is greatly appreciated.
The fact that XMarks remains a bastion of (generally) polite discourse across such a large membership is a testament to
both you as well as the splendid team of Mods.

Thank you all for your tireless work

ith:

[Steve Ashton]

There is one thing that I think separates how the Moderators of X Marks work and how things are run on some other forums.

The back rooms of forums are, out of necessity, not open to the public. This is supposed to be to protect the privacy of the members. No one wants it splashed all over the open forum if they made a mistake.

But what often happens is, the back rooms turn into a little boys club. Things are said or done in some back rooms that would look terrible if opened to the public.

On X Marks however there is nothing going on in the back rooms that the Moderators would be ashamed of if it came to light. This was my first ruling when I took over. "If you would not say it on the open forum, don't say it back here."

We keep a copy of every discussion, every vote. I am proud of that archive. It is truthful and respectful. I wish it could be made public because I am sure that our members would respect what the Moderators do and how.

In fact when a new Moderator is first invited to join the staff they are given an opportunity to access the back rooms for a few days. This gives them a good feel for what they may be getting into. They are also given the opportunity to say no if anything they read in the back rooms would make them uncomfortable or they feel is wrong.