Admin and Moderator Rules

As a site administrator and/or a forum moderator, I expect you to follow all the rules of the site and be a good example of them. I want people to be able to look at what you are doing and understand what should be done. Moderators and Admins should be able to recognize appropriate behavior and inappropriate behavior and point it out to the users. This means that if you notice someone making an inappropriate joke, you comment on it or if you see someone with bad spelling/grammar you make a note of it to them. This is not to say that you must comment on EVERYTHING that you see, but simply that you make a note of frequent problems by the same person -- usually this can be done in Private Message.

The dead will rise before I get into an open argument about site policy with admins or mods -- please help keep this from happening. I expect you to tow the line for the most part, but feel free to question these things in private message or email. Similarly, given that I have made it pretty bloody clear who is and who is not an admin/mod, I expect that users will not engage you in open debate about forum policy or about your choices/reprimands. You have the right to ban users for backtalking/sassing the mods/admins, but please, use this power delicately. I know that banning is a common practice on some forums, but I don't feel it is necessary.

Now, to help you in your endeavors, I have made available to you some options:

1. Temporarily Suspend User
2. Delete/Deactivate User (Admins)
3. Edit/Delete Post
4. Zombify Post

Temporarily Suspend User

To suspend a user, go into the user's profile and click the link labeled "Temporarily Suspend User" -- this will bring up a page in which you can choose a length of time to suspend the user for and a reason for suspending the user. This information will be emailed to the user and will be placed on public record for other users to see -- so be careful what you write. At the appropriate time, the user will be reactivated without any extra action needing to be taken.
This tool is currently in testing, so is not available for use at this time.

Delete/Deactivate User

This is only available for admins, and I hope even you use it with a gentle hand. As I said, I don't see a reason to ban someone or delete someone outright, unless they are obviously a spam-bot or a troll. This should mostly be used for purely housekeeping purposes -- temporarily suspending a user should be sufficient for the most part.

Edit/Delete Post

Just like editing or deleting a user, this should be used delicately as well. If you are even more anal retentive than I am and wish to fix a spelling mistake or bad language or something that upsets you, feel free, however, you should avoid altering the general content of something just because you disagree with it. If the post was made by a troll or a spam-bot, feel free to delete it or edit and zombify it so that people can see it is there.

Zombify Post

Sometimes people create a topic that has gotten so out of hand or the topic itself is ridiculous from the start that something needs to be done. The option exists to delete or edit the post, but more often, it makes sense to deliver a closing statement and then, in essence, turn the topic off so no further comments can be left. Zombify post allows you to do just that -- leave a final comment and then click the Zombify Post link at the bottom of the first post and it will, for all intents and purposes, turn off that topic, while still leaving it open to be viewed by people.

Ultimately, your role as Administrators or Moderators is two-fold: I want you to be good forum members and I want you to help me watch for bad forum members. If you wish to discuss anything or if you have ideas for the site, let me know through a private message.