here is the description from wikipedia that sums it up better than me : <br><br><i>The moderators (short singular form: "mod") are users (or employees) of the forum who are granted access to the posts and threads of all members for the purpose of moderating discussion (similar to arbitration) and also keeping the forum clean (neutralizing spam and spambots etc.). Because they have access to all posts and threads in their area of responsibility, it is common for a friend of the site owner to be promoted to moderator for such a task. Moderators also answer users' concerns about the forum, general questions, as well as respond to specific complaints. They also can do anything to lend a helping hand to a user in need. Moderators themselves may have ranks: some may be given mod privileges over only a particular topic or section, while others (called 'global' or 'super') may be allowed access anywhere. Common privileges of moderators include: deleting, merging, moving, and splitting of posts and threads, locking, renaming, stickying of threads, banning, suspending, unsuspending, unbanning, warning the members, or adding, editing, removing the polls of threads. 'Junior Modding', 'Backseat Modding', or 'Forum copping' can refer negatively to the behavior of ordinary users who take a moderator-like tone in criticizing other members.<br>
<br>Essentially, it is the duty of the moderator to manage the day-to-day affairs of a forum or board as it applies to the stream of user contributions and interactions. The relative effectiveness of this user management directly impacts the quality of a forum in general, its appeal, and its usefulness as a community of interrelated users.<br>
</i><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sun, Jan 16, 2011 at 9:39 PM, Shantanu Bhadoria <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:shantanu.bhadoria@gmail.com">shantanu.bhadoria@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
Nah Moderator's don't have to approve each and every posts. They just keep a watch on discussions to make sure people stay generally on topic they can also lock discussions if it seems like its going too off track. They get to edit any posts deemed inappropriate in their sections and in general help in giving a more fruitful direction to the discussions. This being a perl forum, keeping in the spirit moderation should not be too intrusive, and its important not to be too presumptous on whats right and wrong in a discussion and be the invisible hand guiding thing. BDFL for your forum if you like the term ;) <br>
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_forum#Moderator" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_forum#Moderator</a> <br><div><div></div><div class="h5"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sun, Jan 16, 2011 at 9:24 PM, Kiran Kumar <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:mkirank@gmail.com" target="_blank">mkirank@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">What do you mean by moderate?, Should each post be approved by the volunteers ?. <br><br><div class="gmail_quote">
2011/1/16 Shantanu Bhadoria <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:shantanu.bhadoria@gmail.com" target="_blank">shantanu.bhadoria@gmail.com</a>></span><br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;"><div><div></div><div>Few more updates from my end on site progress at <a href="http://74.53.25.76/" target="_blank">http://74.53.25.76/</a> Bangalore Perl mongers site.<br>
<br><u><b>Completed the following tasks this weekend</b></u>. (Yee Haww!!)<ul><li><b>Perl - tip/script of the day on home page. </b>(Recommended by Suhas).</li>
<li><b>RSS feed/Links for <a href="http://bangalore.pm" target="_blank">bangalore.pm</a> </b></li><li><b>Add categories or sections to the forum :</b> Added a few more categories to the forum. So people can start posting real stuff here now. However there is still room for a few more categories.(this section will be reorganized continuously till some time in the future, till we get a consensus from people on a good categorization so pleaseee I beg you to give me your feedback haha! :)</li>
</ul><br>As a part of the growth I am looking for volunteers to moderate the site forum. Kiran, would you like to volunteer to moderate/promote Books and Modules sections of the forum? Abhishek would you ike to own a section?<br>
I am still looking for moderators for other sections so please put in your name here.<br>Thank you,<br><font color="#888888">-Shantanu<br>
</font><br></div></div>_______________________________________________<br>
Bangalore-pm mailing list<br>
<a href="mailto:Bangalore-pm@pm.org" target="_blank">Bangalore-pm@pm.org</a><br>
<a href="http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/bangalore-pm" target="_blank">http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/bangalore-pm</a><br></blockquote></div><br>
</blockquote></div><br>
</div></div></blockquote></div><br>