
Author Topic: The Functions and Duties of the Forum's Moderators  (Read 1206 times)

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Offline Pete-zza

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The Functions and Duties of the Forum's Moderators
« on: April 02, 2013, 02:06:47 PM »
Because of matters that were recently raised at the thread at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,24275.0.html, I decided to start this thread on what Moderators actually do, or at least what I do. I'm sure that over time the Moderators have spoken about some of their duties but it might help for the newer members to have an idea as to what Moderators, at least the ones on this forum, actually do. Of course, Steve, as the owner and Administrator of this forum, is also an active participant in all of this. Here is my list, purely from my personal perspective after being on the job for over eight years:

1. Look at all new posts to be sure that they are in the proper place in the forum's indexing system and otherwise comply with the forum's rules and regulations (including prohibition of posting copyrighted works of others). (I was also involved in a lot of the original architectural work that resulted in the current forum's indexing system, and moved hundreds of threads into that system.)

2. Move threads around, split them, merge them, re-title them, and modify and delete posts and threads as necessary or appropriate. Sometimes threads are moved to the Moderator board for review by the Moderators and Steve.

3. Create new boards, or modify existing ones. A recent example of this activity is separating Pizzeria and Restaurant Reviews and Pizzeria and Restaurant Recommendations into separate boards. This entailed having to identify and move over 200 threads into the new recommendations board.

4. Correct dead links in posts. This will always be a problem for the forum because of normal changes in websites. However, if I am able to find alternative material archived in the Wayback Machine or at the websites themselves, I edit the posts to include the new links. I have done this sort of thing hundreds of times, almost always one post at a time. I have also used the forum's improved search engines to identify places with dead links.

5. Encourage members to use the forum's search engines as much as possible before asking for specific help. (I even created a thread at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,3101.0.html to help explain the forum's search features but it will have to be revised in due course because of the recent forum upgrade.)

6. Monitor forum activity to detect spammers and attempts by members to advertise their goods or services without having become Supporting Members (or Lifetime Members). Spammers and bots were long a big problem on the forum, and I remember being greeted first thing many mornings by spammers who penetrated the forum overnight, but Steve put in an enormous amount of work and time to rid the forum of spammers and attacks by bots to penetrate the forum. To this day, bots continue unrelentently to try to penetrate the forum. Member profiles are also routinely examined to be sure that they don't use Signatures or avatars that are attempts to spam the forum or other attempts to sneak in advertising.

7. Ban members. This is usually in connection with item 6.

8. Respond, as appropriate, to Reports to Moderators (RTMs).

9. Send warning messages to members. This is a new capability, so it may take a while to determine how it will be used.

10. Mediate disputes on the forum including, if necessary, locking threads pending resolution.

11. Attempt to minimize hijacking of threads, and discourage members from discussing topics of a political or religious nature.

12. Engage in and discuss forum matters with Steve. This can cover just about anything, including member behavior or problems, threads moved to the Moderator board, ways of improving the forum, problems on the horizon, vacation schedules and providing adequate forum coverage during absences from the forum, etc.

13. Respond to PMs and emails from members. Over the years, I estimate that I have received and responded to thousands of PMs. I try to answer all PMs but I usually do it after all of my other chores are done. I also discourage members from using PMs to bypass the main forum altogether because I do not fell that it is right for some members to try butt into the front of the line ahead of everyone else. I tell them to post everything on the open forum so that everyone has the benefit of the exchange and so that other members have a chance to offer their views and suggestions which, in many cases, are far better than mine.

I also get personally involved in projects on the forum that I believe will benefit others. For example, Steve and I wrote the forum's Pizza Glossary at http://www.pizzamaking.com/pizza_glossary.html. I and another member designed and implemented the forum's dough calculating tools at http://www.pizzamaking.com/dough_tools.html. I have created and periodically update various compilations such as the ones at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,8297.0.html and http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,11860.0.html. A more recent effort is the one at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,20056.0.html. I also worked with member November to develop the Mass-Volume Conversion Calculator at http://foodsim.unclesalmon.com/. Pretty much everything I do is calculated to make my life--and those of our members--easier, even if it means having to spend a lot of time upfront to do so.

Peter
« Last Edit: April 23, 2013, 08:32:34 AM by Pete-zza »


Offline Steve

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Re: The Functions and Duties of the Forum's Moderators
« Reply #1 on: April 02, 2013, 02:29:51 PM »
I want to personally (and publicly) say that without the hard work of Peter and Bill, this forum would be a mess.

Peter has logged a whopping 17,917 hours on the forum.  :o

Bill, a respectable 3,716 hours.

Talk about hard work and dedication!  :)

THANK YOU for all that you do!!
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Offline mkevenson

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Re: The Functions and Duties of the Forum's Moderators
« Reply #2 on: April 02, 2013, 02:35:20 PM »
Peter, most humans I know only have 24 hours per day, some of that is spent sleeping. From that list of job duties , you must have about 96 hrs per day, and never sleep.
 
Your efforts are tireless and much appreciated.
 
Mark
"Gettin' better all the time" Beatles

Offline Jet_deck

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Re: The Functions and Duties of the Forum's Moderators
« Reply #3 on: April 02, 2013, 03:00:15 PM »
Peter, you missed one.  First sentence, reply #4 here.

http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,15152.msg149831.html#msg149831

"Know where all the bodies are buried"  Lol!
Her mind is Tiffany-twisted, she got the Mercedes bends

Offline JD

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Re: The Functions and Duties of the Forum's Moderators
« Reply #4 on: April 02, 2013, 06:18:25 PM »

Peter has logged a whopping 17,917 hours on the forum.  :o



That's 746.5 DAYS of non-stop moderation!  :o :o :o
Josh

Offline Pizzaboyo

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Re: The Functions and Duties of the Forum's Moderators
« Reply #5 on: April 02, 2013, 06:31:56 PM »
I want to personally (and publicly) say that without the hard work of Peter and Bill, this forum would be a mess.

Peter has logged a whopping 17,917 hours on the forum.  :o

Bill, a respectable 3,716 hours.

Talk about hard work and dedication!  :)

THANK YOU for all that you do!!
Never a truer word said.
An Irishman is never drunk as long as he can hold onto one blade of grass and not fall off the face of the earth.

Offline Chicago Bob

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Re: The Functions and Duties of the Forum's Moderators
« Reply #6 on: April 03, 2013, 12:08:03 AM »
Peter is "The Cat's Meow".... 8)
"Care Free Highway...let me slip away on you"

Offline RobynB

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Re: The Functions and Duties of the Forum's Moderators
« Reply #7 on: April 03, 2013, 12:48:07 AM »
And what always blows me away is that he not only has encyclopedic knowledge of pretty much everything, and that he remembers pretty much everything about everything, but he's so damn nice.  I mean, he never gets snarky despite incredible provocation, he spends that extra 3 minutes he has every day after moderating this board answering any question he can, and he is just plain nice to everyone.  EVERYONE.  When it's time to nominate a pizza saint, I know where my vote goes.   

Offline kiwipete

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Re: The Functions and Duties of the Forum's Moderators
« Reply #8 on: April 03, 2013, 05:14:55 AM »
And what always blows me away is that he not only has encyclopedic knowledge of pretty much everything, and that he remembers pretty much everything about everything, but he's so damn nice.  I mean, he never gets snarky despite incredible provocation, he spends that extra 3 minutes he has every day after moderating this board answering any question he can, and he is just plain nice to everyone.  EVERYONE.  When it's time to nominate a pizza saint, I know where my vote goes.

+1

Offline deb415611

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Re: The Functions and Duties of the Forum's Moderators
« Reply #9 on: April 03, 2013, 07:16:23 AM »
And what always blows me away is that he not only has encyclopedic knowledge of pretty much everything, and that he remembers pretty much everything about everything, but he's so damn nice.  I mean, he never gets snarky despite incredible provocation, he spends that extra 3 minutes he has every day after moderating this board answering any question he can, and he is just plain nice to everyone.  EVERYONE.  When it's time to nominate a pizza saint, I know where my vote goes.
+2
Deb


Offline Jackie Tran

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Re: The Functions and Duties of the Forum's Moderators
« Reply #10 on: April 03, 2013, 08:15:08 AM »
Guys there are already several Peter appreciation threads on the forum.  Do a search already and post there!  :-D. Peter should move these posts to those threads. 

Just kidding all.  As with everyone else here, we've been members to multiple forums.  In all my years of forum browsing, I have never witness another moderator like Peter.  Definitely one in a million.  Thank you for ALL that you do.   I also agree with all that has been said about Peter.   

Chau

Offline norma427

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Re: The Functions and Duties of the Forum's Moderators
« Reply #11 on: April 03, 2013, 08:26:10 AM »
I agree with everyone else, there is not a nicer person than Peter.  He recalls everything and is always there to lend a helping hand.

Thanks for all you do Peter!

Norma
Always working and looking for new information!

Offline Pete-zza

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Re: The Functions and Duties of the Forum's Moderators
« Reply #12 on: April 03, 2013, 01:19:42 PM »
Thanks  to everyone for your kind words and for your support. I really wasn't expecting it. To be honest, I wasn't expect many people to care about what Moderators do. And while I know that posting almost anything in Forum Info will usually mean the kiss of death, it is the right place to post on this subject. At least I know that I will have a thread to refer to in the future in case someone criticizes or questions me, Bill or Steve on our performance :-D.

In my case, the killer timewise is not the moderating duties. The moderating function is not all that difficult but it requires regular attention because the new posts can mount up very quickly. We are currently running a daily average of about 175 new posts but we have had many days with over 200 new posts, several with over 300 new posts, and even one day that was over 400 new posts (it was 428 posts). So, it pays not to let days pile up when it comes time to the matter of reviewing posts. But there is no doubt that it can take a fair amount of time to look at hundreds of posts, and there have been times where I have been tempted to hit the "mark all messages as read" button, but I have never done that, at least intentionally. I did it a couple of times by accident on my iPad.

Where time is chewed up in my case is with my posts. I compose pretty much everything I write on the forum online and in real time. And, because I try to compose the most perfect posts that I am capable of, it usually takes me a lot more time than most people to compose my posts. By "perfect", I mean posts that are written intelligently and coherently, as comprehensively as I can, and free of errors of spelling (I use the spell check feature, sometimes several times during a post), grammar, syntax or punctuation. I almost always proof my posts several times before hitting the Post button, I test all of the links before posting, and I have been known to completely scrap something that I have written and didn't like and start all over again. To me, the most perfect post is the one that elicits no questions from the reader. But, even with all the care and attention I put into my posts, I will sometimes make errors. Usually when I find them I scratch my head and ask myself how that could have happened. Multiply the foregoing scenario by over 19,103 times (my current post count), and it is easy to see how time adds up. And, I don't think that I will change anytime soon.

Peter

Offline pizzaboyfan

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Re: The Functions and Duties of the Forum's Moderators
« Reply #13 on: April 03, 2013, 01:35:21 PM »
Peter,
That was another perfect post, but nevertheless it does elicit a question from this reader.
Would you be willing to tell us a bit about your background ?

Perry

Offline Pete-zza

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Re: The Functions and Duties of the Forum's Moderators
« Reply #14 on: April 03, 2013, 02:06:56 PM »
Peter,
That was another perfect post, but nevertheless it does elicit a question from this reader.
Would you be willing to tell us a bit about your background ?

Perry
Perry,

Actually, my post turned out not to be perfect, as I was so informed by PM by one of our members :-D. In the third sentence, "expect" should have been --expecting--. That is why on matters such as this I qualify what I say, like "I try to compose the most perfect posts I am capable of" ;D.

As far as my background is concerned, there are a few members, such as those I have met in person, who know some of the details of my background but I have not said much about that matter on the forum itself. But you are not the first one to ask. One member even went so far as to start a thread on the subject, at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,8747.msg75767.html#msg75767. I got a lot of laughs out of that thread.

Peter

Offline pizzaboyfan

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Re: The Functions and Duties of the Forum's Moderators
« Reply #15 on: April 03, 2013, 02:42:45 PM »
I guess we'll stick with this theory of your origin.

<I think the greatest pizza minds in the world got together over a few pies and created an all knowing  futuristic droid called 'Pete-zza'>

Perry

Offline mkevenson

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Re: The Functions and Duties of the Forum's Moderators
« Reply #16 on: April 03, 2013, 02:51:23 PM »
There is something to be said for MYSTERY ;D ^^^ ^^^
"Gettin' better all the time" Beatles


 

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