Forum Leader's Guide & Conduct

[Dave]

Updated: 06 July 2007

For potential mods to read. The selection process is going on at this time. Please PM me or a Forum Leader if you're interested. Thanks.

Conduct

Within your own forum, we expect that you will always take the high road. Do not belittle members, do not air dirty laundry in public, etc. If you have a problem with a member, PM them or e-mail them.

Outside of your own forum, we expect you to keep the best interests of the members/forums in mind. It is not in the best interest of anybody to start or contribute to flaming/bashing threads. The only result of these threads are hurt feelings and general negativity in the forums. It is not necessary nor useful to participate. However, you may choose to act as you will. However, we will certainly take note of these actions. Please note that it is completely unacceptable to use anything that you have found out in this forum or through being a mod against a member.

Remember that by being a mod, you represent Tech-Forums, and the way that you act reflects upon tech forums. A mod can and does have their own opinions, but they must be professional with them.

Confidentiality

It is important that mods have a place to discuss matters frankly without worrying about confidentiality. We expect you to keep all discussions in this forum confidential. If you will not stick to this, please notify me so that I can remove your Mod status. If we discover that you have breached confidentiality, we will remove you as mod.

If you have a difference of opinion with another Mod about policy or actions, please keep it confidential within the private Mod forums.

Forum Duties

The main thing is to care enough about your forum to make it a priority. This will manifest differently with each person. If you feel that maintaining and nurturing your forum has become a burden or that you simply do not have enough time, please notify us and you will be removed as a moderator.

Maintaining your forum will necessarily mean regularly visiting to make sure that there is no spam, multiple topics, double posts, problems to take care of. Some forums need more attendance than others, and some should always be checked on daily. If you need to take a break from the forums, please ensure that someone else will keep an eye on them during your absense.

Nurturing your forum is harder to blanketedly define, but probably more important. It is important that you access what your forum needs and then do it. Please lean on other mods here for support when needed.

Duties

• SPAM Cop: A post can be edited to remove advertising/affiliate urls and can be moved to the Spam Can. (This does not include sigs.) If you're unsure about the content, list it in the Posts that need attention thread.
• Nurture your forum: Take care of your forums for which you're responsible. From answering questions, or helping to find answers, to asking questions, to developing polls. Help your forum to grow in a professional manner.
• Editing posts: Edit posts because of inappropriate content, profanity (remember there is zero profanity), insults, flames, threats, or anything that is not appropriate for the professional nature of this forum.
• Deleting posts: Very similar to editing, sometimes it's best to delete the entire post for extreme profanity, insults, flames, threats, etc.
• Maintain the professionalism and integrity of Tech-Forums by your example.
• If you have a problem with a member, bring it here for discussion.

Dave