Forum boards and moderators.

[Rruchi man]

Every board has a moderator, and i'm wondering how those users who are moderators became one.

-Was it by selection or by election?
-If it was by selection, is it a permanent selection till something happens to the user or a temporary selection that is done periodically?

-Say i aspire to become a moderator someday, is there any possibility to this, and if yes, what are the criteria's for this achievement?

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[Poker Player]

From what I recall, it has to do with the number of reports. If someone reports a lot in an accurate way, they can be considered for a moderator position, or at least that's what I read hilarious say if I remember correctly in a meta thread. So if you have that in mind, try to keep the forum clean by reporting.

I will never be one because I don't report much.

[Pokapoka124]

-Was it by selection or by election?
-If it was by selection, is it a permanent selection till something happens to the user or a temporary selection that is done periodically?

I think Theymos chooses who becomes moderator. I don't think there is a public ceremony when one becomes moderator.

-Say i aspire to become a moderator someday, is there any possibility to this, and if yes, what are the criteria's for this achievement?

You have to accurately report a huge amount of spam posts, plagiarism threads e.t.c. you have more chances of becoming a moderator in your local board since you understand the language better than general moderators who may not be from your country. Moderators have a lot of work on their plate, their work load is huge and I don't think they get paid for the work.

[tranthidung]

There are two admins on the forum, recent years:

• theymos
• Cyrus

The assignment for a new moderator can be done by admin or sometimes, they will ask for community opinion, poll but in the end, admins make decisions for assignment or not.

Example

• Who is able and willing to moderate the Politics & Society section?. It is a topic created by theymos.

[DdmrDdmr]

<...>

I gather, and believe having read, that the number of good reports is certainly an important criteria, specifically within the postulant board to be moderated, but it’s not a sole criteria. A sense of fairness and objectivity is probably sought, and possibly, and this is my personal opinion, an excessive amount of reporting may possibly be a counter in some cases.

When there was an opening on my local board for a moderator, which came as a result of the former moderator ghosting the board, we created a thread to debate on the matter. Eventually, I asked @theymos about his stand on the lack of moderator, and he pointed that we should debate on the matter, reach a consensus on candidate/s, and then get back to him. We eventually managed to get an interim voluntary moderator appointed, which I’m grateful for.

Note: Not all boards do have an assigned moderator (or active one at least).

[SatoPrincess]

BitcoinDistributor asked the same question some years back and this was Hilariousandco reply

Do you have to report a ton of posts?

In general, yes.

Do you have to apply?

No and I think this is generally considered a bad idea to do so, though maybe that changed with Mitchell aka bitcoininformation (but see my point about local mods below).

Are you just selectively chosen?

If you report a lot of posts accurately and display a good understanding of the rules and are a very active community member this will greatly increase your chances of getting asked.

I see a lot of staff members who are less then a year old here on the forums and only have a couple hundred posts and you see people with thousands of posts, long time trustworthy members and not staff status or ever mentioned being offered such. Just wondering how they are chosen? For example:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=210680

has been here for a year and only 600 posts. Yet staff already??

It's certainly seemingly easier to become a local mod ie one of the local language board mods such as Mitzie is (though not discrediting him for that), though again this depends on other factors like how active a person is and how much a mod is needed for that specific section.

Moderators are very busy. The spam busters help clean the forum and are not too happy when reported cases are unhandled. For example Ratimov has 100k good reports, the moderators have to handle those 100k cases from 1 user....there is a league of determined spam busters with high accuracy as well. I wonder if mods get any rest.  

[Ryker1]

[snip]
-Was it by selection or by election?
-If it was by selection, is it a permanent selection till something happens to the user or a temporary selection that is done periodically?

Well based on my knowledge --it was been done by selection by the admin either cyrus or theymos, once you pointed out it means you are very active on that board and as they said above the criteria should be you are a good reporter. That will perhaps be temporary, just like the moderator on our local Philippine board, he is no longer a moderator now. However, regarding moderators -- I think most of them are global moderator which can able to moderate on any board.

[Findingnemo]

Apart from the reporting activity and active community member the admin has the beleive they are trustworthy and will fit for moderation of certain boards will become. In recent years theymos didn't appointed any mods even though certain boards required mods still theymos didn't so it means he still don't find the trustworthiness from a member in my opinion.

[Cookdata]

I have had that in mind but it slipped my mind. I think selection of new moderators will likely not happen anytime because the work of moderators have been reduced by some hardworking members, all they do now is to check reported posts with good accuracy and they be the judge to whoever break bitcointalk rules. Ratimov for example celebreted about 100,000 good reports some days ago, there are others who do the same reports to make the work of moderators easier.
I am even concerned about beginner and help board moderator, MiningBuddy, hope he is fine because I didn't see where he announced his exit or any good bye notes and his name is still there as the Mod.

[SFR10]

i'm wondering how those users who are moderators became one.

This is what theymos said at the end of 2019: See how theymos mentions report "history", as opposed to "report count"! In other words, the type of reports really matters ^{[a few accurate "complicated" reports probably have more weight than a hundred accurate "simple" reports]}.

• Report history is the most important consideration for a moderator candidate. Over the forum's many years, relatively "newbie" members with good report histories have consistently done much better as mods than veteran, well-respected members with poor report histories. That said, not all reports are equal, so a simple report count doesn't tell the whole story. Also, in addition to report histories, it's necessary to consider factors such as the ability of the candidate to be neutral, their trustworthiness, etc. It's also nice to choose a moderator who people generally already trust/respect, but sometimes this is outweighed by other factors.
  
  If a poll is created, I will not completely ignore the results, but I will also not use it as a primary influence. I'm more interested in arguments people have for or against certain candidates.
  

[Daniel91]

As for the new moderators, I remember that we had a discussion about that in the Croatian section of the forum a few years ago.
At first we had a moderator but then we were left without a moderator and theymos asked us for our opinion on who would be a good new moderator.
He was obviously asking the local community to nominate someone whom everyone trusts and who is a respected member of the local community.
We had several candidates but we failed to reach an agreement and later that debate stopped and nothing happened.
Later we asked a question about the new moderator for the Croatian section in Meta but we did not get any answer from the admins.
I guess the main reason for this is the fact that there are not many active members and activities in the Croatian section of the forum, and we also don't have a lot of problems with spam.

[GeorgeJohn]

Since i joined community i have not noticed a recent made moderators, so from what i observed here, a moderator is made base on your active act concern to the forum and especially your activeness from a specific board, many moderators in varieties of boards here are made by theymos under his own determination, so I don't think before you will be grant mod you will pass through elections.

[Smartvirus]

Even before I had to read to the last sentence in OP, to have thought of the process, I had a feeling OP has wishes of moderating the forum.

Well, that could be a dream and like the reies you've gotten so far, it's a forum administrators decision and that could be determined from the loads of work you might of must have helped the forum in archiving voluntarily in order to ensure the serenity of the forum. How long this would take can't be quantified but you could be rest assured that, there is a statistics on all these. Just as stats are kept on mods and handled issues, so aslo are stats kepts on accurate reporting by users per reports handled. Hence, its of no point to make random reports that could be insensitive as this could display incompetence in moderation.

[Shamm]

-Say i aspire to become a moderator someday, is there any possibility to this, and if yes, what are the criteria's for this achievement?

In my own opinion being a moderator is not just an easy task you need to fight against the spammers. But if you wish/ want to become a moderator someday in your local section or in global as for now you need to build your reputation by reporting spam replies in your local and then if the admin notice you and the time will come that they will hire or you will apply then you have a chance to qualify.

[Pmalek]

I you want to become a moderator, you need to show to theymos that you know how to report and what to report. By looking at your report history, theymos needs to see this is a serious lad who knows what he is doing and can be trusted to stay neutral and fair in his evaluations. I can trust him to moderate certain parts of the forum.

Moderators have a lot of work on their plate, their work load is huge and I don't think they get paid for the work.

The forum staff gets paid for their work. Theymos talked about this somewhere. If I remember it correctly, it depends on how many reports they handle and how much revenue the forum generates from forum ads in that payment period.

I guess the main reason for this is the fact that there are not many active members and activities in the Croatian section of the forum, and we also don't have a lot of problems with spam.

Yeah, I doubt the admins have to handle many reports from our local board. I remember when the new child boards were created, everyone took the initiative to move their own threads in the correct subs. So we are doing just fine without one. From time to time, someone posts some spam in our sub but we report it and get it taken care of relatively quickly.

[aysg76]

It all depends upon the forum admins to select the moderators for specific board and you need to send lot of reports but also with accuracy because if you submitted reports are not valid then it's not counted.So for me i cannot become as have not send them but there are members who are contributing to this very effectively and can aslo become forum moderator which will be supported by admins and members of the forum also.

For example you can see how many reports @Ratimov has sent against low quality posts on the forum to tackle the spam posting as there are many such users.Check out this thread by him :

My contribution to the fight against low-value posts

You can see he has submitted more than 100,000 reports and most of them with accuracy so this is certain criteria which is specified to become moderators.So if you can do this job you can try it.

There are some past threads on this same topic and you could check out them to find your answers in detail in which global moderators have also replied:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=925534.0

Criteria for bitcoin forum moderator/admin

So the main is you submit reports but not less so you can be suitable for this job.You must qualify this criteria in order to be on that position.

[Lucius]

-Say i aspire to become a moderator someday, is there any possibility to this, and if yes, what are the criteria's for this achievement?

I do not want to discourage you, but for this function, you will have to do your best, not only with work and commitment but also probably with great patience. It seems to me that the best chance for someone to get such a position is for someone else to become inactive or simply give up, and then you get lucky and get a private message from the admin asking if you want to become a moderator.

Anyway, you took the first small step towards that, and if you are ready for a marathon, maybe what you want is waiting for you at the finish line.

[Doan9269]

-Was it by selection or by election?
-If it was by selection, is it a permanent selection till something happens to the user or a temporary selection that is done periodically?

To my understanding i think it is a decision to be made by the Admin in choosing a desired qualification for a moderator, secondly if it is by appointment then an individual may be lucky to have won the interest of the admin having enough quality and professional works ethics before been considered. If it were to be by election then individual have to sit down in building a credible qualifying profile and which has to be evident even on the forum.

for instance one must be a quality poster, experienced in managerial skills, have knowledge in dealing with data, good moral conduct, have customers service experience because you will be dealing with large numbers of forum members, be consistent, ability to multitask, ability to judge right and know how to make report.