Would you become a moderator given a choice?

[insider9]

As per subject... If you were given a choice would you do it? If not, why not?

 

[Deleted member 108165]

Nah... Don't have the time and I'm not pc enough to deal with idiots.

 

[Deleted member 188533]

I was asked to be a moderator on Tom's Hardware ( and Tom's Guide ) about 7 years ago. If you aren't familiar with Tom's it's the largest tech forum online. We passed CNET a few years ago and we have somewhere around 3.5 million registered users. I said yes because:

Tom's has a peer selected mod team and I considered it an honor to be asked.

I was already a regular poster with close to 10,000 posts over 4 years when I was asked and I was invested in the forum. When an opportunity came up to take a look behind the scenes and have a voice in the direction the forum takes I jumped at it.

I was tired of reporting spam and wanted to be able to delete it myself.

Most of what a mod does is janitorial. Moving threads to correct subsections and finding and deleting spam. Every now and then a problem user pops up but we have a policy of not moderating threads we're involved in. That way there's never any personal bias if say a user calls you an asshat ( or WAY worse ).

I'm here because Tom's is the 'big' Future property and apparently we're pretty good at what we do and as such we were told we could also be mods on any of the new Future properties. Most of the guys picking up another forum are going to PC Gamer but I saw What Hi-Fi and figured it would be great to get in on the opportunity here since it's a hobby anyway. I'm the guy the other Tom's guys come to for audio advice. I know the software and I know the Community team, at least the ones that have been there a while.

Should you do it? If you're willing to devote a little extra to this forum by occasionally doing those janitorial tasks and if you're willing to keep up with current policies by at least keeping up with anything posted by staff in the mod section and if you want to perhaps have a voice in the direction this forum takes in the future then yes. There are no expectations of participation. Mods do what then can when they can.

I've made some lifelong friends from all over the world. Americans, Canadians, Brits, Scots, Aussies a Colombian a Bangladeshi some Germans... we're an international team and we're like an extended family after all these years together. I'm very glad I said yes.

Hope that helped.

 

[insider9]

Cheers for that. I'm a member on Tom's Hardware though not posted in 5 or so years. Lovely forum

 

[scene]

I was, and after thinking it over, and after asking a couple of questions, I did.

I agree with lots of what anort3 said. I joined the WHF forums over 11 years ago, originally to learn about my hobby and get advice from people who had more experience. Then I gave advice on topics I had experience on and just enjoyed the off topic chats with people I enjoyed chatting with . I was sad when it was all closed down, and realised how much I missed it... When they re-opened I was determined more than ever to make this a place people would want to come to, so helping sweeping up the rubbish and keeping it going just seemed the right thing to do.