Andre has kindly volunteered to help moderate the Maple and Maple Photo Gallery forums. Some of his duties will include helping to ensure things are tidy (e.g., removing duplicate threads), approving threads from unregistered folks and editing thread titles to accurately reflect topics when necessary (e.g., names in the Maple Photo Gallery). I'm grateful for his lending of an extra helping hand.
Let me ask a few questions that others may be wondering. Is there something going on within the UBC forum that the rest of us should know about as far as the need for an outside source to be a moderator of a particular forum? What qualifications in plants or knowledge of a particular plant are warranted in order for someone from outside the UBC to be chosen or selected as being a moderator in a plant enthusiast forum? Or is the selection of a moderator predominately based on someone that has the time and desire to help out and moderate a forum? Can we expect other forums to also have an outside source as being a moderator in the near future such as the Fruit Tree forum or the Conifer forum? What some members may want to know is where is this current idea of outsourcing a moderator in a select forum heading, what is it leading up to? A side note: I am not opposed to a moderator coming in and gleaning out the unregistered posts but editing of a current members post in a forum may become an issue down the road. I've never been in favor of the posting of an incoming e-mail to be posted in the forum with no response from the person that posted the thread. I think if there is enough interest to post the received e-mail question that a comment from the recipient, that in turn posted the question, was in order and not just leave the issue in "our" hands when in some cases the question asked had already been addressed in other threads. Jim
No, not really, other than I'm happy that the forums as a community are growing successfully. Time and desire. Willingness to help and share because their actions leading up to that point have shown that they want the forums to succeed as a community. Some knowledge of the area that they are moderating, but it by no means needs to be comprehensive. Possibly, yes. Probably, no. I'm not soliciting, but if someone volunteers, I'll consider it. A suggestion was made by someone to me recently that confirmed Plant IDs have thread titles changed to reflect the identified plant. That's a task that I agree would be valuable, but not something I or Eric can possibly do. It is leading up to, I'm hoping, a better profile in search engines, tidier threads, and a smidgen more time for myself and Eric to spend elsewhere. You're right, that might become an issue. Eric and I receive a notification by email of every post on the board (~200 on a very good day). So, while we might have a record of something as originally posted, we wouldn't have a record of something that has been self-edited then moderator-edited. So, I've removed this one irreversible-ability permission from the moderator (see attachment). Yes, that is definitely an issue. I'm not 100% in favour of it either, but some libraries in the past refused to link to the site because "registration was required". I should note that in instances when we post a received email, we also quickly reply to the person who sent the email that the question has been posted "here", so they do have an email that they can refer back to with a hyperlink to "check in". Still, it's not a perfect solution, and I've long considered going back to "registration required". What to do?
I should also mention that we don't use some of those systems that you can see in the moderator permissions, e.g. "user reputation" and "user notes". They are more useful for when a community grows so large that it needs to be community-moderated en masse.
Just a comment about unregistered and email posts, many of the people who make these posts when they first find the site, do later register. Some of the people who join and post a comment also never come back to see the answers. People have all kinds of things going on in their lives. I think if the question is good and you want to comment, go ahead. If that person does not come back for the answer chances are still good that the info will help someone else. It is nice to give a welcoming reply with general help and a prompt for more discussion. If people are interested and come back to the thread, then more effort can be put into investigation of the question or topic. Yes many questions are asked again and again. It can be helpful to link the question back to threads from the past where the topic was discussed. This saves time on the response and continues the good conversations that have been started already.
Thank you Daniel for your much appreciated answers. Inasmuch as it may not seem like it at times I do give special consideration to the people that are members of these forums. Eric, I think even some members ask a help question and do not look back in to see if anyone has answered it. I agree that some of the unregistered posts have been pertinent. I just cannot understand why they choose not to join the UBC forums. After all it is not like they will be deluged with e-mails that they do not want coming into their inbox, like so many other online forum hosts have done to us in the past. Then again I can understand why libraries may not want to become a member but they should still announce themselves as to who wants the answer. There has been some information passed around in these forums in which others can search far and wide and come up empty as there has been some content that is not online anywhere else. I think as long as you guys are still pretty much in charge of the forums there should not be too many complaints about having a forum moderator in any particular forum. I've mentioned before you guys do a lot in here, more than the rest of us realize and neither of you should feel like you are "married" to these forums. Thanks again for your help. Jim
