On a related question, do we even have "moderators" here? Mike occasionally takes on the role, and I've seen "Admin" and Meghan pop in occasionally, but neither of them have ever done any moderation that I've seen.
In my opinion and experience, a GOOD Moderator is like a Police Officer. They are here to protect and serve the community by monitoring the discussion and when needed - enforcing the rules.
Car Wax History
When I came to Autogeek in 2009 there were no forum rules there was a general statement that basically asked everyone to be nice. At that time we had a couple of troublemakers on the forum that acted like bullies. After about a year, the forum rules I wrote for MeguiarsOnline were tweaked here and there to make them more appropriate for Autogeek.com and then incorporated to this forum.
Forum rules are like boundaries. They show people what is acceptable and what is not acceptable behavior. With a set of real forum rules, you give the Moderators something to enforce. Then when someone breaks the forum rules, or in most cases, continually breaks forum rules, "we" that is Autogeek NEVER bans anyone from this forum. A person bans themselves by continually breaking the forum rules.
I've never claimed to be a good Moderator as it interferes with what I enjoy doing and that's the education side of this forum. Playing the Bad Cop by enforcing rules for those that cannot abide by them is easy to do but it's better left to someone else to handle.
Just to note - when a person joins this forum, part of the registration form includes a "check box" at the bottom of the online form that states by checking the box you agree to follow the forum rules. Of course - most people don't read fine print for anything now days.
And something I think people simply don't see is the link to the forum rules at the top of EVERY page on this forum. So there's really no excuse for not knowing the rules, all a person has to do is look, click and read.
The nice thing is it isn't often needed around here.
That is the nice thing about this forum. It's helpful AND friendly.
The down side is this type of situation arises and no one knows who to ask.
I agree. I'd like to see an official moderator assigned to this duty. The BEST Moderator I've even known was my old friend Tim aka 2hodford. He was the lead Moderator on the MOL forum when I ran it. I would take the time to read through a "problem" post or thread and then apply the forum rules fairly.
