Moderation

The bigger your community gets, the less of it you can read. Moderation is the small set of tools that lets you act on the parts that need you: a queue of what members have reported, a way to hide content, a mute button, and moderators you trust to help.

The moderation queue

1. Go to Membership then Moderation in your dashboard.

You land on the Pending tab, which is everything waiting for you. Two more tabs, Resolved and Dismissed, hold everything you have already dealt with.

When there is nothing to do, the page says so: "Nothing waiting for review: your community is behaving."

What each row tells you

• Content, a preview of the post or reply that was reported. If you have already hidden it, a Hidden badge sits underneath.
• Type, either Post or Reply.
• Reported by, the member who flagged it.
• Reason. Reporting is a single click for members, so this usually reads "None". The content preview is what you judge from.
• Status, Pending, Resolved, or Dismissed.
• Date the report came in.

The queue is paginated, so a busy week does not turn into an endless scroll.

Acting on a report

Open the menu at the end of a pending row. You get three choices:

• Resolve marks the report handled and leaves the content where it is. Use it when you have looked and the content is fine, or when you have dealt with the person rather than the post.
• Resolve & hide content marks it handled and takes the post or reply out of your members' view.
• Dismiss closes the report without acting. Use it for a report that was a mistake or a grudge.

Once a report leaves Pending it stops showing a menu. Its outcome is a matter of record on the Resolved or Dismissed tab.

How a report reaches you

Under every post and reply in a community space, members see a small Report link. Clicking it sends the report immediately. There is no form to fill in and no reason to type, which is deliberate: a one-click report is one people actually use, and you get the content itself to judge from.

Once a member has reported something, their link changes to Reported so they know it went through and cannot pile on the same post twice.

Muting a member

Sometimes the problem is a person rather than a post.

1. Go to Membership then Members.
2. Click the member's name to open their page.
3. In the Community card, open the menu and click Mute....
4. Pick a Duration: 1 hour, 24 hours, 7 days, or 30 days.
5. Click Mute member.

While muted, that member cannot post, reply, or react anywhere in your community. They can still read, and their membership and billing are completely untouched. Their page shows a Muted until badge with the date it lifts.

To lift it early, open the same menu and click Unmute.

Moderators

You do not have to be the only person watching. Any member can be made a moderator.

1. Open the member's page from Membership then Members.
2. In the Community card, open the menu and click Make moderator.

Their name then carries a Moderator badge in the community so other members know who they are. To take it back, open the same menu and click Remove moderator.

Points and levels

Members earn points for taking part: writing a post, replying, getting reactions on what they wrote, and turning up on a given day. Points roll up into a level shown beside their name, and into the leaderboard members can open from their Spaces tab. A daily ceiling on earned points keeps the board honest.

You can move someone's total by hand when the automatic count does not reflect reality.

1. Open the member's page.
2. In the Community card, open the menu and click Adjust points....
3. Enter a number of Points. A negative number takes points away.
4. Add a Note so you remember why later.
5. Click Adjust points.

The dialog shows their current balance and level before you change anything. A member's total never drops below zero, however large a deduction you enter.

Use it to reward something the counter cannot see, like a member who ran your listening party, or to walk back points earned in a way you would rather not encourage.

Setting the bar for participation

If your moderation problem is that too many people can post, the fix is not a queue, it is a rule. On the membership settings page you can require an active membership before anyone can post, reply, react, comment, or chat. Reading stays open, so people can still see what they are missing.

Where to go next

• Create the rooms this all happens in: community spaces.
• Look after the people: members.
• Set the participation rule: membership settings.