How to Be a Good Moderator for an Online Learning Community

TownLens

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posted on 9 years ago — updated on 1 second ago

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In online communities, moderators are typically users who have shown exceptional ability to do things that positively affect the online learning environment. They are chosen because they can easily differentiate between accurate and helpful and unhelpful content, can make decisions regarding immature content, and can help users to be a helpful part of the online environment. Moderators also help to organize and keep their online community safe.

Steps

Becoming a Moderator

Know the community's moderator requirements. The specifics will vary from community to community and platform to platform. Make sure you read the guidelines closely and ask questions of existing moderators if you have them.

Be active. Turn yourself into a vital and helpful part of the community. Make a positive impact. Also, meet the minimum amount of time required to be on the website. In many communities, minimum ranks/points must be met.

Follow the rules. You need to show your maturity. Make sure you have no recent warnings or bans.

Demonstrate good communication skills. All answers/thoughts should be appropriate and have all work shown.

Being a Good Moderator

Create a respectful and collaborative environment. Do not humiliate or embarrass users. Treat others the way that you would like to be treated. All users deserve respect. Even when you have to block, ban, or delete, judge the actions, not the users.

Try to support everyone's point of view and create a non-judgmental environment.

Be clear and let users know what is going to happen and why you are there. Don't create uncertainty and keep it simple.

Do not show off or be egoistic. Do not act as if you are better than everyone else. Everyone plays a great part of the learning environment.

Think before you take action. Take your time and try to understand the situation as best you can. Always do an action based on evidence, not opinions.

Admit your mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes and it's better to admit it.

Moderate content of your friends or relatives as you would do with anyone else. Do not give your friends/relatives extra credit.

Do not talk to users about their mistake within the public sphere. Use private messaging when possible and appropriate. Talking to users within the public arena can make them feel embarrassed or humiliated.

Keep following all the guidelines. Being a moderator is a privilege, not a right. Your status can be removed any time. Make sure you maintain high standards for your work, both in moderation and in regular use of the platform.