101 Moderation & Content Curation

Moderators have additional features available to them through the normal community navigation features and through the admin console.

Additional Features Available to Moderators in the Community UI

From the User Profile Menu

Moderators can directly suspend a user and delete all of their content. This is a useful capability when dealing with a user who is repeatedly posting irrelevant content or content in contravention of the rules; typically a spammer.

From the User Profile Edit Icon Drop-Down Menu

• Authentication settings
• Email Notification settings
• Expertise settings
• Suspend this user
• Delete all user’s posts
• Give/take reputation

From the Gear Menu on Content

• Edit any piece of content: Useful to re-title content to be more useful/easily found in the community, clean up posted content to comply with the rules, and re-tag with different topics.
• Re-direct: Allows you to select another question and routes all traffic to that question. This is helpful when a particular question has already had an extended discussion and has a correct answer.
• Close: This prevents further answers from being provided to the question.
• Report: Regular community users should use this feature to flag content for moderator review. This provides a workflow to select a reason and add supporting comments. This action lists the content on the reported tab of the moderation queue, but it remains in community view.
• Delete: Removes unwanted content.
• Wikify: This option applies to question content and is a permission that you may grant to users to open up their question to allow editing by others.
• Send to moderation: Useful in cases where it is desirable for other members of the moderation team to review the content, but you want it removed from public view.
• Move: Used to move content from one space to another.
• Lock Comments: This prevents further comments on the question or upon answers.
• Make Sticky (and Unsticky): Pins content (Questions, Ideas, Articles) to the top of a space. You can also make these unsticky. Select the content of choice to make sticky, select the gear icon, then select Make Sticky in the drop-down list.
• Make Site Sticky (and Unsticky): Pins content (Questions, Ideas, Articles) to the top of the community on the home page/main feed. You can also make these unsticky. Select the content of choice to make site-wide sticky, select the gear icon, then select Make Site Sticky in the drop-down list.
• Export to PDF: This option exists exclusively for article type content.
• Revision history: You can also control this by permission and reserve it for moderators or extend it to other groups. This allows the user to see prior versions of the content, including time/date stamps for revisions, what the revisions were, and who revised it.

From the User Avatar Drop-Down

Moderation Menu & Queue: The moderation link will be available to moderators. This takes them to the moderator work flow which has two tabs: Moderation and Reported.

• Moderation tab: Content is held from the community until a moderator decides the content can be published back to the community. There are three buttons to choose from: Publish, Reject, and Ask an Expert. The publish button will send content back to the community. Reject makes content effectively deleted, but it is still recoverable. Ask an expert allows moderators to try to arrange help for a member from the assistance of an expert.
• Reported tab: Content remains visible even though it was reported by the community. Moderators can clear the flag and allow it to remain by selecting the Cancel Report button, or they can delete it with the Delete button.
• Suspension: User accounts may be suspended which prevents them from logging back in. This may be reversed. Suspended users still count in the list of registered users on the site.
• In the Moderation Page UI, the Suspend this user link is directly beneath the user name and Avatar for the author of the content sent to moderation.

Additional Features Available to Moderators in the Admin Console

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NOTE:

For a moderator to have access to the admin console, they must also be part of the Super Users group. Also note that you need to remove anyone in the Super Users group from the Users group.

Automated Features

AnswerHub includes several features that can aid moderation by keeping unwanted content out of the community.

• Pre-moderation: You can set permissions on individual spaces or across the community so all posts from users go to moderation before publishing to public view. You may configure this to stop once a user reaches a minimal reputation level. You may selectively apply this to questions, answers, comments, articles and ideas as the community manager wishes. This is generally not a common practice.
• reCAPTCHA plugin: This plugin requires a quick setup through Google's site to obtain and enter the public and private keys for your community. Once activated, there is a control panel that allows you to select where reCAPTCHA will intercept.
• You may select each of these and set to show reCAPTCHA:
  • Registering a new user account
  • Posting a new question
  • Editing a previously submitted question
  • Answering
  • Commenting
• Shield Plugin: You can exempt this plugin based on reputation. Setting a low value, such as three points, allows stringent settings for new members, while relaxing criteria to allow established members more freedom. The following Shield plugins are available:
  • Flood control: Time delays to start posting after registering, and time to wait between posting questions.
  • Unrecognizable character threshold: Sets a percent limit for unrecognizable characters in a users’ post. Spammers often try to get around keywords by substituting numbers for letters. This can also be useful for blocking double byte postings.
  • Phrase repetition limits: Spammers often post the same phrase or link repeatedly in a post.
  • Keywords: Prohibits a list of keywords often used in spam. You can enter Regex expressions to safeguard against posting phone numbers, credit card numbers, etc.
  • IP Blacklist: Enter IP addresses to prevent multiple accounts being created from the same person.

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NOTE:

There is a special permission called spam moderator which you must grant to moderators or super users who need access to modify settings and keywords in a shield.

• Spam Words filter: Use of any words contained in the list of this feature will send a users’ post to moderation. No members are exempt. This portion of the shield plugin makes a great backstop for other features and is useful in blocking “bad” words and hate speech.

Manual Features

• Suspension: You may suspend user accounts to prevent them from logging back in. You may reverse this. Suspended users still count in the list of registered users on the site.
  • In the admin console, you can reach the Suspend user link three ways:
    1. Selecting Suspend Selected from the bulk change drop-down.
    2. Selecting Suspend from the wrench icon in the row of the user from the list of users.
    3. Selecting Suspend for a specific user by clicking the wrench icon.
• Deactivation: Deactivated users cannot sign in but do not count in the user license. Internal sites with set user limits may wish to deactivate users who leave the community to free up the user license. There is an option to hide content from deactivated users. This is generally not a common practice.
  • In the admin console, you can access the Deactivate user link three ways:
    1. Selecting Deactivate Selected from the bulk change drop-down.
    2. Selecting Deactivate from the wrench icon in the row of the user from the list of users.
    3. Selecting Deactivate for a specific user by clicking the wrench icon.

Moderation Best Practices

• Post community guidelines and include a clear link to it on all community pages.
• Create a private space for the community manager to collaborate with the moderation team, provide policy guidance, and create an environment for the moderators to cross-train new members to the team.
• Create moderator guidelines and post them in the private space. These guidelines serve as a training guide for new moderators and a reminder to all the culture you wish to create in your community.
• Encourage moderators to help identify community members who participate frequently, post technically helpful/valuable content, exhibit good judgement, and have a positive attitude, for inclusion in the community recognition program.

Next Steps

• Review community structure and various groups that will need access to various sections. Identify any areas that may be private or restricted to certain groups, and which content types you allow in the various spaces.
• Draft some community guidelines and consider a private space for moderators to collaborate.