What mods and admins can do

[mallie]

Some people have been wanting to know about what it is that moderators on bus can actually do. This post is to try and answer those questions.

Moderators on the board are assigned to specific forums. They are only able to perform moderator functions in those forums. For instance, someone who is a moderator on the coping board can only do these functions on the coping board, and has the same abilities to post elsewhere as any other member.

Moderators also have access to two hidden forums. One is a forum that acts as our workspace, where we can talk about what actions need to be taken, and post about what we have done. This allows discussion and input and means that the other mods are able to know what has happened. The other forum is called 'holding bin' and is a place where inappropriate posts are sent. Even spam isn't typically deleted, it's sent to holding. Threads or posts sent to holding are still accessible, and can be moved back to a forum if needed.

These are the extra things a moderator can do:

• Edit posts
  This is used usually for adding trigger warnings to subjects or in the text, removing numbers/specific tools/graphic information. It can also be used to edit or remove an attached poll, and make an existing thread into an announcement or sticky thread
• Move whole threads
  Used to move threads to another forum. When we move a post, there is an option of including a "shadow" on the original forum, which leaves the thread title on the list, but with Moved: in front of it. When you click these links, you will be taken to the new location. [There is also an option to delete whole threads, but this is rarely used.]
• Lock threads
  Prevents further posts on a thread. This is used when a thread is getting out of hand, or it is not useful to continue. This doesn't happen often. The main way it is used is to lock place threads when people wish to start a new place but retain their old one.
• Split threads into two
  Allows one or several posts in a thread, to be put into a new thread. [It is possible to delete single posts, but this is usually used to split things and put them in holding instead.]
• Merge two threads into one
  Two threads on the same topic can be merged into one topic. This is really useful if a person accidentally double posts a thread, and replies are made on both.
• Get a users IP address for a post

If you see a post that is problematic you can click the 'write a report' link which is at the top of the screen. All mods for all forums will see these reports. You can also PM a mod or admin assigned to a forum about your questions about posts, or that forum. The disadvantage of PMing rather than writing a report is that it may take longer to be seen. If you just want to talk about a thread, to get ideas on how to respond or talk about your reactions, feel free to PM. There may be no action we can take to fix things, but we can listen and help you work through things.

This talks about the things we can do, but that doesn't mean they're done often. They are never done without good reason (e.g. one of the guidelines is broken, a post would really fit better on another forum, serious conflict/flaming, or request of the original poster). If one of your posts is edited, the moderator involved will send you a PM letting you know what was done, and why it was done - this isn't because you're in trouble, its to let you know that your post was changed. If you are unsure about an edit, it is okay to contact the person who did it and ask for clarification. If you're not comfortable to PM them, contact another mod on that forum, an admin, or one of the ombudsmen.

[mallie]

On any forum, administrators can do everything that a moderator can do on their assigned forum. There aren't special forum-based powers that administrators have. Admins take care of the main board and are listed on some forums that they take a specific interest in helping to maintain, but are able to do moderating tasks in any forum if required.

Admins are able to see all of the forums on the board, even if they've never signed up as a member of it (e.g. debates, private family and friends board, please be healthy), and have another forum of their own. Like the forum moderators board, the admin board is a workspace for talking about board issues, although it isn't used as much as the forum mod board. Admins are also able to see hidden users on the "who is online?" panel on the bottom of the forum index page. At the very bottom of our index page, there is a link to go to the administration panel.

The administration panel is really daunting to look at the first time - there are so many options.
The headings on the different sections are:

• Forum admin - where new forums are added, old ones deleted, and management tasks for forums are performed
• General admin - includes things like backing up the database, adding smilies, and sending mass emails to all board members
• Group admin - managing usergroups, like those used for before & after, debates, etc.
• MOD centre - to do with adding extra functions to the board - used only by Deb.
• Reports - about the reports users make when they select 'write a report'
• Style admin - to add, remove and alter board themes and styles
• User admin - to change settings for individual or multiple users, not board-wide

User admin is the main thing that the admins here do, other than mod tasks on the main board, so I'll go into more detail here. We can:

• Change details in peoples profiles. Including email and username. [When people try to change email address in the profile, this often deactivates an account, we can reactivate the account.]
  We can activate/deactivate/delete users [deactivated accounts can be reactivated at a later time. deleted accounts cannot, and on their posts the author changes to "Guest"]
  Ban email addresses and domains [good for keeping out spammers]
  There are settings that allow us to block people from displaying an avatar or signature [sometimes signature settings get disabled, for example, if someone bus rank is reset, we can fix this up for you]
  Permissions can be altered about being able to send PMs
  Change people bus ranks. This will happen when people become member advocates, and sometimes people request to go back to "one of us"
  We can add and remove people from usergroups
  And we can do some nifty searches on users like finding how many people have visited the board in the last day/week/month etc.

As with the moderators, just because these thigs can be done, doesn't mean they're done often, and in some cases done at all. Despite all of these things, there are still things that admins can't do. We can't access other peoples PM inbox for instance. We can tell what forum people are viewing, even hidden people, but can't tell which thread you're looking at, or which threads you've viewed before. We can't look up your password, but we can set a new password if its needed.

[mallie]

This might be added to, and clarified with time.

If there is any questions you're unsure about, either respond here, or PM me (or someone else) and I'll try and get them answered.

[WhiteChocolate]

what are "ombudsmen"

[Spidey]

ombudsmen are the member advocates of bus. they are there for whenever a member has an issue that they would like the mods/admins to know about but they feel that they cannot approach the mods/admins themselves. they are a fair, impartial group picked by member nominations.

in short, ombudsmen are the liasion between the members and the administration.

more info is in <a href="http://buslist.org/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=96755">this</a> post.