home > Internet > What does a moderator do in a conversation. What is a moderator, and what is included in the terms of reference of this person

What does a moderator do in a conversation. What is a moderator, and what is included in the terms of reference of this person

Given that the Internet has become a familiar norm and the tendency to use it as a form of communication, learning and intellectual leisure is only increasing, the profession of a moderator can be confidently added to the list of professions of the future.

virtual communication firmly established in modern life. On the Internet, people are looking not only for answers to any questions, but also for communication. Moreover, for some users, virtual communication is almost the only way avoid loneliness. These are people with disabilities, as well as those who work in remote areas of the Far North (geologists, meteorologists, etc.) and do not have other opportunities for real communication.

Therefore, it is so important that in social networks and at the forums, the rules of ethics, culture of speech, moral and moral principles accepted in society were observed. Moreover, the Internet has become such a familiar attribute of life that even preschoolers use it freely while their parents are busy. And here the need to "filter" messages and other information is of paramount importance.

That is, someone should look after the order in the network in order to stop aggressive or openly vulgar statements of virtual hooligans in time, remove prohibited publications with calls for violence or extremism, etc. All these functions are performed by the "fighter of the invisible front" - the moderator, which we will talk about today.

Who is a moderator?

An employee of the virtual "vice police", providing comfortable communication for all members of sites or groups in social networks. The word "moderator" is borrowed from of English language and came into modern Russian in the second half of the 80s of the last century. From English, the word "moderator" is translated as an arbitrator, regulator, mediator. The meanings of these words are more understandable for Russian-speaking netizens and fully explain the essence of the profession.

In the absence of control over the content of the content, the site is filled with spam, unpleasant and even offensive statements, resembling a garbage dump in real life. Such a site "dies" quickly, as it ceases to benefit the virtual community and the owner.

Many professions have a historical past and prerequisites for their emergence. Before the advent of the Internet and the possibility of people communicating "through the monitor", in real time, the main source of information was print media. Their work was supervised by editors, proofreaders and censors. These professions still exist today because printed books and periodicals continue to be in demand.

Editors monitor the thematic content of newspapers and magazines. The proofreader is responsible for the literacy and style of writing, the format of the presentation of the material. The censor monitors the compliance of the publication with the following criteria:

Reliability of information;
Compliance with the law;
The moral criteria of society, sometimes - the ideological orientation of published materials.

In general, all these professions can be called the progenitor of the moderator. However, in terms of duties, the work of a moderator is still more consistent with the work of a censor. Manages the activities of the moderator Internet resource administrator or its owner, giving the subordinate greater powers than the rest of the forum or group members. The moderator regularly reviews the material and removes spam, offensive comments, swearing - everything that does not comply with the norms of the law and the community. The moderator has the authority to block malicious rule breakers.

What personal qualities should a moderator have?

At first glance, the moderator's personal qualities are not visible behind the monitor screen. He, most often, does not leave comments, but only watches other users, and it is difficult to assess his character, level of education and other qualities. But the results of the work, nevertheless, can be seen by the number of users, site ratings, traffic levels, on which the owner's income and the moderator's earnings depend. To be a good moderator you need to be:

assiduous;
patient;
result oriented.

At the same time, a good (experienced) moderator should:

have the knowledge and experience of a psychologist;
be able to make a psychological portrait virtual interlocutor in writing and predict the model of his behavior;
have restraint and a sense of tact that will help him not impose his own value judgments on readers;
demonstrate a sense of fairness and objectivity. This is especially necessary in cases where a conflict situation arises between users and it is necessary to resolve the issue of blocking a visitor.

All the qualities listed above, as a rule, are inherent in educated and intellectually developed people. It follows from this that the moderator should work on his own self-development. In addition, versatile knowledge is needed to assess the quality of content.

Benefits of being a moderator

Free work schedule is the main advantage of the profession. In the presence of mobile internet the moderator is not attached to either the office or the house. Site moderation can be combined with other types of earnings on the Internet or the main job, thereby increasing your income.

A moderator can find a site whose topics are interesting to him, useful in studies or work, and become an active participant in it. In this case, the coincidence of interests will bring intellectual and material benefits.

Having tested his organizational skills on one of the forums and gained experience, the moderator may well create his own site, where his profit will become tangible, because, depending on popularity, there are offers to place ads for which advertisers pay solid money.

It is still difficult to name the specific amounts of the moderator's earnings, since this specialty refers to professions of the future, and its potential possibilities are not fully explored. The range of earnings depends on many factors. There are groups in social networks where moderators work on a voluntary basis (that is, for free). Moderators on manufacturers' websites, tracking customer or competitor reviews, can earn up to 15-20 thousand rubles a month.

Disadvantages of being a moderator

The complexity of the professions of the future lies in the fact that their merits cannot be fully predicted. But at least some assessments of the profession can be made today.

For example, a free search for a job in a huge amount of information is a rather difficult task. It is even more difficult to find a job as a moderator with a good and stable income nowadays. It is still difficult to judge how the financial situation of the moderators of the future will develop.

Doctors have long and stubbornly spoken about the dangers of a long stay at the computer, and the work of a moderator requires many hours of spending time at the monitor. Therefore, when choosing such a job, you should always remember about the alternation of physical and mental stress, take care of your eyesight, posture and nervous system.

Where can you get a job as a moderator?

Today, any talented high school student or housewife of “Balzac age” who has permanent access to the network and able to use a PC.

It is enough for a moderator to have good computer skills, which, if necessary, can be obtained in short-term courses or with a tutor, within a few lessons.

The main task of modern Internet professions- development of communications. Based on this, you can think about choosing universities with relevant programs. For example, a moderator will certainly need knowledge in the field of philology, psychology and marketing.

In other words, the list of universities, on the basis of which you can acquire knowledge that facilitates the work of a moderator, can be varied. In particular, it can be one of the leading universities in Russia:

(directions: psychology, philological faculties, programming);
Institute of Social Philosophical Sciences and Mass Communications;

Also, for working with specialized sites, knowledge in the field of jurisprudence, technical and natural sciences, which can be obtained at specialized universities in the country, functioning in almost every region of Russia, will be useful.

A moderator is a person who keeps order in online conversations, communities and publics in social networks. He has fewer rights than the owner or administrator, but more than an ordinary user.

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For example, on a forum about art, one of the users decided to advertise his Instagram page with photos of his beloved cat. Such posts are off topic and should be deleted by the reviewer so other users don't get distracted from the discussion. This is the task of the moderator.

What is the job of a moderator

The reviewer must promptly eliminate content that does not comply with the rules and maintain feedback with participants. Each moderator has his own list of rights, which are assigned by the owner or administrator of the account. Most often they include the following:

Deleting messages that do not correspond to the topic, containing obscene language, insults, links to third-party resources, etc.
Ban - restricting access to a conversation or account for certain users for inappropriate behavior.
Removing bots and fakes from the conversation.
Adding new content and editing old posts.

In addition to rights, a moderator also has responsibilities. We list what the verifier on the site should do:

Know and follow the rules together with all participants of the resource and set an example with your behavior.
Maintain neutrality and resolve conflicts.
Review complaints and take appropriate action.
Be polite and correct in dealing with users.
Keep order in the topics for which he is responsible.

Users can file a complaint against the inspector if they consider his work to be of poor quality and ineffective. For appeals, special sections or forms are created. You can also write to the administrator and complain about the moderator.

What is a moderator for?

Moderators are appointed to work with various projects on the Internet.

Forum Moderator

Appointed by the administrator of the forum, cannot transfer his powers to other persons if he himself is not an administrator. His responsibilities include monitoring topics: add priority, merge, split, edit, close, and also check messages for thematic compliance, the absence of swear words, insults.

VK group moderator

Adds own news and monitors those offered by users. If they match the format, the moderator publishes them. Similarly, it checks comments for advertising, flooding, spam and takes the necessary measures. Manages the community blacklist.

Chat Moderator

Keeps order in the chat, in case of violation of the rules, removes from the conversation temporarily or permanently, depending on the offense committed.

Site moderator

Responsible for clear navigation on the site, monitors the competent description of goods and services, understands the brand's products, can answer user-related questions.

Types of moderation

- checking the message before publication. The moderator checks the text for errors, edits if necessary, and decides on placement. So resources are not littered with spam or unconfirmed information. On the other hand, messages appear slowly, only after verification, and may be rejected due to the subjective opinion of the reviewer. Content can also be scanned by a machine for swearing or multiple registrations.
Post-moderation - more operational way than pre-moderation. Verification occurs after publication. The advantage is fast interactivity, but the verifier must be constantly watching to avoid spam, flooding, offensive messages, etc.
Automoderation. For publications, special filters and programs are created that monitor the quality. Voting is often available when users rate the usefulness of the content. Of the benefits: fast publication, no subjective opinion of the inspector. Cons: Additional software. Can be found weak sides in the system and bypass it, so you need to constantly refine the software.

Types of moderators

There are two types of auditors:

Ordinary (ordinary).
Chief moderator. Has more rights, some of which are already administrative. Follows the entire project.

How to become a moderator and what qualities are needed for this

Before appointing a moderator, the resource owner or administrator must check whether he has the necessary qualities:

Availability of knowledge on the subject of discussion. You need to be well versed in the topic in order to respond to comments, find false information, or support a fading discussion.
Ability to resolve conflicts. A good moderator should not ban everyone in a row and delete all comments that he does not like. Instead, you need to try to resolve the conflict peacefully, clearly explain your point of view, be polite and patient. Banning and deleting comments is a last resort.
Ability to respond quickly to situations. Users do not want to wait a week for a response to their question, they need an answer right now. Also, if a dispute breaks out in a conversation, it must be settled quickly, otherwise it can develop into a large-scale scandal.
Basic knowledge of working with the interface of social networks, website engines, initial programming skills.

Moderation types

Moderation can be done in several ways:

pre-moderation- control of content before publication. The published message from the users of the resource first gets to the moderator, is checked, punctuation and spelling may be corrected, properly formatted and supplemented, and only then is it published or rejected. This type of moderation is common in official resources various companies, in thematic network communities, etc.

Advantages:

the content and quality of the resource is under control; lack of vandalism and "garbage" information - "pollution" of the resource is possible only due to the presence technical problems, allowing an attacker to publish messages bypassing the moderator.

Flaws:

low efficiency - messages appear in public access only after verification; subjectivity - the moderator may refuse to publish a message, based on his own subjective judgment about the published information or the participant.

post-moderation- content control is carried out after the publication of messages.

Advantages:

efficiency - all messages appear immediately after publication.

Flaws:

possibility flood , spam and vandalism; the need for the constant presence of a moderator.

Automoderation- a kind of post-moderation, in which content quality control is determined by the participants themselves by voting "for" or "against" a particular message, as well as the creation of automatic rules and filters.

Advantages:

efficiency - all messages appear immediately after publication; there is no subjectivity of the moderator (one person or group of people).

Flaws:

the need for additional software, which allows filtering and voting; the ability to bypass automatic rules; possibility flash mobs- "minus" or "plus" individual participants and messages.

Weaknesses in the moderation system

Ban user account, including by IP addresses.
Conclusion in the user profile of information about his violations and behavior.
A system for recording user violations, followed by a ban.
Subjectivity of moderation.

In fact, the purpose of the moderation system is to maintain order on the site and control content (including cleaning the resource from all sorts of spam), and not user behavior. But very often moderators can neglect this. Therefore, the above functions of the moderation system are very often used inefficiently, in addition, the above functions are easy to bypass. For example, in case of fixing a violation or a ban, the user can easily register a new account. Therefore, a number of resources use "soft" content control rules, which are often more effective. In this case, violations by users are not recorded, only content is edited. And in case of periodic violations by a particular user, a temporary pre-moderation is introduced for him, after which the user can again freely post his content.

Forum Moderator

The forum moderator is appointed by the forum administrator. A forum usually has more than one moderator.

The moderator is assigned to the entire forum or to some of its sections. In their sections, the moderator usually has the right to:

delete messages or topics;
edit any messages;
see IP addresses ;
split a topic into two or combine two topics into one;
declare the topic closed. Only moderators and administrators can leave messages in closed topics;
mark a topic as "announcement", "important" or "sticky", while it will always be at the top of the list of topics;
move the topic to other sections.

In some forums, moderators have only a fraction of these rights. But the right to delete posts and/or topics is mandatory; someone who does not have this right is, by definition, not a forum moderator. On some forums, anyone can see IP addresses.

A forum moderator (unless he is also an administrator) usually does not have the right to appoint other moderators or transfer his powers.

You can complain to the administrator for illegal actions against the moderator, but, as a rule, administrators ignore complaints or support the moderator on the principle of "the moderator is always right." There is no one to complain about the forum administrator (but you can leave the forum and arrange anti-advertising for him).

Types of moderators

There are two main types of moderators:

Moderator
Super moderator (options: main moderator, global moderator, moderation curator)

Super Moderator- a user selected by the administrator from among the moderators. The super-moderator is "responsible" not for a certain section of the forum, but for the entire forum. Super moderators are subject to much stricter requirements than regular moderators. The super-moderator is obliged to continuously monitor the order on the forum, as well as take immediate action against users who have violated the rules of the forum. Usually there are several super-moderators on the forum. On some sites, the super-moderator has separate administrator functions (for example, blocking IP addresses, transferring a user to a pre-moderation group, deleting users).

Echo conference moderator

Moderator newsgroups

In system usenet some newsgroups are moderated. Only moderators can post to these newsgroups. When an ordinary user sends a message, it gets to the moderator, and he decides whether to forward it to the newsgroup or not.

The moderator is appointed by the person who creates the newsgroup at the same time as it is created.

Some newsgroups are retro-moderated. These newsgroups have retromoderators who have the right to delete messages previously sent there (In this case, we are talking about the right, not technical feasibility. Technically, on Usenet, anyone can delete any posts, but except for spam and a few other special cases, deleting other people's posts is prohibited.)

Chat Moderator

Moderator chat has the right to exclude users from the chat for a while or try to exclude someone permanently. In some chats, any message must be accepted by the moderator, and only then it appears in the chat. However, this is rare.

Network resources where there is no moderator

Some resources do not have a person who keeps order, for example:

There is no moderator in systems where people communicate one on one, for example in instant messaging programs, since there the user can simply stop communicating with an unpleasant interlocutor.
There are no moderators in blogs(for example, in livejournal), because in his blog everyone is the absolute owner who does not need other moderators. However, in Learn there is a conflict committee ( abuse team) that deals with cases such as insulting one user in another's log. In LiveJournal communities, a person who keeps order is called not a moderator, but a caretaker.
AT Wikipedia there are also no moderators. A number of their functions (adding and deleting new information) can be performed by any participants (and some functions - even by anonymous participants), other functions of moderators (maintaining order, deleting articles, blocking participants) are assigned to administrators.

Moderators are different...

We use the English term moderator, which is derived from the Italian moderare or the Latin moderor, and is literally translated as one who restrains/slows down/weakens.

This term appeared much earlier than the Internet and used very widely, so the correct answer to the question: what is a moderator or who will it be:

in music - a device that muffles the sound of keyboard instruments;
in nuclear physics - substances that slow down neutrons, but are not able to capture them;
in mechanical engineering - devices for reducing travel speed;
in agriculture, a mechanism used when harnessing horses and reducing the impact on them from the uneven movement of a wagon or other equipment;
in sociology, a person conducting opinion polls;
in the Anglo-American media - the host of the program (performances, discussions, quizzes, conversations);
on network resources - a user responsible for the order and compliance with the rules of communication.

Below we will consider who a moderator is exclusively in relation to communication on the Internet.

The work of an Internet moderator

Regardless of the scale of a particular Internet resource and the problems solved by its users, the moderator is responsible for maintaining order, correspondence of messages in the discussed topic or forum thread, as well as compliance with the rules and restrictions approved by the administration.

A network resource will be interesting to users and useful to visitors only when interactive communication is purposeful and structured.

To do this, the moderator has the right and opportunity:

delete or close topics and sections that violate the rules of the resource;
highlight important messages and raise them in the search results;
check the text of messages and all types of content posted by users for the absence of violations of the current legislation;
monitor the preservation of the theme of each branch of the forum;
edit user messages;
prevent spam (?), and other violations of generally accepted rules that impede normal work;
temporarily restrict the ability to communicate on the forum or in the chat of violators, up to member ban;
encourage users to take an active part in the work of the resource.

One of the most important tasks of a moderator is to resolve conflict situations that constantly arise between users, with minimal reputational losses for them.

Each person has the right to express his opinion, but in the heat of the discussion, he can become personal, start being rude or threaten other participants in the discussion (the one who does this all the time).

good moderator should stop him in a private message or a short block. In most cases, participants quickly cool down and continue to communicate normally.

The main value of any Internet resource is its users. Each of them carries his own vision of the world and the topics discussed, argues with others, shares his sore points and helps to solve other people's problems.

Any discussion implies the presence of different points of view, and the moderator who understands this will make every effort to conduct it peacefully.

The main requirements for a person appointed as a moderator of a forum or other resource are:

authority among users. As a rule, when communicating, leaders are very quickly identified, whose opinion is listened to by everyone, which greatly facilitates their work as a moderator;
psychological stability and the ability to remain neutral when discussing issues. The moderator cannot use his position to the detriment of the right to express other opinions of users;
ability go into conflict to maintain order, because you will often have to punish;
Availability a large number time to perform work on resource moderation;
good possession issues under discussion.

The problem of regulation and freedom of action of the moderator deserves special attention. A detailed regulation is great, but who can guarantee that it provides for all options for the development of events on the resource, types of punishments and rewards?

On the other hand, the excessive freedom of the moderator in determining the severity of the violation and the punishment for it can cause arbitrariness which will negatively affect relationships in the team.

There is no unequivocal solution to this problem, therefore, when appointing a moderator, the administration can rely solely on his common sense, experience in forum communication and authority among users.

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