I'm sure the site you moderated was entirely uneventful at all times grin kitty It was surprisingly civilised most of the time & we rarely had to intervene. I think the members probably had enough aggro in their daily lives to bother stirring it up with fellow sufferers
If we have concerns about a poster's wellbeing and report it are you able to do anything? I think the problem there kitty is that it isn't just the poster's wellbeing. Taking Sunday's thread as an example, I felt concern for several other GN members too and the effect it was having on them. I imagine it would be impossible for the moderators to deal with the collective outfall other than to remove the thread.
Hello, we understand your concerns and we are sorry that the thread on Sunday wasn't dealt with as quickly as we'd like. We promise it wasn't a case of a mod nodding off after too many gins. We are around most of the time - ideally we wouldn't want to advertise our off hours for nosey spammers - and do our best in terms of prioritising the reports that need addressing first. As ever, we do rely on users to report anything that looks amiss so please do carry on doing that for us. It's really helpful.
I am one of 4 moderators on a large world wide support site for 10,000 + members. There is an overseeing body if we need advice on dealing with something such as a difficult member but the running of the day to day stuff is down to us volunteers. I’ve been doing it for 12 years. No pay, just a want to help people. It is a different set up. There are no shifts. Just when we can. I spend about 3 hours total each day on the site. The others probably more than me. Volunteers really do their best.
We could of course moderate ourselves on a Sunday evening by withdrawing from the thread, leaving the person causing the nonsense talking to themselves.
On Mumsnet there is ‘the nightwatch’ They are volunteers who assist and monitor the site. They are I believe unpaid and not actually staff. I don’t think I’ve seen that here. But then it would be more common for Mumsnet to be used throughout the night I guess.
They would have to employ more than twice as many people to have a moderator on duty 24/7. The ones doing anti-social hours would be paid accordingly, and the costs of employing anyone are almost as much again as their salary. It would even more likely that there would be either a subscription charge or more ads, without any option to avaid them, whether they were random or directed by the mention of triggering words in posts.
What would you think a reasonable time for a moderator to be available though kitty? It would be a bit unrealistic wouldn’t it, to expect Lara, Justine & co to be online and awake at 3 o’clock in the morning in case someone decided to have a go at someone?
Yes, I agree with both of you, it would be very helpful to know. Over recent months some unpleasant issues have arisen occasionally and I am quite a diligent reporter, but sometimes it feels like my reports go into the void, for up to 12 hours.
GNHQ may avoid making the information public for fear that it would create an opportunity for those of malicious intent, to have a field day ... Let’s see what they say kitty...
I agree it would be good to know kittylester. Some months ago, I also tried to report a thread, quite late at night over a weekend, due to the relentless bullying and victimisation of one poor poster by a couple of others. It was very distressing to see and went on relentlessly until GNHQ pitched up many hours later and dealt with it.
This is not really a thread about a thread but prompted by a thread!!
Can we know when moderators are available please?
I reported a thread on Sunday night as I was genuinely concerned about the health of a poster......as well as cross. Not sure whether anyone would have been able to step in but does this experience mean that we can run riot on sunday evenings?