Challenges of Moderation

• Cost (Facillities and Staffing)
• Managing Member Expectations
• Community Guidlines are based on Subjective concepts (Politeness, Decency, Civility..etc..)
• Stopping determined violators (Spam, content, etc..) can be daunting.
• Whether to Post or Pre moderate?
• Managing real time member generated content is difficult (IRC chat, message board, uploded photos).
• Pending Legislation may affect the sorts of content members may allow. Websites may be considered "secondary producers" of any content they host (See 2257).
• User generated content can be linked to Revenue.

Social Approaches:

• Be open to new approaches and feedback.
• Clear and easy to find Rules of Conduct.
• Having a path of appeal in regards to moderated content.
• Open Communication with members regarding Procedures.

Giving moderation tools to users

• User activated filters
• Reputation Rating (users with low ratings my find their post lower on heirarchy)
• Stealth Moderation (Members who's accounts receive excessive reports, are automatically banned).
• Elevating and Promoting member content to the homepage.
• Allowing members to create their own spaces, in which they have moderator control.

Working with Volunteers

• Replace the word "manage" with "Cooridinate" from your vocabulary when working with volunteers.
• It may be best to have volunteers report issues, rather then take action themselves.
• Set realistic expectations with volunteers.
• Non-Profits have more leeway with volunteers the for profits.

SPAM

• Member can be extremely emotional regrading this issue
• Develop clear and honest member communications (TOS) re spam.
• User reporting is a reliable way to manage spam.

Links:

• Link to Community Guidlines recenly updated by Tom Dotson for Planetout Inc.
• Tom Dotson's Professional Blog: http://55Bytes.com
• User Generated Content Lessons By Doug Wintz (Imedia)
• Can user - generated content generate revenue? (PWC.com)
• Fair to Moderate? Guidlines on managing user generated content (Emoderation.com White Paper)