I wanted to publicly share a few observations about our expanded moderator team and the role of moderators in this forum. All of this information has been privately given to the moderators themselves.
In the past week, we've expanded the moderator team from two (OldGreyEagle and HopsScout) to seven. The people selected to join the moderator team were chosen for a variety of reasons (and many, many others were also considered to be excellent candidates, and from time to time we expect this moderator team to change and others asked to serve). OGE (let's call him "Moderator Emeritus" for now) has asked to step away from the role for a bit. HopsScout, the one Scout on our team, will continue to do a great job for us, and hopefully injects some much needed "Scout perspective" into our team.
The other new members of the team: Eamonn, Acco, Fscouter, JohnDaigler, Uncle Guinea all have shown a commitment to advancing the discussion in this forum, and a willingness to act fairly and moderate in the way they interact in the discussion. You will also notice that this new team represents a fairly broad spectrum of opinions and perspectives, and is intended to be very balanced. They all have shown they have Scouting's best interests at heart.
This team will work within their group to help guide each other and make some collective decisions when appropriate.
The role of the moderator in this forum is not very heavy handed. In fact, the moderator role should rarely - if ever - be noticed.
They can edit, move and delete posts within the forum to help keep things organized and ensure quality content. On rare occasion, the Moderator might need to step in and edit or remove a post that violates the Rules of Decorum for the Forum. It is a shame when a Moderator has to do this, and it doesn't happen very often. Sometimes a Moderator may close a thread, which is not done to force the end of any discussion. It's meant simply to bring a pause to a discussion which may have gone off course, and any topic that is closed may easiily be restarted in a new thread if the forum member desires. The Moderator is not here to censor opinions, just to keep the discussions honest and filter out the non-sense, if necessary.
I've said this before: A big part of the moderator's role is simply to "guide" the discussion forward. Moderators are at the wheel of our little boat, rolling gently down the river. We're all in the same boat, heading in the same direction together. Moderator's just try to keep us between the shores, and occasionally speed or slow the boat when things might get out of hand. (And once in a while our moderators might chase off the occasional loon that tries perching on our deck.)
The moderators are not restricted from contributing their own opinions - heck, we hope they will. And when they do so, everyone (including them) should feel as if they are speaking simply as another member of the forum, expressing their own points of view. No "status" comes from being a moderator, only cheerful service to help improve the experience for those posting in this forum and the more than 100,000 others that read here each month.
TERRY HOWERTON
In the past week, we've expanded the moderator team from two (OldGreyEagle and HopsScout) to seven. The people selected to join the moderator team were chosen for a variety of reasons (and many, many others were also considered to be excellent candidates, and from time to time we expect this moderator team to change and others asked to serve). OGE (let's call him "Moderator Emeritus" for now) has asked to step away from the role for a bit. HopsScout, the one Scout on our team, will continue to do a great job for us, and hopefully injects some much needed "Scout perspective" into our team.
The other new members of the team: Eamonn, Acco, Fscouter, JohnDaigler, Uncle Guinea all have shown a commitment to advancing the discussion in this forum, and a willingness to act fairly and moderate in the way they interact in the discussion. You will also notice that this new team represents a fairly broad spectrum of opinions and perspectives, and is intended to be very balanced. They all have shown they have Scouting's best interests at heart.
This team will work within their group to help guide each other and make some collective decisions when appropriate.
The role of the moderator in this forum is not very heavy handed. In fact, the moderator role should rarely - if ever - be noticed.
They can edit, move and delete posts within the forum to help keep things organized and ensure quality content. On rare occasion, the Moderator might need to step in and edit or remove a post that violates the Rules of Decorum for the Forum. It is a shame when a Moderator has to do this, and it doesn't happen very often. Sometimes a Moderator may close a thread, which is not done to force the end of any discussion. It's meant simply to bring a pause to a discussion which may have gone off course, and any topic that is closed may easiily be restarted in a new thread if the forum member desires. The Moderator is not here to censor opinions, just to keep the discussions honest and filter out the non-sense, if necessary.
I've said this before: A big part of the moderator's role is simply to "guide" the discussion forward. Moderators are at the wheel of our little boat, rolling gently down the river. We're all in the same boat, heading in the same direction together. Moderator's just try to keep us between the shores, and occasionally speed or slow the boat when things might get out of hand. (And once in a while our moderators might chase off the occasional loon that tries perching on our deck.)
The moderators are not restricted from contributing their own opinions - heck, we hope they will. And when they do so, everyone (including them) should feel as if they are speaking simply as another member of the forum, expressing their own points of view. No "status" comes from being a moderator, only cheerful service to help improve the experience for those posting in this forum and the more than 100,000 others that read here each month.
TERRY HOWERTON
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