Non-Urgent Mod Team Messaging

[jim]

I know at the moment we use the "report post" function fairly extensively, so that all of the mod team are alerted to potentially offensive/illegal/advertising posts and can remove them ASAP.

However, that's clearly labelled as being only for the above. On other forums I've seen, quite successfully utilised, a similar system that's for less urgent matters. So for example, if you see somebody who's posted a thread in the wrong section, you could send a message to let the moderating team know that it needs to be moved. Equally if you posted a thread in the wrong section, you could do the same. Or if you had a query, say you wanted to know whether it would be okay to start a thread discussing the implications of software piracy on the chicken farming industry.

In each instance at the moment your only real option is to PM a moderator, but then who do you pick? If you PM all of them, each has to take up their time answering the same question, but if you only send it to one then either they might not be online for a week... or one person who's perceived as being "most active" ends up answering every single request when any of the team could have resolved the issue. Quite a few times now I've noticed something that needed looking at, or had a query about a contentious issue, and just haven't bothered bringing it up because I wouldn't want to harass the same mod/admin all the time.

I admit that a system like that wouldn't be all that easy to implement, so maybe something else could work. What if there was a certain character string people were told to use, such as "Hexusmodteam". It wouldn't appear by chance in your average post, so if you wanted to draw attention to a thread you could post something like: "Hexusmodteam: thread needs moving to hardware forum". Then if a mod has a spare minute or two to do some work on hexus, they just run a search for "Hexusmodteam" and anything that needed doing would appear. Then once it's sorted the tag is removed and the "to do" list is effectively deleted.

Not a major problem, I admit, as we're not talking about serious violations of forum policy - that's what the report post function is for. It's just that every so often I feel like I need to use a feature like that and consequently I don't report the problem - for the sake of not causing hassle.

[directhex]

I'll give you Zak33's phone number. Hang on...

[0iD]

I'll show this to the Admin team, see if they think it's do-able

[Steve]

I think as long as people done over-use it, the "report post" method for raising such issues will be OK

[0iD]

Or PM one/all of the mods responsible for that section, noted at the bottom of each section index page. It's not a problem

[Jay]

not all mods have their PMs turned on though

[jim]

Fair enough

Reading:

This is ONLY to be used to report spam, advertising messages, and problematic (harassment, fighting, or rude) posts.

I had assumed that given the capital letters on the ONLY you were quite insistent on us not using it for anything else, so I'd kept away from it for fear of being trodden on rather firmly by one of the mods.

Mind you, you've all descended on this with admirable speed

[0iD]

Always watching

[Jay]

Hexus mods takes on the fight against piracy

[Zak33]

PM someone who's ONLINE... go to the main page, look at the bottom and see who's on

[Saracen]

One option might be a dedicated "report" forum where non-mods could only see and respond to there OWN threads. I'll have a think about that.

[DavidM]

Or perhaps something like Kayako - nice system...