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The truth is, I have been attempting to change this for awhile now. I am huge fan of the Wiki model that has been popularized by Wikipedia and other websites as to update and maintain information, allowing anyone to participate in the moderation of content, with "Undo" mechanics as to prevent abuse. After a few edits, I have now found a way of going about this with my forum software, and so I want to announce today that all members with 10 posts or higher now have the ability to moderate these forums!
You'll notice a new link at the top of your page, to the left of your user control panel. Let's start here.
This is the moderator control panel. As you can see, there are three sections. For now, we'll skip over the first one, but more information will be provided later.
The second section, titled "Unapproved content" allows you to see all content that guests (those without an account) have posted. All guest content is automatically hidden until a moderator approves it.
The third section, titled "Removed content" is for content that moderators have actively hidden. That makes it super easy to find all removed content on a single page. You can browse by hidden topics or by hidden posts, by clicking the buttons at the top.
While browsing topics, you now have the ability to hide any posts that you do not feel to be appropriate for the forum. This includes trolling, spamming, flaming, and other problematic behaviour, to your own discretion. Provide a reason when prompted. Those who do not provide any reasoning, or are found to be deleting content just for the sake of messing up the forum or showing off their power, may lose their moderator privileges.
Once a post has been hidden, it will still appear in the topic, but it will be red, the moderator explanation for its removal will be present, and the original content of the post will not be visible. You can view the original content of the post by clicking the "Toggle Post Content" button. If after reading it, you feel that it should not have been deleted, you click the "Unhide" button.
If you want to hide an entire topic, check the top of the topic view, next to the "Reply" button. You have several options here, including the ability to lock topics (prevent futher posting), unlock topics, move topics, and hide topics. Most are self explanatory.
However, when moving topics, please follow this guideline: Topics being moved to the Riot Zone should not have the "Leave a link..." checkbox checked. Topics moved anywhere else should.
A few moderator features have been disabled, but they're the ones that I don't use either. This includes editing people's posts (if they are inappropriate, you can just remove them), and editing people's accounts. There is currently no easy way to restore information that has been edited out. Another feature I have disabled is moving posts from one topic to another. Not that I don't trust you guys, but there's just currently no easy way for this to be tracked either, and it would make the job that much more difficult for all of us.
Please let me know what you think, and whether you have any comments or concerns. Please remember that abusing this is the fastest way to get your moderation abilities taken away; perhaps even for the entire board. Play nice everyone.
