HELP WANTED: Volunteer moderators :)

[Rebecca Petris]

Responsibilities:

ANY or ALL of the following:

• Deleting spam ("guest" messages frequently posted in very old threads that clutter things up... this is the cost of allowing guest posts at all)
• Approving guest messages (and maybe if you're tech savvy you can find a more efficient way to find them and approve them in a timely manner, which we're totally failing on right now) so that it really is possible for people to participate with total anonymity
• Filing Open Forum threads in the treatment archives, which makes it so much easier for people to search on particular topics
• Keeping an eye out for anything inappropriate - like mean, bossy or "I know everything" posts where a little gentle intervention might be helpful
• Keeping an eye out for anything that smells promotional, and figuring out how to deal with it, or at least flagging it
• Keeping an eye out for anything libelous
• Keeping an eye out for anyone in serious emotional distress
• Manning the "report a post" feature
• Getting conversations going with other moderators and/or the whole community about how to handle any or all of the above
• Intervening in questionable situations, which helps the whole community but also helps prevent yours truly from intervening inappropriately when really emotionally strung out after a hard day, which, as you've seen, happens from time to time
• That's all I can think of off the top of my head, but I'm sure there's more, and I imagine you will probably have ideas of your own that are better!

Extra credit!

• Knowing or learning something about vBulletin to be able to make the forum better and more useful and practical for everyone, by taking advantage of features we aren't using presently
• Figuring out how to improve the visual aspect of the forum to make it as eye-friendly as possible
• Getting a vision for new and exciting ways to make this forum serve the community better!

Pay and benefits
Um........!

This position is meant to replace:

• Brent: DryEyeShop shipping guy, who used to manage approval of all new members, but who I can't afford to have 80 hrs/week right now, and so the only thing he gets time for is doing the vBulletin upgrades and addressing major database errors that crop up
• Chaidie: My daughter, who reads most things and knows all of you and your stories intimately and lets me know anytime she's worried about anybody and is always gently reminding me to pay attention to the things she's flagged for me in our internal system, but... is also a very busy high school junior who has some other responsibilities during her work hours especially now that we're getting the Dry Eye Foundation up and running
• Part of me: The part that wants to spend time interacting with people, but in the limited time I get on the forum at all, ends up deleting spam, approving guest messages that are already outdated, etc.

[Rebecca Petris]

p.s. When this forum first started, back in 2005, there were three of us - Mary, Cindy and I. Moderating was a really, really big deal to us. We had conference calls about it. We agonized over when to intervene and when to leave something alone, and when to deal with a member and how and why, and when to moderate a conversation and how and why. Times have changed a lot since then. Mary passed away and Cindy moved on. Time marched on. Social media is in a completely different place. I am feeling a little lost, and a little alone, and on the one hand seeing an amazing community here that doesn't need me, but on the other hand sometimes seeing a need for a team to do more here too. There are amazing people here, really amazing people here, and I am looking forward to the possibility of people considering stepping into some new roles in running the forum.

[Guest]

I'll offer to moderate... but, there are a lot of buts...

1. I honestly think the only items on your list I can offer to help with are these:

• Keeping an eye out for anything inappropriate - like mean, bossy or "I know everything" posts where a little gentle intervention might be helpful"
• Keeping an eye out for anything that smells promotional, and figuring out how to deal with it, or at least flagging it
• Keeping an eye out for anything libelous
• Intervening in questionable situations, which helps the whole community but also helps prevent yours truly from intervening inappropriately when really emotionally strung out after a hard day, which, as you've seen, happens from time to time

My eyes won't be able to handle the other stuff since that means spending extra time on the forums, whereas those 4 items I quoted can be done in the course of my normal forum browsing activity.

2. IF you take me up on my offer, I don't want you to feel even a tiny bit bad or worry even a tiny bit about over-riding any decisions I may make - because ultimately, this is still your forum. Look at any choices I may make as a suggestion that you are free to agree with, or reverse, solely at your discretion. Zero hard feelings will be had on my part.

And also, no pressure to say yes to my offer either - I will not have hurt feelings if you say no. Honestly. I want this to be a zero stress offer for you.

3. I can't promise to be on the forums super regularly... I have ebbs and flows depending on how my eyes are doing... but when I am here, I am happy to help as described in #1 above. I have my online biz that I need to get back to as soon as my eyes can handle it... so that's going to impact my ability to be on here. so I don't know... this kind of sounds like a crappy offer, doesn't it... so sorry! But I don't want to over-promise and under-deliver. I guess I'd be categorized as a very, very, very part-time moderator IF you decide that what little I can offer is of any use to you.

[Guest]

[*]Brent: DryEyeShop shipping guy, who used to manage approval of all new members, but who I can't afford to have 80 hrs/week right now, and so the only thing he gets time for is doing the vBulletin upgrades and addressing major database errors that crop up

I wonder if a different host for the forum might be able to help with some of this. I ran a vbulletin forum for a while and used URLJet for hosting. http://www.urljet.com/vbulletin-hosting.php Their support was excellent, and because one of their specialities is vBulletin they were a huge help in troubleshooting, installing forum software updates, etc. I don't know if they still do all that, but maybe it's worth asking them about it.

[Rebecca Petris]

Hey everybody, about these spammers who create accounts and revive old threads. I really appreciate everyone pointing them out so they can be deleted. FYI, I always delete the posts and ban the users when that happens unless there is any VERY obvious reason to imagine that the person is legit (if they were legit, they would be either posting a question or providing more information rather than just one-liners in ancient threads).

What would reallyhelp is if you could use the "flag" button at the lower right of the post - that actually emails me . What would help even more is if someone would volunteer for this part of the job It's not hard Two buttons and you're done.

[Milo007]

What would help even more is if someone would volunteer for this part of the job It's not hard Two buttons and you're done.

If you consider providing me with an opportunity I might try.

[deep_dry_eye]

I can volunteer for deleting spam.

[Rebecca Petris]

Circling back at last! Thank you so much Milo007 and deep_dry_eye for offering! I'll message you about this separately