Moderation Tools
Abuse/Spam Flags
This is done with our reactions add-on. Abuse/Spam are their own reactions that you can enable or disable.
If a post has been flagged as spam or abuse five times by a regular member, or once by an admin/mod, it will be placed in the Spam Queue or Moderation Queue respectively for review by an Admin or Mod.
Please note that Akismet as well as StopForumSpam also sends items to the Spam Queue
Warnings and Notes
Warnings & Notes is an add-on that allows your Admins & Mods to warn users for specific posts, or just general “bad behaviour.” This adds moderation notes to user profiles when warning them, and notes can also be added outside of the warning system. These notes are only visible to admins & mods.
If a user receives enough warnings, they are eventually jailed as punishment (i.e. they can’t start new discussions, and are spam controlled (i.e. they can only post once every few minutes), and if they continue their behaviour and receive more warnings against them, they are banned (when they have 5 points against them).
This works on a demerit point system. The points are lifted after a few days or weeks, so it allows you to add some level of automation to your moderation process.
Your Vanilla forums starts with minor and major violations, but this can easily be changed to suit your needs. (in choosing the # of points for each level, please note that 5 points bans a user)
In order to warn a user, hit ‘flag’ then ‘warn’, where you can write a private message to the user, as well as message visible only to admins & mods
To see these warnings, simply navigate to the user’s profile, and click on ‘moderation’ on the right hand side. Alternatively, you can navigate there directly by heading to http://yourforum.com/profile/notes/[username]
Reporting
Reporting is an addon that adds a “Report” reaction and a “Reported Posts” category. When a post is reported, it is copied and sent to the reported posts category where Admins & Mods can discuss the best course of action for this user and the post is question.
In order for mods to access the reported posts, they can click on the ‘gear’ icon, then select ‘reported post’
Alternatively, they can navigate to their notification preferences, and choose to be notified whenever a new post arrives in the Reported Posts http://yourforum.com/profile/preferences/[username]
You can leave this blank, or add generic reasons for users to select (or both)
Troll Management
Allows you to mark a user as a Troll. When a user is a troll they are not prevented from post discussions or comments, and they are not banned from signing into the community. What this does is, it hides their discussions and comments from all other users, leading the troll believing that they are being ignored - i.e. their behaviour is not being rewarded.
Swear Word Filter
Civil Tongue is an addon where you create a list of words you would like to censor in your community, and you choose a word or symbols to replace those words when they are used. With this you can rest assured that profanity is not polluting your community.
Notifications
Depending on where which of the tools you set up / how a post is reported, those undesired posts and comments can go a couple of different places.
As a Community Manager, it is important to check in to your Spam Queue, Mod Queue and Reported posts on a regular basis.
Your Mebox:
Check out your Mebox for a quick overview of what you’ve missed since the last time you’ve looked, here you will see how many new items you have pending in your Spam Queue, Moderation Queue, and Reported Posts.