The Role of a Moderator
As a moderator on 6502ish, you are a community leader, not a police officer. Your job is to keep conversations productive, help members feel welcome, and step in only when needed.
What Moderators Do
- Facilitate discussion — encourage good threads, welcome new members, ask follow-up questions
- Maintain standards — enforce community guidelines consistently and fairly
- Resolve conflicts — de-escalate arguments before they spiral
- Protect the community — remove spam, handle harassment, and address bad actors
- Set the tone — your behavior models what you expect from everyone else
What Moderators Do NOT Do
- Power trip — your tools exist to help the community, not to win arguments
- Play favorites — rules apply equally to everyone, including your friends
- Over-moderate — not every disagreement needs intervention. Let people disagree.
- Moderate while angry — if something makes you mad, take a break before acting
- Make it personal — address behavior, not the person
The 90/10 Rule
90% of your time should be spent participating normally — posting, replying, helping. Only 10% should involve moderation actions. If you are spending most of your time moderating, something is wrong with the community dynamics and it needs to be escalated, not hammered.
Your Authority
As a forum moderator, your authority is limited to the forums you moderate. You cannot take action in forums outside your scope. Super moderators have authority across an entire category. Neither can ban users from the site — that is an admin-level action.
When in doubt, escalate. It is always better to ask than to overstep.