Dan E Gray Designer & Community Manager

The Report Function

It might be obvious to some of you, but it's something that I can't stress enough: The report function is an essential part of running a large, healthy community.

Unless you can afford to hire a dozen extremely competent moderators providing around the clock coverage, community self moderation is key. This is one practical application of that, and a vital one, for a few reasons:

1) It eases the workload.

On the larger of the two communities I run there are one to two thousand people online at any time. There's no way I can guarantee complete coverage, even with forty volunteer moderators. Even if only one in ten of the online members uses the report function I immediately have massively improved coverage and response time.

2) It gives the community a healthy way to fight back.

There is some satisfaction in hitting the report button on a post if you know it will be dealt with. Without that healthy form of retribution people might resort to returning fire - doubling the problem and the workload.

3) It spreads responsibility.

The life of a moderator isn't easy, as they can occasionally be the target of complaints. The majority of  complaints we see are about issues not dealt with in a timely manner, most of which can be countered with a simple question: 'Well why didn't you report it?'

Do whatever you can to encourage use of the report feature. Even over-enthusiastic members who report dozens of posts a day are still doing you a  favor if only a couple of those areworth dealing with.