I was made the moderator for the MSDN Virtual Earth Forums today. The idea is a moderator can help make the forums function better for everyone. How?
- Make sure Answers are marked as answers. This makes searching easier for others and also rewards the person who answers (Star system in place and top answer leader board)
- Create Sticky posts. A sticky post is stuck to the top of the forums, used wisely these can answer the immediate needs of common or timely questions and can prevent duplicate and repetitive posts.
- Remove duplicate posts. These annoy people that answer questions, typically it’s a glitch in the network connection or a page refresh and the poor user can be the target of the annoyance caused, simple solution – remove them.
- Make sure Comments are not posted as questions. Again it helps with the searching.
- Keep an eye out to ensure that everyone is treating one another with respect.
So from today onwards I’ll not only be answering questions but also helping to make the whole forum a better place. First up I’ll be clearing the very old sticky posts and adding a new FAQ and Resources post.