WebJunction

Welcome Aboard!

We'd like to extend a warm welcome and thank you for your interest in joining the team of moderators on All Aboard, the message board at WebJunction. Our online community for library staff has been growing for well over a year. The ongoing conversation on the message boards plays a vital role in the ways the community shares knowledge, solves problems, and looks to the future.

This kit will help you get started as a forum moderator.

Introduce yourself to the community

First, in order to participate on All Aboard, you’ll need to register with WebJunction.

It’s easy! Go to http://www.WebJunction.org, click Register in the right column, and fill out the form. Please provide as much information for your member profile as possible.

Next, write a brief introduction about yourself —your expertise, work experience, interests and hobbies— for the Meet Your Moderators page. Although the community is virtual, it helps to put a human face on the interactions, so send your short bio and a picture of yourself (headshots are best) to WebJunction staff.

You have plenty of good examples to follow from your fellow moderators.

« Your Role as an All Aboard Forum Moderator

Forum moderators are first and foremost WebJunction community members, committed to supporting each other in our work to provide the best possible open access to knowledge in our libraries and organizations. As moderators, you take on the additional role of leading and facilitating the conversations that take place on All Aboard.

Moderators are principally responsible for:

1. welcoming new members
    
2. nurturing conversations and facilitating information exchange
    
3. managing discussions in your forum
    
4. keeping your Community Coordinator in the loop

It’s as simple as that.

« The Finer Points of Online Community Building

Moderating is an art. Here are a few guidelines and pointers to get you started.

1. welcoming new members

• Welcome new visitors to your forum by acknowledging them; this is especially important if they did not introduce themselves in the Getting Started forum. You don’t need to have an answer to their questions in order to offer a warm “hello” and “how are ya?”
• If a new member replies to a post (rather than posting a new topic), you can welcome them by adding your two cents to that thread —with a welcome as an aside (Such as, “Nice point about ISPs, Jackie (and Welcome!). I’d add that ….”)
• Check the boards at least once per working day; be sure to let me know if you will be unable to do this for any reason.
• You can set up an RSS feed or topic watches to alert you to new postings in your specific forum.

2. nurturing conversations and facilitating information exchange

• Familiarize yourself with WebJunction’s content and style; the content is all about significant issues confronting public libraries in terms of technology, policies, funding, and more; our style is funky and playful.
• Stimulate discussion by providing open-ended questions, highlighting trends, and pointing out provocative issues. Be creative in your direction to the information folks are looking for, whether it’s with WebJunction content, referral to another person, or something you found on the Web.
• There is no specific requirement to post new leading questions when there has not been any activity in your forum, but keep in mind that you are the gardener —the more attention you give to the conversation (the more seeds you plant), the more it will flourish.
• Keep in mind that there is a balance to be found here between facilitating and dominating. Your ultimate goal is to encourage participation in the discussion. Appearing to dominate as the sole subject authority can kill the conversation. You can give posts a few days to garner attention from others before jumping in.
• Be on the lookout for * super star * participants. We may want to give them special honors, contact them about moderating in the future, or whatever …

3. managing discussions in your forum

• Make sure you read and understand the “All Aboard Policies and Guidelines.”
• To help you monitor the activity in your category, moderators are given special permission on the WJ boards to edit, delete, or move topics and attachments. When you are logged in to WJ, you should see this array of tools in the right-hand corner of each post:
   
  If you don't see the lock, delete, and move icons, notify your coordinator to reinstate your permissions.

  	lock: If you lock a message that you post, no replies are allowed. This is an appropriate choice for a 'welcome' message.
  	delete: Use this one sparingly --it is a last resort for inappropriate posts. Note: any member has the option to delete their own posts.
  	move: You can move an entire thread (a topic and all replies) to another forum or category on All Aboard. Notice that this icon only appears in the first post in a thread.
  	branch: When a thread of messages goes off-topic, it is desirable to split those posts from the original topic and start a new topic, either in the same forum or elsewhere. Note: The only way to move post(s) to the middle of another thread is to copy/paste it manually, leaving a note of explanation in the original location.

• When our community guidelines have been violated by a member (posting an ad, for example) we generally try to catch their post the day-of. We haven’t had to deal too much with this (knocking on wood now!).
• Send an email to the member to notify them of the violation; you may ask them to edit or delete their post. You will find templates for responding to inappropriate messages in the private moderator's forum. If it is blatantly offensive spam, you may delete it immediately.
• Send your coordinator an email about the situation.
• Reports summarizing the All Aboard activity are published monthly and are available to the moderators through the private My Admins forum. You will need to login to WJ in order to see the forum.
  http://webjunction.org/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=1037&tstart

4. keeping your Community Coordinator in the loop

• Keep in touch! We don’t want to interrupt your work flow or make you feel like we’re looking over your shoulder, but please keep your coordinator posted on what’s shakin’ in your neck of the woods. Also, use the private Moderators’ forum to discuss issues with other moderators.
• Here are a few things we need to hear from you:
  
  • When someone posts a question that you or another member cannot answer (within two working days)
  • When a post seems inappropriate or misplaced (immediately)
  • When someone makes a suggestion for content, functionality, or processes related to the message boards or WebJunction in general (once a week)
  • Recommendations for star participants or potential moderators (when they come up)
  • How things are going for you!! (at your leisure and/or your coordinator will be checking in every so often)

« How to Contact Coordinators or Other Moderators

The names of the other moderators are listed under each forum title and description. You can look these folks up in the WebJunction Member Directory if you'd like to contact them directly by email. Please let us know if you do not want your contact information published to other moderators.

Chrystie Hill is currently the über-moderator for WJ. You can contact her at any time by email or phone.

There is also a forum just for moderators, which makes it easier to bounce ideas and suggestions around within the group. Once you have signed up and registered, you will be given special access to the forum in your WJ Admins category on All Aboard.

We use the WJ_MODS list serv (we're all subscribed) for more urgent questions or announcements.

« Want to learn more about Online Communities?

As if that’s not enough, here are a few more resources that can give you some pointers.

Some Considerations for Facilitating Online Interaction
http://www.fullcirc.com/community/onlinefacilitationbasics.html

Author Nancy White shares many insights into starting and encouraging conversations, pacing, dealing with problems, and other ways of engaging with the community.

Community Member Roles and Types
http://www.fullcirc.com/community/memberroles.htm

Also from White, this article will prepare you for some of the participants on WJ’s message boards, although none of our members reaches any of the extremes of the archetypes described.

The Art of Hosting Good Conversations Online
http://www.emoderators.com/moderators/artonlinehost.html

This is a great article about the facilitator role from Howard Rheingold, one of the originators of the first —and perhaps most influential— virtual community, The Well.

Online Discussions: Benton's Lessons Learned
http://www.benton.org/publibrary/practice/lessons/forumlessons.html

This article from the Benton Foundation shares some lessons learned from direct experience. Look for the section on “It takes a moderator to build a community” (near the bottom) to pick up some proven good strategies.

TechSoup community forums
http://www.techsoup.org >> click on Discussions  >> click on Virtual Communities

Check out this ongoing forum discussion about many aspects of Virtual Communities —building them, using them, moderating them and more. This is online community in action.