Online community host Alexandra started playing an online game as a hobby.
She started posting on a fan website for the game and became involved in the
online gaming community. She was asked to become a moderator for the website
by the administration because of her history as a member. She is a volunteer
forum moderator and works as a teacher.
Alexandra prefers not to use her full name. As a forum moderator, she protects
her full identity online. "I have people that 'love me' and some that 'love
to hate me,'" she says. She loves that she is able to spend her time interacting
with so many different people. They share their knowledge about gaming. It's
fun for her because they all have a lot in common.
She says the two "must-haves" for forum moderators are an outgoing personality
and passion about the product or topic of the forum.
Since the members of the online community build friendships, many members
look to the online community for help when they're having trouble.
Alexandra says the biggest challenge for her is accepting that she can't
fix everyone's problems. Although all age groups are represented in her online
community, she says the majority are teenagers. Many teens look to the site
for help with problems at school or with their parents.
"The community is where they feel the most comfortable," she explains.
She remembers a few years ago when one of the members of the site posted
that he was going to commit suicide. Another moderator was able to find his
personal information and called the authorities. The police were able to get
to the member's home and save his life.
"We're spread all across the world, so it's amazing to be able to get help
to that person," she says.
Alexander Rhodes was a member of a gaming community when it was smaller
and he was asked to become a volunteer moderator as it grew.
"You have to get lucky to get a paid position," he says. His community
for gaming products has about 150,000 users. He foresees the field growing,
especially around customer service support. For example, a forum for an online
giant like eBay will have forum moderators who also answer emails
and participate in live chats to support customers.
As part of his role, Rhodes writes guides for the products. Other users
continue to write the guides and expand upon his writing. "It's pretty nice
to see my hard work help the community to grow," he says.
Nick Bouton is a software developer by trade, focusing mostly on web applications.
On the side, he has designed and developed an online community, which he hosts
and moderates. Protagonize.com is a creative fiction writing community with
approximately 2,500 registered authors participating and many times that number
of unregistered readers.
The success of his community is its own reward.
"Every milestone and every piece of feedback I get from the community
feels like an accomplishment. It means a lot that people are using and appreciating
something you've created from scratch, and that they care enough to suggest
ways to improve it," says Bouton.
The online community is a part-time, second job for Bouton. He also has
a full-time, nine-to-five job. His responsibilities developing and moderating
Protagonize.com dominate his evenings and weekends. Just keeping up with demand
from the community is the most challenging part of his job.
"I'd say if you're going to do it as a career or business, it's definitely
worthwhile, but it'll eat up your life very quickly unless you can manage
your hours properly and limit your interaction with the community to a certain
amount of time a day. Also, unless you're running your own show, you'll probably
have a tough time finding paying work as a host/moderator. As a volunteer,
you really need to love the subject matter to be able to do it long-term,"
says Bouton.
Karl Nyen is the lead global moderator at Markee Dragon. He also owns a
web hosting company. He likes to spend his time helping others.
"I have always had a passion for helping people and companies out the best
I can. The other reason I really like being a forum moderator is because I
am usually a big forum poster on many websites so this gives me time to do
what I really love to do," says Nyen.
Nyen encourages people to take on this type of work. He suggests you start
small with a new, start-up forum or your own small forum. Once you gain some
experience you'll find out if it's what you want to do.
"It took me years to gain the knowledge and experience I have now about
forums and websites," he says.
Although he is passionate about his job, he says dealing with people's
behavior can be challenging. "Dealing with issues on the forums can be somewhat
related to being a police officer. You are there to enforce the rules and,
if they are not being followed, you are to take action," he says.
Josh Millard is the moderator/administrator at Metafilter Network LLC.
The members of the Metafilter community range from teenagers to retirees,
living all over the world, and studying or working in a variety of fields.
Millard enjoys interacting and learning from his community. He resolves
questions about the policy and practices of the site. He doesn't see himself
as an enforcer, as few of the community's rules are strict. He sees his role
as a mediator of disputes and conflicts.
"I work with the user base to understand how the community as a whole feels
about policy, and how I do my job sometimes changes based on the feedback
I get from them. The daily interactions are fascinating to me, and I get
a lot of enjoyment out of helping users understand why we make the decisions
we do," says Millard.
Working successfully with truly upset users is one of the biggest challenges
this work presents. Members can be very emotional, use harsh language and
make accusations.
"The ability to keep a cool head and stay polite, reasonable and sympathetic
in the midst of unpleasant reactions and criticism is just about the most
important requirement for this line of work. And because everybody can have
a bad day, keeping this up can be one of the hardest parts of the job," says
Millard.
He says that cool-headed people who don't react easily to criticism make
the best moderators.
"Moderation is a fun and fascinating job, but it's not for everyone," he
says.