FINCHforum

Letter to the Membership, Part 2: Moderator Appreciation

In the first part of my letter to the membership, I gave sincere thanks to you, yes you, as an individual who helps build this community, for making this forum so great and informative. We really wouldn't HAVE a forum to enjoy if it was not for you!

But I would be remiss if I didn’t also thank our moderating team for the fantastic job they do here every day, and for all of their hard work and dedication to this forum, and yes, to you. There is much they should take credit for, a bow for, and heck even rewards for, in my opinion, and yet they expect nothing in return except to “serve” for a “cause they believe in” (namely, this forum and its members). The least I could do was write this letter of thanks to show my deepest appreciation for them. I hope that by the time you’re done reading this, you will be just as proud as I am to have this forum in such capable and caring hands!

But just in case you have never been a “full time moderator” on an active forum with a sizeable membership, I wanted to give you a glimpse into their world. We have almost 2000 people who have created an account, and more members joining daily. Every day, our moderator team assumes responsibility for doing what they can to help look out for each of those people as individuals, while also maintaining the forum & catering to the membership as a whole. This is a huge task when you consider the number of members, their needs, the number of threads, the number of posted replies to those threads, the needs of the forum as a whole, my crazy antics, and so forth.

In case you’ve never had the pleasure of assuming a moderator role at a forum similar to this one, here is a seemingly long but really not anywhere near complete list of the tasks which a moderator is generally expected to do:

• Prevent spammers (here our moderators hand approve each application for membership, then screen potential new members for signs that they are truly here for the birds—as opposed to spammers in bird-lovers’ clothing—before setting new members “loose on the forums” so to speak.)
• Delete spam (Have you seen any recently? Not in a long time you say? You can thank your moderating team!!)
• Delete double posts.
• Move threads to the most pertinent forum to keep things organized.
• Split topics where a discussion has gone “off topic” to create a new thread; or “merge” topics that are similar into the same thread
• Lock threads where applicable
• Make announcements

This may be the type of stuff you are familiar with, the “nuts and bolts” functions of a moderator. But even though that list is pretty long, it turns out that those functions are only a SMALL part of their “real job,” and the job they strive to be amazing at every day. Not only do moderators here perform a variety of “nuts and bolts” functions, but they are also asked/encouraged to take responsibility for the following:

• Keeping the forum a positive place and protecting its members by balancing the desire to give members their freedom of expression with enforcing the terms of service for this board.
• Remaining impartial and diplomatic in matters of settling conflict.
• Remaining professional, approachable, and available to answer questions/concerns regarding the forum itself and its features.
• Collaborating and working as a team.
• Keeping the forum relevant by looking into solving any site-related problems that come to their attention, making recommendations for improvements, and implementing new subforums where there is demand.

Keep in mind that none of us, to the best of my knowledge, has had any formal training/education in management, psychology, or counseling, and also that none of us is getting paid to do this (this forum doesn’t generate or create incomes, but exists solely and exclusively as an altruistic act for the finch-loving public). In fact, we are probably just the same as most of you—finch addicts who do what we do for free, because we are passionate about what we do; in other words, we find intrinsic reward in it. Which is to say 3 things: 1) holy cow this team’s performance is impressive!, 2) this team really doesn’t get paid nearly enough for all that they are asked to do (don’t tell them I said that or they might go on strike until I am willing to give out wages! ;) ), and 3) we can’t possibly be perfect, but darn it we still strive for being awesome, so we are always open to constructive feedback and anything that can help us get even better at doing what we’re passionate about.

Note that I did not write “creating goodwill” in our moderator team’s list of responsibilities. Although this is arguably the most valid role of a moderator, I am incredibly lucky that I have never had to ask my moderators to know that their primary role here is not the nuts and bolts functions or even the “policing” functions, but rather to encourage interaction, member involvement, and a sense of community within this forum. The reason that I’m disclosing this information is that I know a lot of you, maybe even most of you, find the members of our team very charming, helpful, & friendly, and view them as peers in this community. I know I do. I also want you to know that this isn’t them pretending “because it’s their job.” This is simply them being them. They really are that amazing.

Even though it sounds like I’m gushing here… okay I’ll fully admit I’m gushing here (and for good reason!!), please know that no one put me up to writing this letter. I mean every word of it, from the bottom of my heart. So Hilary, Janine, Liz, Sally – thank you. Your dedication and hard work is truly inspiring. I hope this letter didn’t embarrass any of you:0)

So in closing, fellow finch enthusiast, feel free to hug a moderator in appreciation for all they do to benefit you and our community as a whole. :0) And by all means, if you can ever think of something we could be doing differently or better that would improve YOUR experience on this forum, do not hesitate to let any of us know!! We are all ears and eager to make this forum better than ever!!

…And if you’re curious what the moderator team has been working on recently, let me tell you there are some exciting developments on the horizon! We’re updating our terms of service, sprucing up our privacy policy, creating moderator guidelines, and more! Feel free to let us know how we’re doing and if there’s anything else you’d like to see done around here! :0) PM us individually or drop us a line to our new shared group e-mail account: support@finchforum.com !

Thank you Crystal, Liz, Hilary, Sally and Janine for all you give and do for this forum. Thank you for taking the time from your own lives to make this forum what it is...a wonderful place to enjoy, learn and share our experiences. Thank you for being here daily to help answer questions, shar your experience, fix an issue or just give an encouraging word!

Without you this forum would not be what it is, thank you...and hugs!!!!

I can't imagine how much work this must be - and yet it all appears to run by itself - an unmistakeable mark of a job really well done. Thank you all.

I can´t agree more with you. I know that your reward is seeing that more people, (from all places of the world!) are enthusiastic with having finches.
I can tell you that in my city and in other cities in Mexico, I have known about people who breed canaries, but very few (that I know of) have finches, and the ones that breed canaries have them in very small cages, sometimes very clean and well taken care of, but when I read in this forum and look at the pictures... I see this is different, is having birds in a different way. You motivate us to do it as well as we can.
I can only say thank you very much!

I was an admin for a forum! i know what that is like and i would like to say, Thank you mods! i can agree that it is very hard work to do all of the stuff you do now, and what you guys do makes the forum SUCH a wonderful place!
thank you!

thanks mods...we appreciate all you do! you guys are the best!

Thank you Crystal, Hilary, Janine, Liz and Sally for all you do!
a hug for each of you

I absolutely and totally agree with all these comments and Crystal's message! I moderate a pre-teen/teen forum and we have way more mods than on FF and we still have so much to do daily. No mods are paid, but give their time to help facilitate a positive and educational experience.

Great job to Liz, Janine, Sally, Hilary and Crystal!
I love to login and read/reply to posts and receive feedback/info/ and encouragement about my finches. A great site and a great endeavor for the finch keeping community!

Thank you guys so much for showing your appreciation:0) It really means the world to us!!

Thank you all so much, you are all too kind, including you Crystal. It's a privilege and pleasure for me to be one of the moderators here.

Thank you for continuing to make this such a great forum!

Thank you Crystal and everyone for the continued support
It is an honor and a privilege to be a member of this wonderful community.

(((hugs))))) to each of you. Your the best!!!!!

Aw how nocely written! They never get thanked enough, but thanks to Liz, Sally, Hilary & Janine!!! Hope I did not forget one! Oh wait, you too Crystal!!! Lol, also, I think my favorite part of this enitre thing was these two sentences, which made me laugh:

Have you seen any recently? Not in a long time you say?

Thanks again!!!