Message Boards: The Role Of The Moderator

Written by Richard Lowe


Most people have visited a message board at one time or another in their life. I would guess thatrepparttar vast majority has never posted anything at all, preferring just to lurk (view) rather than to contribute their ideas and thoughts. Most of those that have contributed have posted useful input to discussions which are valued by many ofrepparttar 119049 subscribers torepparttar 119050 board.

It'srepparttar 119051 small minority, however, which has createdrepparttar 119052 need for moderators. These arerepparttar 119053 people who read all ofrepparttar 119054 articles and comments posted to a board and ensure that they are suitable forrepparttar 119055 audience.

Moderators are very necessary. If you've ever visited a board (orrepparttar 119056 near cousins: newsgroups and elists) which is not moderated, you know exactly what I mean. These often are filled with spam ofrepparttar 119057 worst sort: silly money making programs and pornography. Quite often they degenerate into meaningless collections of junk visited by no one except automated spamming programs.

I always find it sad when I visit a board in this condition. I mean someone put some effort into creating a community onrepparttar 119058 web, then for whatever reason neglected or abandoned it. The truly sad boards are those that were obviously active, useful areas full of vibrant communications which have degenerated into uselessness. It's exactly repparttar 119059 same feeling I get every time I visitrepparttar 119060 long abandoned Marineland in Southern California. Kind of an uncomfortable, ghost- town-like spookiness ofrepparttar 119061 wrongness that permeatesrepparttar 119062 area. What isrepparttar 119063 job of a moderator?

Some boards require user registration. In very strictly moderated boards, a moderator must approve each person who registers to access repparttar 119064 board. This allows some measure of control over who can post. Security levels can further restrict what visitors can do. Good judgment in allowing people to joinrepparttar 119065 group can obviaterepparttar 119066 need for extreme policing of postings. In other words, don't allow repparttar 119067 bad apples intorepparttar 119068 barrel inrepparttar 119069 first place.

Postings are policed. You can have two forms of moderation. In one form, articles are posted automatically. They are reviewed byrepparttar 119070 moderator after they are posted torepparttar 119071 board. Moderators can delete postings which do not measure up to board standards. Personally, I dislike this kind of moderation, since unnecessary postings are available for reading untilrepparttar 119072 moderator reviews them.

Inrepparttar 119073 second form, a moderator must review each posting before it appears onrepparttar 119074 board. This makes for a cleaner experience, although it demands a lot more work fromrepparttar 119075 moderator.

Internet Privacy: Is This A Joke or What?

Written by Richard Lowe


How many times have you surfed to a new site, only to be asked for your name, birthday and gender? Did you enterrepparttar information that was requested? And if you did enter it, was itrepparttar 119048 real information or something you made up?

I don't know about you, but I find sites which needlessly ask for personal information to be annoying. In fact, I will leave a siterepparttar 119049 moment a site requires me to enter anything which is not necessary to completerepparttar 119050 transaction.

Yes, I do understand that when I apply for a credit card I need to enter my social security number, birthday and mother's maiden name. In these instances,repparttar 119051 purpose ofrepparttar 119052 information is readily apparent - it is needed in order to obtain my credit record. This is normal and expected and thus I don't even think about enteringrepparttar 119053 data.

Onrepparttar 119054 other hand, why does that free mail account require me to enter my birthday and gender? Worse yet, they want to know how much money I make! Why on earth would I want them this information? They obviously don't need this data to create a free mailbox - so there must be some other purpose which is not obvious.

Of course, they want this data so they can build a profile about me, which in turn can be used to target advertising to me and other's like me. My personal information is not likely to be used specifically - rather, it is grouped together and sold as a unit. For example, an advertiser might want to display a banner to thirty year old males who make $30,000 a year or more. By having this information,repparttar 119055 free email account company can satisfy that need for their customers -repparttar 119056 advertisers.

Yeah, I know they promise in their privacy policy thatrepparttar 119057 information will not be abused - but Amazon recently told us all how important privacy policies are to corporate America. This company simply modifiedrepparttar 119058 policy to allowrepparttar 119059 information to be sold to third parties! They sent out an email informing all of their customers thatrepparttar 119060 information which used to be private is private no longer.

So a privacy policy does not appear to be a binding document - at least, it's not if it can be changed at will. What this means is a privacy policy is essentially worthless, even if you completely trust repparttar 119061 company. Why worthless? Well, if that company that you trust with all of your personal data is sold, it is no longer run byrepparttar 119062 people that have earned your trust. New owners could easily modifyrepparttar 119063 policy at any time.

Ah, I hear you saying, who cares about privacy anyway? Well, you should. Let me give you an example. Let's say you've been purchasing liquor overrepparttar 119064 internet. Now your wife divorces you and subpoenas that internet company forrepparttar 119065 records of your purchases. She could, in theory, use that information against you in a divorce case. The liquor receipts do not prove you were an alcoholic, but they could certainly be used to sway a jury that it is possible.

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