Here's a question to all those forum administrators out there. How do you choose your moderators? The most common way is to pick out the exceptional members of your forum and ask them if they would like to moderate. This is great because your new mod is already very interested in your community. What DaniWeb does is place those exceptional members in a Community Helpers usergroup. When there is a need for a new mod, one is hand-picked out of that usergroup.

Something else that I have found works really great is to go to popular techie forums out there, and petition their moderators and high-post members and inform them that DaniWeb is a new computer community that needs some help starting out, ask if they would like moderator status. I don't petition blind - I see the quality of their posts, their knowledge, and, of course, I already know that they are interested in forums and can be a devoted forum member. This has proved to be a good way for me to find moderators on such a wide variety of subjects that DaniWeb covers.

only hire moderators that you trust, only get moderators who will do their job, and only get moderators when you need them, at least, in my expirence that has been best

I relize that this in it self promotes favorism, but thats sorta what it is, if you dont get along with a member youd never make them a moderator, or if you do your crazy O.o

Do you think that petitioning mods of other sites is a bit sneaky? Hmm ...

i personally ask ppl to be mods when they are trusted members of the community. if they seem to answer alot of posts and are knowledgable in the subject matter and i trust them to give them the power to be a mod then i will ask them to be a mod for the site

Ya'll should have big_k105 have him make me a mod for his place!! I know him in r/l..I used to live with him haha!!! Come on man, i've asked you twice..just cuz I don't go there very often...wait thats probably a good reason why i'm not!!! well shucks!!! Oh well nvm.

I usually put an ad in the thrifty nickel

".....must be willing to take dry cleaning to the store...leather lace and watersports..."

muhahah

Dani,
I don't think there are hard and fast rule on how to appoint a moderator, I think it depends on the age and needs of your forum, if you have a small growing forum your standards may be lower as you will have less candidates to choose from, on the other hand if you have a mature forum with hundreds of active members you can probably afford to be more "picky".

I know a very mature forum with a queue of quality people waiting to moderate a forum, I also know of a forum (my forum) begging for moderators to come forward (http://www.ukwebmasterworld.com./web...ld/about4.html)

Temi

I usually find the best, active bembers of my boards or solicit old friends from other boards.

Ok, How Do I Choose my Moderators?

- Good Poster, Must Posted well Written Posts and Always Giving Suggestions and such.
- Active. On Everyday and Posting
- Nice and Not Rude. Polite to All members and to Staff Members
- Respects Admins Chooses! Doesn't Complain when something doesn't go his/her way.
- Knows the Rules! Must Know the Rules and how to act when someone breaks one!
- Doesn't Ask to be a Moderator! Nothing Worse when Someone Asking to be a Moderator (Its a Rule Not to ask on my Site, Or Banned :-P)

And Just Personal Feelings and the Person.

Thanks,
Kevin

I usually get someone applying to be a mod everyday so I instantly know to discount them from being a moderator, lol. In my experiance the best potential mods are those who are being helpful but without the intention of becoming one. I would never try and take moderators from another forum as to be honest if they easily left that website whats to stop them from doing it to you in a months time and leaving you in trouble?

I watch my members and get a feel for them before approaching them. I have just offered a position to one girl as she is very active, friendly and helpful, everyone likes her so she seemed an obvious choice. The fact she is a winner of www.sexiestgamer.com is totally unrelated, lol.

I inherited most of my moderators due to the way I had to take over the community of a large gaming website so I knew I could trust them already, but these guys were all hand picked and not one of them applied.