Comment Moderation: When to step in?

One of the toughest challenges faced by an online moderator is when to step into a potentially aggressive situation within the community they manage. Whether you’re dealing with blog comments, a forum conversation or comments on Facebook, you’ll need to work out the right time to step in.

If you have a situation where a negative comment offends several members of your community, do you step in straight away, or wait to see whether they sort it out for themselves?

Blog moderation and forum content moderation

The best way to tackle blog and forum moderation is to sets the standards for what is acceptable and unacceptable from the outset. Create some forum rules and always include website terms & conditions.

By defining the limits for your community members, you’re setting clear boundaries and making it easy to step in if comment moderation is called for. With rules in place you can recognise early signs that a conversation is becoming an argument and step in to warn or appease your members.  If a person continues to abuse the T&Cs, you may want to consider banning them from the community altogether.

Social Media Comment Moderation

Social media monitoring is less straightforward, particularly as people have a freedom to discuss what they like on their own accounts. You have the right to remove abusive content placed on your business page on Facebook, but it’s harder to display the T&Cs for your followers to view — although you could still include a list of rules in your “info” section if you feel it’s required.

The best method for online brand protection on Facebook and other social networks is to try to diffuse the situation. It’s important not to over-react or you run the risk of sounding less than professional — and creating a far bigger problem in the process (see previous articles on Starbucks, Nestle and More Magazine).

Tackling the Trolls

Online moderators need to use a combination of common sense and a pre-agreed set of guidelines in tackling potentially fraught discussions. If a discussion looks like it might get out of hand, a warning may suffice. Otherwise, you have the right to step in and either stop or remove the conversation.

You want to make the community a positive space for everyone, don’t allow “trolls” to drive your users away.

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