Do you have mods for your vBulletin site(s)?
 

If so, do you just give some of your users moderator permissions? How do you decide who can be a mod? And does it work out well? Do you reward your moderators for their work? How?

I'm wondering if it would or would not be better to hire experienced moderators for my vB sites, although I wouldn't know where to start looking (vBulletin.com might be a good start, lol). A while ago I asked an outsourcing company about it but it would mean that I would need to train the mod(s) to be a mod.. It would probable mean that I would have to explain everything, even the things that should make sense to an average person (I've been there..). I'm just wondering how other webmasters deal with moderating. I have 6 vB sites about to be re-launched and a tight schedule and from previous experience I know I will not have enough time to moderate properly myself.

try vbulletin.org as long as you have a valid copy, you can get all the mods, hacks, plugins, templates.

Thanks, I know vBulletin.org. I was talking about moderators who moderate the forums, not mods as in hacks :)

You absolutely need mods for any forum..best if you choose a cpl people you know and trust.
Make sure whoever you choose only has moderator level access and not admin level access unless you are very confident in their abilities and can trust them 100%. For the most part anyone that has frequented forums will have a pretty good understanding of what and who needs moderation..its not exactly rocket science to learn how to preform the duties of a forum moderator.

You might also want to consider creating a hidden mods only forum so you can post rules, how to's, etc. and they can use this for internal communications and listing posts removed , reasons why, offending poster, banned users, IP's etc. so you and others can keep aware of the goings on.

Rewarding them would depend on how busy the forum is..an average forum may not require more than an occasional 2-3 times a day scan of the new posts..others might require an hourly check 24/7..you would have to decide that and determine how they need to be compensated, but I'm sure at least initially, until you build up a fair amount of traffic the mod duties will be minimal.

Your biggest issue will most likely be deleting spam posts..sure there will be the occasional idiot that needs to be delt with but for the most part those are going to be less of an issue.

Make sure you have some of the anti spam mods in place to reduce the need to deal with spam posts.

Finally, I would not outsource this..pick people you know or frequent the forums.

I started modding for a board earlier this year... its going well.. I basically used the forum every now and then, and noticed he needed some help... I msged him, told him if he allowed me to post links to my site on certain forum areas I'd mod for him daily... he said cool, ive been modding ever since..

I used to mod my board like crazy, but the problem is when theres a new version of the forum software, the mods wont work anymore.

So instead of constantly upgrading/fixing mods, I said fuck it.

You didn't read a word in the thread before you replied did you? :)

I understand your point though.. I had the same problem and I probable will be having the same problem again sooner or later.

Very helpful, thanks! And yes I will need to double check the permissions for the moderator usergroup. I'll add the hidden moderator forum as well.

Previously I had to deal more with idiots than I had to deal with spam. I didn't even think about anti-spam mods yet. I will check out vbulletin.org for that.

It might indeed be best to pick people to moderate who are users of the forums themselves, I suppose they will be most motivated to moderate and to also continue to moderate.

Do you happen to know a link to a page that has some (standard) forums netiquette rules or something so I have something to start with? I wanna start writing rules (and howto's) but as detailed as possible to make sure that all moderators are moderating by the same rules.