• Welcome to Phoenix Rising!

    Created in 2008, Phoenix Rising is the largest and oldest forum dedicated to furthering the understanding of and finding treatments for complex chronic illnesses such as chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), fibromyalgia (FM), long COVID, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS), and allied diseases.

    To become a member, simply click the Register button at the top right.

What moderators do for Phoenix Rising

Many of our members have no idea how much goes on behind the scenes in our attempt at maintaining a supportive environment on Phoenix Rising. This blog post provides some detail into what we do every day.

Part One - Signup check
Our moderators check every one of the people who sign up on PR every day. We look for information that indicates known scammers, spammers, or advertisers.

Part Two - Monitor initial posts
Then every new member has their first several posts moderated (we read them before approving them for view). This usually allows us to filter out the spammers who made it through the first set of filters.

Part Three - Attempt to keep threads organized
We read many of the messages to:
  • Remove duplicate posts
  • Move posts more appropriate forums when they've been created in the wrong place
  • Merge posts that cover identical topics
  • Fix problem formatting and title typos
  • Try to keep threads on topic
  • Split threads when they diverge into subtopics
  • Notify people of rule violations (e.g. talking about non-ME/CFS related politics, or religion)
  • Try to maintain a supportive atmosphere for all members
  • Answer questions and troubleshoot problems

Part Four - Help from our members
Some of our members help us by using the report button on a post to notify us about content that they think should be checked.

It takes a lot of work to keep the forum running smoothly and it's all done by volunteer moderators, assistants, and help from our members.

Comments

It’s absolutely a huge commitment and anyone undertaking this job is to be commended. I would add that the moderators are held to scrupulous moral standards and not biased when judging the appropriateness of a post? Do we still have that? I hope so.
 
We have rules and guidelines that we follow when deciding if a post, or part of a post is inappropriate. We also have discussions if there is any uncertainty. Group discussions help us learn from each other's viewpoints and experience, and can help to reveal biased thinking.
 
A big round of applause for the caring, helpful Moderators on this site, and their little elves from the sound of it. I try (and it will always be trying) to take their advice seriously. Thank-you, all of you.
 

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Author
PatJ
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