I-HUB's Moderators' Role
The principle objective of the iHub message boards is to maintain a high signal-to-noise ratio while encouraging the exchange of all points of view. Moderators are an important part of making our message boards beneficial to all participants and readers. Moderating a stock-specific board, particularly those which are controversial due to many divergent perspectives or newsworthy events, can be a challenging and time consuming role. The time and effort expended by our Members who volunteer their time to fulfill this valuable role is greatly appreciated and our Moderators should be treated with the respect they deserve for donating their time and efforts to the collective benefit of our community. Company-specific boards are the lifeblood of iHub. The Moderators' role is simple to define for company-specific boards:
To promote the civil exchange of on-topic dialog that complies with the Investors Hub User Agreement.
It is no accident that neither the above definition nor the User Agreement makes mention of investment sentiment, shareholder interests, or considerations such as "the good of the company." That is because the TOU are blind to investment sentiment. In order to be a successful Moderator and conduct a board within the scope of iHub's TOU, it is critical that Moderators distinguish their role and privileges as Moderator from their role and privileges as a posting Member. That is often easier said than done, particularly on active boards with both the typical and atypical controversy.
At the same time, Board Moderators are entitled and encouraged to express their investment sentiment in the same manner as any other Member; by participating in the dialog. However; insofar as their Moderator privileges are concerned, it is not the Moderators’ role to promote bullish or bearish sentiment, to guide the "tone" of the content along any particular investment sentiment, or to favor one investment sentiment over another.
It is also not the Moderators’ role to remove posts on the basis of "truth" or "accuracy". Readers determine the veracity of the posts they read and the credibility of other Posters. If a Moderator disagrees with another Member’s post they have the same recourse as any other User; to ignore the post, or to challenge it with a post of their own focusing on the information, not the other Poster.
In short, the role of the Moderator is to help foster an environment that promotes and encourages posting of ALL opinions and information about companies, regardless of the bullish or bearish sentiment of the posts, and to be the site’s first line of defense in ensuring we remain free of spam, vulgarity, and personal attacks.
Deletion of Posts
While in manage mode, Moderators will see a message that says "Click any message below to view, then remove or restore it." Clicking on a specific post will then show the option to "remove" in a box on the left. Clicking this will then provide the following options as a reason for removal: Personal Attack, Duplicate Post, Spam, Off Topic, Vulgarity, Author Asked to Remove, Violation of Privacy, Threat.
Duplicate – an accidental duplicate post by a single Member. This does not mean a similar message posted previously or the same content posted by a different Member.
Personal Attack – when someone attacks one or more members personally rather than the content of that Member's message. The post does not have to be addressed to the "target" of the attack to be considered a Personal Attack. If it attacks a messenger rather than the message, it qualifies for deletion and it is expected that Moderators will remove it.
Spam - Posting the same or similar content to more than two (2) boards within a 24 hour period;
Posting the same or almost identical post more than twice in a 24 hour period i.e. "where's the PR?", "anyone seen the PR?", "thought there was going to be a pr today?", "geez, is the pr coming out today or not?";
Posting content that is off-topic to the subject of a board;
Posting statements that do not add value to the discussion (i.e. simply "LOL" or "Yes");
Posting excessively on one or more message board(s). If you feel someone is abusing their posting privilege in this manner, please discuss this with a Site Admin prior to removing any posts.
Spam that overlaps off-topic (see below) are posts containing content promoting other sites, stock-related or not, that has no use in the discussion (for example, if your board is about Ford Motor Company, a post or link about a home improvement company is not relevant to the discussion); and posting the same "noise" posts i.e. "to da moon" or "this stock is a POS" continuously without other relevant content. This does not mean that if someone asked about dilution yesterday, a similar post today is considered spam.
Off Topic – posts not about the topic of the board including posts focusing on other Members and their reasons for posting on the board (i.e. "XYZDownDaDrain" is just a basher, ignore him", "XYZToDaMoon" is a pumper"). Posts with religious or political statements should be removed as "off topic". Posts about Moderators and/or deletions are also "off topic". Issues of this nature need to be discussed with a Site Admin.
Vulgarity – profanity of any kind is unacceptable on investment boards, even when punctuation characters are used to "fill in the blanks" or letters are changed (f**k, azzh*le, etc.).
Author Asked to Remove – when a Member has specifically asked that a post be removed and has cited a valid reason for removal, such as accidentally revealing personal information. This is an occasional accommodation and is not to be used to "mask" the removal of bona fide TOU violations.
Violation of Privacy – posting of what the member believes to be any personally identifiable information (email, real name, phone, address, etc.) about another User or posting the contents of a private message. For example, if a Member posts that "XYZDownDaDrain is actually Bob Smith", whether the information is accurate is a moot point. The Member was trying to disclose personal information.
Threat – a Member threatening any other Member in any fashion and threats of violence or physical harm against anyone.
If a post does not fit into any of these categories the post must not be removed.
Some posts fall into a "gray" area and are borderline depending upon the way they are read. Feel free to use the "Report TOS Violation" button at the bottom of the post with your comments. One of the Site Admins will review it and make the decision for you.
Bottom line: Please use your best judgment in removing posts based on the above guidelines and let us know if you have any questions or need any help. And keep in mind that post removal and non-removal have to be given the same emphasis. It is not permissible to, for example, to remove a post that calls someone a "pumper" while not also removing a post that calls someone a "basher". Investor sentiment, including your own, can NOT be part of the removal/non-removal decision.
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