Someone assigned as a space's moderator can edit, approve or reject content before the content is published and visible to others.

Summary

• Moderators review content and make decisions about its appearance to other people. This can include approving new content posts, editing or deleting content, moving it from one space to another, and deciding who can edit.
• Content that can be moderated includes discussions, documents, private messages, blog posts, and announcements.
• Moderators can moderate because they have access to content features that other people don't have. These features include links in the Actions list. A moderator also has access to a Pending Approvals page through a moderation link in their Your Stuff menu.
• A space approver isn't a moderator, but can do a kind of moderation because all documents in the space must be approved by them before being moderated or published for view by others.
• A system or space administrator designates someone as a moderator or space approver by assigning them the correct permissions in the admin console.
• A moderator's own content will show up in the moderation queue where moderation is enabled.
• Moderation settings aren't inherited. However, abuse reporting is a global setting that's inherited. Abuse reports are queued in the space moderator's moderation queue. If there's no moderator for that space, the report is queued at the root space level.

• A moderator for the root space moderates private messages, system and personal blog posts, and content in social groups.

• Blog post comments are moderated by the blog's owner.

What Is Content Moderation?

Moderation is essentially keeping an eye on content in a space — and taking action when it's needed — to help make sure that the content is appropriate. For example, if discussion posts in the space could become contentious, you might want to review them before they're visible to other people. The same could be true if content could contain sensitive information.

So what a content moderator includes the following:

• Approves or rejects content before it's visible to others. When moderation is on for content in a particular context, attempts to publish that content send the content to a moderation queue, where moderators can review it.
• Reviews abuse reports. When abuse reporting is on, people can click a Report Abuse link to tell moderators that a particular piece of content might be abusive. This could include content that has language inappropriate to the community.
• Acts on content as needed to adjust how content is available in the community.

Who Moderates What?

People assigned as moderators at the root space level moderate everything that doesn't have a containing space. They also moderate content from sub-spaces that don't have their own moderators assigned.

Moderated by Root Space Moderator (Content Without a Containing Space)	Moderated by Sub-Space Moderator (Content in Sub-Spaces)
All blog posts for system blogs and personal blogs.	Blog posts for the space blog.
All content in social groups, including documents, discussions, blog posts, and so on.	Documents in the space.
Announcements in the root space.	Discussions in the space. You can moderate intial posts, reply posts, or both.
All private messages.	Announcements posted to the space.

Note: New user registrations can be also be moderated. A user or group administrator moderates them, as described in Managing Users and Groups.

Acting On a Single Piece of Content

As a moderator, you have access to a few commands for individual pieces of content that others don't have. Most of these commands show up as links in the Actions list (as shown in the following illustration); some appear on the content itself.

Here's a list of the kinds of things you can do, along with the kinds of content for which they're available.

Action	Content Type
Editing the content, such as to remove abusive language or sensitive information.	Discussion threads and replies, documents, and blog posts
Moving the content to another space.	Discussion threads, documents
Delete the content.	Discussion threads and replies, documents, and blog posts
Move the content to another space.	Discussion threads, documents
Branching the thread from a particular reply. When thread topics drift, you can branch the thread to create a new thread based on the "off topic" message.	Discussion threads and replies
Lock a discussion thread to prevent further posts.	Discussion threads
Manage collaboration for a document, deciding who should be able to edit it and whether someone must approve it.	Documents

What Happens When You Move Content?

An administrator enables moderation on a space by space basis. That means that it's possible that you'll find yourself in a situation where you're moving content between a context that's moderated and one that's not. Here are a few notes about what happens:

• If you move content from a social group to a space and both are moderated, unresolved posts continue to be moderated as group content. New posts are moderated as space content.
• If you move content from a moderated context to an unmoderated one, its posts will remain in moderator queues, but they will appear to people as if they were approved.
• If you move the content back into a moderated context from an unmoderated one, its content becomes visible (as if it has been approved) even though unresolved posts remain in their moderators' queues.

Reviewing Queued Moderation Requests

As a moderator, you'll have access to a list of requests for moderation. In contexts (spaces, social groups, and so on) where content is set for moderation, that content is sent to the moderation queue for approval before it's published for others to see.

For example, imagine that discussion threads are set for moderation in a space. When someone writes a discussion post, they'll see a message indicating that the content will need to be approved.

After they add the post, it will show up in moderation summary. You use the Moderation Summary page in Clearspace to view the list of threads in the space that are waiting for moderation. You can reach that page by going to your profile (click Your Stuff > Moderation).

You'll see the list of items awaiting moderation as a Moderation tab on your profile. In the complete list you might have content reported for abuse and content awaiting moderation (either or both features might be enabled by an administrator). The following example shows a variety of items awaiting moderation.

Notice at the right side of the page, you can filter the content listed, which can be handy when you've got a very long list. To moderate, simply take a look at each item and make a decision whether to:

• Approve the content, making it visible to other people using Clearspace.
• Edit the content in context (you'll be taken to the content's editor, where where you can make changes).
• Reject the content, effectively removing it from the system.
• Leave a message for other moderators.

Note that comments on documents and blog posts aren't sent to the moderation queue. Instead, they're moderated by the content's author.

How Document Approval Fits In

If an administrator assigns document approvers for a space, then they must approve the content before it even reaches the moderation queue. A space approver is like a moderator in the sense that their approval is required before the document can be published (they don't approve other kinds of content such as discussions or blog posts).

Here's how approval works:

1. When someone has been assigned a space approver role, documents in the space are automatically submitted for approval before they can be published. If moderation is also enabled for documents in the space, then new documents must be approved before they're sent to the moderation queue.
2. After submitting a document for approval, the document page will display a status box showing the author a list of people who must approve. The author will also see the document listed on the Your Stuff tab of their profile as Not Yet Approved.
   
   

   

3. Approvers can reach their Pending Approvals list by clicking the menu Your Stuff > Items Awaiting Approval.
   
   

   

4. When an approver rejects a document, they're prompted to include a message to go with their rejection. That message is added to the document's Author Discussion area, where comments go under the document's content.
5. After someone rejects a document, it must be resubmitted (by anyone who can edit the document) for approval before it can be published.
6. If there are multiple approvers, all of them must approve a document before it can be published. When the last one approves the document, it is automatically published (or submitted for moderation if moderation is enabled).
   
   

   

Best Practices

As a moderator, you probably have more contact with more of the content than other people. You have an opportunity to talk with people who are posting content (or thinking about it). You can suggest guidelines that help keep the community humming along (and avoid problems that require a moderator's hand). Here are a few things you can do.

Try to moderate lightly — Instead, make the guidelines for discussions available and easily discoverable, then only moderate when a post is out of line or off topic.

Develop your usage policy — Design a usage policy to ward off abusive or inadvertent posts. Early warning can make a big difference, and can prevent people from having a negative experience. Make the consequences for unacceptable behavior clear. Some ideas for possible policy statements to include are:

• No profanity.
• Treat others with respect.
• Stay on topic.

When you enforce usage guidelines quickly and publicly (such as by removing or editing an offensive post), other community members are more likely to follow the guidelines.

Encourage people to report abuse — For discussions, Clearspace includes a report abuse feature. When this is enabled (by a system administrator), a discussion thread includes a "Report Abuse" link in the Actions list and an "Abuse" link on each of the replies. When someone clicks an abuse link, the original post or reply is put into a moderation queue. A reported post can automatically be taken out of the thread when the number of users that report the post exceeds an administrator-specified number. The post is put into a moderation queue, and must receive moderator approval before it can be placed back into the thread.

Encourage people to mark replies as "Helpful" or "Correct" — This not only helps other people identify the content they need, but also identifies the responder as someone who might have useful answers.

Encourage people to tag content — Tags make content easier to find.

Understand the kinds of content that people use, and make suggestions where you think it might help — The following lists the main content types in Clearspace, along with the roles moderators play.

	Document	Discussion	Blog Post
Description	People can type a text document using rich text formatting.	People can make suggestions and comments or ask questions that others can respond to.	People can post their views, observations, and analysis.
Use	Collect existing knowledge, document processes, create reports, best practices, and meeting notes.	Get feedback, report a problem, find a solution to a problem.	State an opinion, describe a solution, point to something interesting, ponder an idea.
Tone	Formal, third person.	Informal, first person.	Informal, first person.