[wp-forums] The "moderator" hat

[Jen Mylo]

On 4/24/14 6:20 AM, Mika Epstein wrote:
> What I meant, and what I feel, is that we cannot know everything and we have no obligation to answer EVERYONE. In doing so, we screw up the no-replies checkers as much as they do with bumping. :/
Lately I've been looking at a lot of support threads because checking 
activity on .org via the list on profiles is one of the ways I vet new 
meetup organizers. When I see thread after thread with no reply, it 
breaks my heart and makes me both sad and embarrassed -- especially when 
there was no reply and it was closed by moderators without even a 
comment. Anything we can do to make it easier for no-reply checks to be 
accurate and acted on is important.

Andrew had a point when he said you might need to ask a couple of 
questions to be able to help. Yes, and if you choose to ask those 
questions, then please follow up with an answer, or if you can't figure 
it out, ask someone to help you figure it out. Then the thread gets an 
answer and you just learned something. Bonus!

If you don't know the answer and aren't particularly interested in 
figuring it out, leaving an extraneous comment messes with other 
moderators' ability to get the job done, so refrain.

If you are angry about someone's tone, but don't want to answer their 
question, modlook it or report it so someone else can kindly but firmly 
lay a slapdown on the user's tone while addressing the user's question, 
and you can move on to a question that you want to answer.

For the record, I am pretty much always available to drop into a thread 
and play bad cop and ask someone specific to help solve the 
troubleshooting issue if needed. :)
j