Forum Moderation

Hi everyone,
We wanted to take a moment to explain how moderation works on the Forum and how you can help keep it a friendly, respectful place.

Our Forum runs on simple, common-sense rules designed to ensure respectful online communication. Please take a moment to refresh your understanding — these rules have remained unchanged for many years. Avoid relying on outdated memories or assuming rules that don’t exist; all moderation is based solely on the current rules. Here's the Rules

If you’re interested in starting regular themed posts, your initiatives are welcome — no admin involvement is needed. Our Forum has thrived for 25 years purely through user interaction, and we expect this to continue.

Alert Moderators
If you see personal attacks, snide comments, or any rule-breaking behaviour, hit the Alert Moderator button right away. Our moderators are volunteers juggling work, family, and travel, so we can’t watch every post all the time. The Alert button instantly notifies all members of the ModSquad via email so it’s the quickest way to bring issues to our attention. Remember — this feature was recently removed briefly and many of you asked for it back, so please use it!

When a reported post is reviewed, the Mod may temporarily hide it from public view whilst a decision or review is made. The poster is automatically notified, told which rule was breached, and given the chance to rewrite their post for review. Usually, just a small change or removal of a phrase is enough to bring a post back in line. All moderation decisions are made by the team. David and I normally do not get involved, trusting the team to act fairly. While the goal is consistency, the nuances of language and the context of interactions mean that moderation cannot be perfectly uniform. In urgent situations where no ModSquad members are available, we may step in to take necessary action. Sometimes a post or thread becomes too complicated to fix through rewrites, or the discussion flow would be too broken. In these cases, moderators may remove the post or thread entirely — always as a last resort.

Joining the ModSquad
We’re always happy to welcome 1–2 more moderators. If you’d like to volunteer, or are simply curious about what’s involved before committing, please contact Michelle via the Help Desk for a private off-forum discussion.

To find the Help Desk: click Contact - About in the top menu, or Help Desk at the bottom of any page.
Thanks for helping us keep the Forum welcoming and respectful — your alerts and cooperation make a huge difference!

Michelle