I thank Dooga for putting up this Good Guide for the staff. If you people have not read it, you can read it here. http://www.trap17.com/forums/moderator-rul...info-t8869.html

This post is mainly points out some additional important things behind our real mission.

I assume all the members here know that, Free Hosting Review sites do not contribute much of the traffic here. The only reason we have been able to come all this way was, we did not depend on the traffic from these review sites or the _registered_ members of this board.

What is the main thing that powers this site ?
It is GUESTS! Some of the people may wonder, why does trap17 has soo many guests while only a few handful of members in the online list. The Guests you see are all the traffic coming from Search Engines. The Guests are the only reliable resource we have. And we take so much trouble to moderate these forums is because we want to put in a Good Impression on the Guests and make them register at this board.

When you Moderate, Please keep aim for only one thing. You are moderating for Search Engines. Don't think anything else.

There is one more thing which needs attention, The size of the boards and the Traffic. We are lucky that we are getting more members day by day. The traffic is increasing. Which means the work will increase.

*But please do not waste your energy by giving chances to members who spam, by simply editing their post and warning them..* You will only increase your work load. From the begenning itself, I have always tried to keep the load off the mods. And try my best to reduce it further. But soon this is going to increase.

The best way is, When you see a member spamming, BAN him forever. Do not even think about suspending for a few days. We all know, he is not going to come after that anyway. If he really learns his lesson, he will register again. If he is hosted, Warn him. Because Banning will simply lead to his account termination. But if he repeatly spams, ban him. There is no option. And feel free to do this.

We prun the member lists for 0 posts members to show others, only genuine members we have. If we just calculate the total members we have on the board, I think the number goes above 7000 to 8000. My point is, Feel free when you disable a MEMBER permanently. Never chose that MODERATE persons post.

Coming to the main part.

As said, "Aim for the Search Engines".

SEARCH ENGINES GIVE HIGHEST PREFERENCE TO THE

1] Keywords present in filename or Url.
2] Title tag of a page.
3] The repeatation of keywords in title tag inside the page content.
4] The first 25 words of a page.

[1] TOPIC NAMES and DESCRIPTION are 10 times MORE important than the POST itself. And TOPIC NAME is more important than Description.
[/B]
Strange.. huh.. But yes it is. If you carefully look at the posts and the optimization system at Trap/Asta, you will notice. The TOPIC names are filtered and used as Filenames for urls. This topic will have a name something like

IMPORTANT-THINGS-TO-TAKE-CARE-OF-AS-A-STAFF-txxxx.html

The Topic name and description is also fed in the Title tag. and repeated again.

So what does all this mean, If you see a TOPIC which has no relevance with the post inside it. Warn that member.

For more information for Creating good topic names, please read this.
http://www.trap17.com/forums/Instructions-...ions-t9174.html

So it is very important that TOPIC NAME should contain those words which has max. things related to the post. Its like putting the contents of entire post in one line or putting important keywords related to the post in the title.
OR
Think about "What a user will type in SEARCH ENGINE" while searching for the INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THAT POST. (more recommended and easy)

Kindly BAN all the members who repeatedly create spam topic names. Don't strain yourself giving them repeated warnings.

[2] SPAM TOPICS
STEPS TO DEAL WITH SPAM TOPICS.
---1> If he is a HOSTED member who has lots of posts, Give him one warning and DELETE the entire topic.
---2> If he is a new member who is not Hosted, BAN him permanently. If it is fairly small post, then just delete it and warn him.

The main point which is to be noted here is to see, If that member is good or bad. If he has a bad reputation, Just delete him. Its no use adjusting his credits and giving him another chance. If you think, this is his first mistake and want to give him another chance, delete the TOPIC.

[3] COPIED CONTENT OR BIG POST WHICH IS 1:1 COPY : BAN THE MEMBER.
Delete the copied topic!

[4] Posts Related to Suspended Account / Terminated Account.
Simply delete such posts. The rules are clear. If the members really have problem, they are supposed to contact me/BuffaloHelp by PM. Posts like those makes the new members un-confortable and helps spread bad Reputation. Also, Warn such members. If the member repeatedly makes such posts, ban him.

Thats all related to moderating.. rests points are explained in Dooga's guide

TYPES OF MEMBERS


[Type 1] Who come to Forums only for Posting.
This type is not soo sincere. One can easily make up from their quality of posts.

[Type 2]Who come for Credits but then forget about credits and post for Community.
The forum reaches its Goal, When a member registers here for hosting but then makes the member forget about credits, hosting everything. The member then simply serves the community and helps other by heart. They are the assets of this board. This is our true purpose. Our goal is to convert every member of TYPE 1 to TYPE 2. e.g. Some of the finest members I have seen in this category is.. All the Moderators.. :-)

[Type 3] Who come here for the Community. (They might chose for hosting later..)
These are the true members which our board earns because of our quality and posts. These members stay here only to help us and serve the community. There are more like an asset to this board. Most of them have excellent quality posts and thy don't think about credits and posts. Eg. Nilsc, Spectre,M^E etc.

Also, Watch out for new members who take care very good interest in serving the community. The members who usually point out others mistakes, take the side of our forums in their posts, support trap17, Guide and help others etc show signs of good moderators. Also, people who repeatedly report others posts also show that they are more interested in keeping the boards clean. If you find such members, suggest them in the STAFF Area. We will moniter his/her performance and give him an opportunity for MODERATOR position.

Can I become ADMIN ?
Let me point you out, There is no big deal in becoming an admin. It will only let you make some changes to the topics or edit category names. There is nothing big. However, When you become an ADMINISTRATOR, your actions will hold the reputation of the forum. Your decisions become Final. And hence, You get much more responsibility. And for a large board of Trap17, It really means a lot.

There are times when I feel like making many others admin. Dooga, Googlue, Spectre(no doubt is one of the best admins and w/ lot of experience) etc have helped soo much that they simply deserve the admin position. But we must also not forget that Too many admins is not good for the reputation of the board.

Besides that, Admins have the responsibility to manage the Moderators. Being an Admin myself, I don't think I do a good job when it comes to managing. I agree. Sometimes, I feel, I am admin just because I m the owner. That is why I seek help of NilsC (Main person responsible for bringing things back to order on Trap and Asta )


A REQUEST
If you find topics where you see the topic name is in-appropriate. I mean, members might try their best and sometimes they forget. Then please change the TOPIC TITLE and description. This is just a request from my part. :-)




Thank You for being a part of Trap17 Staff.
Have a nice day

Sincerely,
S.M.Pare

Bump

I cannot access these trap17 topics, maybe permission problems ? Maybe the astahost moderators should be granted permissions on some trap17 topics ?

Well, I have Moderator privileges at Trap17 and I also cannot see the topic, must have been deleted.

vujsa

I will search and see if it's misplaced or deleted. During past few forum upgrades, many topics were left orphan. Some topics exit but cannot be accessed with old URL.

I will keep this topic updated once I do find it.

UPDATE:

Topic 9174 is nowhere to be found... may I ask where you found the link--search engine, Trap17 forum etc?

Thanks

It's insidethe OpaQue post at the beginning of this topic, should be an Imptant thing to Take Care as a Staff...

Then again if you read OpaQue's post date, it does say 2005 ... so these links are bound to be outdated...

xboxrulz

If you haven't seen already, AstaHost is experiencing sudden surge in new members registering with our forum. Majority of them are still spammers but other members are from Trap17.

Due to the new Credit System V3, many Trap17 members are hopping aboard to gain extra myCENT using AstaHost forum.

I would like to mention that AstaHost is entirely different forum from Trap17. Do not hesitate to moderate posts with AstaHost rules.

In case they complain, and they should not be, you are the moderator of this forum and they're not. If you wish not to deal with the headache please direct them over to administrators.

Except in the "tutorial" forum, there is no written rule saying that plagiarism is forbidden.
Maybe we should add a line in the "Board rules" page, saying that posting copied text without quoting it is considered as plagiarism and is not allowed.

Alright, I added your point under the GUIDELINES inside SPAM section.

Thanks, it's exactly what I needed.

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