Moderate your public Forums

[Eric Suesz]

Now live: You'll find this available as an option to enable in your Content > Controls section.

If you've ever wanted to have complete control over new discussions that are posted to your network, we have a new option for you: turning on forum moderation for all new discussion posts. 

How it works

This new functionality is very similar to how blog post moderation works, so if you've ever turned on blog moderation, you're already familiar with the idea. Basically, if you turn this on…

• All forum discussions — in both the main forum and public group forums — will need to be approved before they are published.
• You'll moderate forum discussions in the same location where you moderate new groups, blogs, members, etc.
• Both Network Creators and Admins will have the ability to moderate new discussions. The Forum Moderator Role will also be empowered with this level of moderation.
• Private groups are exempt from this type of forum moderation (whether on a public or private network).

Who will want to use this?

For the most part, this will probably only be desirable for Network Creators who have extra-strict privacy concerns. For example, perhaps you run a network for students and need to be assured that all content is appropriate for the entire audience before it is live. Maybe your healthcare-oriented network has had problems in the past with members who have unwittingly shared private health-related data in the main forum when you prefer that they share it in private groups set up specifically for that purpose.

The trade-off with this option

Having this additional level of moderation could dissuade members (particularly new members) from wanting to post new discussions. If people feel that all of their discussions have to be approved by someone before anyone else can respond, they may decide it's too much trouble or that it feels too much like pre-emptive censorship. Ultimately, it's up to you as the Network Creator whether or not you want to turn on full forum moderation. This feature is entirely optional, and we anticipate that most Network Creators won't want to go to the trouble of moderating all new discussions. But, we've added it for those of you who do want this level of control.

We've added this functionality based on a relatively small number of requests we've received over time here on the Creators Network. At this point, we don't plan on expanding this functionality further, but we'll watch to see how many people adopt it and how they're using it.

[Anthony]

This is great!

[Patrick Chappelle]

Not too shabby! Thank you Eric.

I have a question about something we discussed last year. Is there any chance we can modify the language of our primary forum in the Language Editor without it affecting the group forums? 

[Eric Suesz]

I don't think so, Thunderbreath. Sorry. Not sure if we will make those language strings separate. 

[Patrick Chappelle]

Unfortunate. Thanks for responding, Eric.

[Jordon McGee (Jords)]

Quite nice! This could be useful for networks with sensitive topics too! Great update!

[Writer Chick {Diane}]

Not something I would ever enable just for the reasons you stated, but I think it's GREAT that you're offering this to people who need it!  :)

[Michael Thompson]

Always good to have more options. +1

[soaringeagle]

i definitely wont use this but sine your working on forums ive wanted to see sub categories added (multi level) and  multi category forums in groups this would massively expand the scope of discussion

example of what i mean  if your forums are  say arts related and u now had a forum with categories like

painting

photography

digital arts

sculpture

you can then add subcxategories like

painting

 --still life

  --portrait

---landscape

photography

----black and white

---nature

--- etc etc

and in groups instead of just 1 discussion list  with no real categories allow multiple catef[gories like each group has its own full forums (and maybe subcategories too)

[Eric Suesz]

We're not currently working on forums. We just added this small change based on a few requests. 

[soaringeagle]

well could u concider that for future inclusion in the roadmap?

[Eric Suesz]

This release isn't about categories or sub-categories. This release is about forum moderation. I will pass along your suggestion.

[AnGella]

Thanks!  <3