This latest update to ITNinja brings with it a new feature I’m quite excited about and that is the introduction of a moderation feature. Aside from reaching the level of maturity that comes with such an update, up until today I’ve been the only member able to correct tags and now you can help me ;-)

What can a moderator do?

Oh the things you can do! Well, someday it may be impressive but here on day one there is one pretty cool capability we have to offer: When you are viewing content on the site you will be able to modify its tags even if you are not the author. By helping ensure content is tagged correctly, it is much easier for those interested to discover it.

Though it says otherwise on the page provided to accept the role of moderation, we do in fact award points for your efforts. For each page on which you edit tags, you’ll be awarded two points.

What’s the big deal with tags?

Tags are how members browse and monitor the site for interesting content. Clicking any tag on the site gets you a list of all content with that tag making it a great place to watch for anything in which you may be interested. You can also follow any tag on the site making such appear directly in your personalized activity feed (which is now featured on the home page of the site). Finally, we offer RSS feeds on tag pages so, not only are things easier to find when browsing the site, but anyone subscribed to the tag via an RSS feed will get a notification of the new content.

Just what tags belong on a given question, blog or link is of course subjective but here are a couple of examples of tag situations that may prompt you to exercise this capability:

1. You see a blog about Adobe Reader without the Adobe Reader tag. Add any software title tags to relevant content so the content will appear on its page in our Software Library. The Software Library is the home to all tips and content relevant to a given software product but in order to be complete, these software title/version tags must be chosen.
2. You encounter a question about the K1000 product tagged with only Scripting or Software Deployment. Scripting and Software Deployment are general tags that are likely followed and monitored by people that don’t necessarily care about KACE products. By limiting tags regarding KACE products to KACE focused tags they will be more easily found by those that care about KACE topics (and avoided by those that do not). If such a question were about K1000 Scripting, appropriate tags might include Dell KACE K1000 Systems Management Appliance, K1000 Scripting and K1000 Managed Installations (MIs).
3. Any content with the tag Miscellaneous is begging for help. We’ve got hundreds of thousands of tags here, so use of the “Miscellaneous” tag screams, “I don’t know what to choose”. Help by adding the tags you think most relevant (and remove “Miscellaneous”).
4. Any content with a large number of tags may also indicate “I don’t know what to choose” (so I’ll just make as much noise as possible and choose everything). Remove any that you don’t feel relevant while adding those that you feel are missing.

Note: to force the selection of at least one tag, we offer a number of Topic tags as a mandatory selection when submitting new content. We intend to evolve the tag system to do a good job offering suggested tags in order to do away with this requirement in the future.

How can I become a moderator?

Once you hit the level of blue belt, you’ll get an invitation to moderate via email. The role is not granted to you by default, those eligible must accept it. If you do not wish to help improve the community by helping to moderate, please do not accept the responsibility of becoming a moderator.

Once you accept the role of moderator, it is necessary to log out of the site and back in again in order to see moderation features (like this initial ability to edit tags) become active.

Invitations are sent once you reach blue belt, but for members that have already surpassed this level the invitation will come once an additional point is scored above blue belt. Additionally, when eligible, you’ll find a Yes, make me a moderator option on the Settings tab of your user profile page.

Where can I share my great ideas about this?

You may be compelled to comment right here and that is fine, but the best way to recommend features or things you'd like to see changed is via our UserVoice forum at https://kace.uservoice.com/forums/139919-itninja

Curious about the DSG and MOD indicators? MOD stands for Moderator, DSG indicates the member is a Dell Software Group employee. For more details see: http://www.itninja.com/blog/view/dsg-and-mod-avatar-indicators-explained