People Claiming To Be Moderators Via Siggies..

[CeleronXT]

What do you do to a member who's sig states that they are a mod? I have a member who's not a mod who has this as his sig:

Should I remove it? Or should it not be a concern?

[Chris Gwynne]

Is his/her name Deadly and/or Moderator?

If not, then there's no reason for him to have it. I'd say remove it, but send him a PM and tell him why; it's causing confusion to the members who believe that you're a Moderator blah blah...

[CeleronXT]

His username is Deadly. Moderator is what he's calling himself. Oddly enough, one of the other mods actually made him that image.

[Cary]

I would remove it... but it's of course your choice.

[bjooz]

I cant believe your even worried about this issue. Who cares whether or not someone has the name "moderator" in their sig. I mean, is it really that important to establish whos who?

so petity and childish.

[Joe Gronlund]

I would just leave it, people know who the mods are, if you removed it you will likely lose him as a member or just cause problems.

Unless it's causing others problems, i would just let it be for now.....

[Chen]

I cant believe your even worried about this issue. Who cares whether or not someone has the name "moderator" in their sig. I mean, is it really that important to establish whos who?

so petity and childish.

So according to your theory, if someone wears police uniform, gets a fake badge and goes around harassing people - it's ok?

[filburt1]

I'd remove it. It's your forum: if you don't like it then get rid of it.

[Floris]

I would remove the user and make a public warning towards him, so everybody knows he aint the mod. Also refer to the leaders page, so they can check out who is and isn't. And remember the situation for when he emails you with a mod application

[CeleronXT]

So according to your theory, if someone wears police uniform, gets a fake badge and goes around harassing people - it's ok?

Go Chen, go Chen, it's ya birfday.

And good point.

Previous to this, we had a rule that stated "No impersonating a moderator" which basically referred to usernames (ie. A mod has the name BCC100, someone registered BCC1OO)..

[Chen]

It's not even a matter of respect, bjooz. What if that user starts sending messages to people and warns them or threatens them or whatever, and his words will be taken seriously because he 'seems' to be a moderator?

[bjooz]

re

If someone cant tell the difference between who has the power on a forum and who doesn't, then they shouldn't be able to access the Internet. It clearly states who moderates each section. Is that not clear enough?

To worry about some member whom has an sig with the name "moderator" is clearly an issue of someone focusing to much time on control.

Your analogies to prove a point doesn't measure up. Your talking about a discussion forum, where the power is not accessible to anyone without access given by the TRUE moderator.

You can rent a cop suit, and you can buy a gun. You cant rent yourself some power, nor buy yourself the power to actually edit or do anything to a forum. You can not replucate the powers of a moderator. If you notice the issue at hand is not that the person has the name "moderator", but in fact its the issue on whether people will mistaken the member for a moderator.

are you understanding why I comments are the way they are?

To get back to the subject, before this really blows up to something it shouldn't.

Simple case of WHO CARES. Are you really concerned that some retard on the Internet wants to be a moderator?? So what?

You treat members who harass like any other member. No matter what the member is doing, posing as a moderator, swearing, being an ass, etc.

No matter how simplistic you make a forum, you will always have a retard to follow. If the member begans to harass other members, then you kick them off the board. Why is there a concern about a ? when the real issue is mistaken in who has true power over the other.

to me, I feel its childish.

[jpetrovs]

If nobody has PM'ed you or complained about confusion then I would say ignore it. If someone complains then you have a valid reason to pull the sig.

[Icheb]

Maybe a discussion with this person via PM or the like would help clear up the situation? It's possible he didn't know he's causing confusion and is willing to change his signature all by himself.

[thefluke]

Everyone seems to forget that what works for your fourm does not work for all forums. If you have a forum of adults and or a stable user base, then it's not rteally a big deal. If you have a forum with a lot of children, or the people who use it change on a daily basis, then distingusing who is in charge is actually *very* important.

In reality, a lot of kids (particularly early teens and younger) who access the internet don't know to (or dont' care enough to)look for the who is in power links, they just want to chat with their freinds.And since most likely their parents aren't going to sit around while thier kid visits *another* video game website, they are easily misled and may follow the orders of a fake moderator. If this person desides to be abusive, it can lead to trouble with the kid or their parents, particularuy if the imposter is some sort of creep and starts asking personal questions..

On our forum, signatures and avatar's for mod impersonators are removed for those reasons, and the person strongly warned. When we used phpbb, we also had moderator rank avatars- when people used those, their avatar privelages were revoked indefinatly. I'm still playing with the controls for vb, but if it's possible to revoke privlages for individual users like that, then we will.

The main question you have to ask yourselves is what the userbase of your forum is, and if the users are mature enough to know a real mod from a fake one. In anycase, I would ask the imposter to remove it, and make note of their response in case they ever wanted to be a real moderator later.