No, I think that's lame really. I trust my moderators, which is why they are moderators to begin with.
This is interesting. I've never thought of this, actually. Sometimes I'm curious to know how a new moderator would react to a certain situation, but I agree that this is kinda lame. I'd never do it unless I didn't trust a new moderator; in which case, I probably wouldn't have hired them in the first place.
I wouldn't create a fake user, however a trouble maker once in a while is good to keep people alert and ready to go. After all, what's good about being a moderator and never getting to use your powers?
Not something i would do... I use the moderator logs to track what they do and watch how they cope with given situations as they arise...
I think maybe to start out if your desperate for mods and it's a new forum and you have to hire anyone then fair enough. However on a large established community there is no need for this as like others have said you should be hiring trusted members only anyway Rick
Non of the mods on my phpbb site can IP ban.... But if they do, visit thought a proxy and unban yourself.
Are you saying they banned my admin account? if they ip ban my "fake account", i visit through another ip, login with admin, unban IP. Done.
Yeah, I think forum admining 101 should include immediately creating another admin account besides your main one you use if you have other admins. However, good thing about IPB is I can set a group that is immune from bans, and admin is the only one.