UserWatch

Does anyone else do this?

On my forum, I have a secret forum viewable by mods and myself called UserWatch. If a moderator has an issue with a member, then they start a thread with the persons username, and detail what they did and what action has been taken.

This way, if another moderator has a problem with the same member, they can look up their name and see if there is any ongiong issues or past problems with said member. It makes it extremely possible to do a "three strikes your out" or handle "but this is the first time I've ever been repremanded" claims.

 

I don't think I can run a forum without having a hidden forum for the staff. It comes in great handy.

I use it for multiple things, including: discussion of members, infraction/post reporting forum, discussion of new ideas, and occasionally to file deleted posts. If you don't do this, I highly recommend it. You'll make good use and having a hidden forum at the bottom of your board will never do any harm.

 

I agree. It's important for all moderators and admins to be on the same page. Though I think it's important to keep said secret forum a secret from your members. Not quite sure why, but I do.

Also, I have my secret forum at the top

 

A staff forum (or category) is, in my opinion, an absolute MUST. It not only enables you to communicate clearly and effectively with other community staff members, but it also allows you to share information that is not yet ready to be released to the community publicly.

 

I have a hidden forum for moderators on all my forums, though I've never had a thread for all "problem users" individually. It is a good idea though.

 

To me it is a must. I usually set one up for Staff -- Admins or Moderators. It comes in handy to discuss notes, upgrades, and like previously mentioned user problems. It's come in handy a few times when backup documentation was needed for someone difficult.

On the same note does anyone create a user just for instances like this for admins. I use such for when pm's are sent they are cc'd to the account.

 

Well I just have a staff forum and it's used for other things including that. I don't have a separate forum just for that.

 

I agree with all that has been said thus far. A staff forum is a certain must.
I use it for general Staff discussion, planning of Moderators' vacation/offline time as well as Post, PM, and Infraction Reports.

As far as tracking users individually, I did do exactly what you mentioned on an old forum of mine that is now gone.
I used a modification that is intended to automatically create a welcome thread for them upon registration, but I had it create a post in a special Staff sub-forum for them. Therefore, each member had their own thread where we would record everything from when they donated to when they were warned, infracted, or banned, etc.
Very useful.

 

That would be extremely unfeasible for large forums though LOL.

(well actually no, just pretty annoying)

 

Threads from that sub-forum were not set to be indexed by the search engine or show up in New Posts and things like that.
So it really wasn't, but if we hadn't configured such settings, it would be.
... Unless you meant it would be annoying in another way?

 

Interesting use of the hack. That doesn't sound like a bad idea.

Mr_Butter might have meant it may be hard to find one specific member's thread when you have a lot of members, but there's always the search for that.

 

Yeah, it could be difficult. However, a default setting of sorting the threads in alphabetical order helped.

There of course were probably some annoying or difficult parts and tasks of using that method, but overall it was very helpful.

 

Also have a Management forum accessible only to mods/admins for all kinds of things, including tracking repeat user behavior issues. Mods can get advice from other mods there. And I can ask their opinion on ideas and future changes. And we can make sure we have coverage when a mod says they are unavailable, and during holidays.

We have a sub-forum called Problem Children where we start a log for any member emerging as repeat offenders. It has descriptions of what happened and copies of the action taken - copies of pm's and emails sent/rec'd, and so forth. Any member whose behavior merits a thread in Problem Children is on the shape-up-or-ship-out list. This also gives us a reference for what was done in other cases.