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Introducing our newest forum moderators

I'm very happy to announce the debut of the newest additions to our volunteer moderator team!

Our recent request for additional moderators resulted in an impressive field of candidates. From the many eager volunteers, we've selected a group of five individuals as our first wave of new recruits.

We'll be adding additional moderators in the weeks to come, so if you put yourself forward for consideration, please know that we're still increasing the size of the team.

In the meantime, please welcome the five folks who have joined the moderator team today:

brettkeogh
_Sally_
T0M0
wenders123
_Ben

They'll be joining our current group of amazing mods:

arewethereyet
catcrazy
ladyhawk00
MCDerin
SHBoss1673
stormieweather

And of course, all of them will be supported by Steven, our newest MFP staff member.

By adding to the mod team, our hope is that we'll be able to respond faster to any issues in the forums, as well as be more consistent in posting explanations of why topics are locked or deleted. We're working on some tools that will help make that easier for the mods, as well as working on a rule-rewrite which will both streamline the rules and make them clearer. In the end, our goal is to make sure the forums remain a safe and supportive environment for everyone.

At the same time, we're working on a number of improvements to the forums. As many of you know, we're currently working on Groups which will allow MFP members to form their own public or private groups. Each group will have it's own forum. We're really excited about the potential for groups, and we hope to have some news shortly about our initial groups launch. But at the very least, we hope groups will allow like-minded individuals to communicate with one another more easily, without interference or harassment from members who disagree with them. Groups will still have to adhere to a set of site-wide rules, but the intent is to allow groups to discuss a wider range of issues and topics than the main forums. The mods will mainly be focused on the main forums, while Groups will be largely self-moderated.

The groups functionality is already in progress. I don't have an ETA yet, but our hope is that it won't be very long (weeks, not months) before they are ready.

All of the mods are volunteers who are helping the site on their own time, so please join me in sending them a HUGE thank you for their efforts. They really play a critical role on the site, and we appreciate everything they do for MFP.

See you around the forums!

Mike, Al & the MFP team

88 votes + -

Posted on 2011-09-27 by mike
34 Comments

Meet Steven! And Looking For Volunteer Forum Mods

UPDATE - Thank you so much to everyone who's offered to help! We've received an incredible response, so I think we've received enough volunteers for now. If you've already sent Steven a message, we will respond to you as soon as we can. And if you were dying to be a forum mod but haven't sent us a message yet, don't worry - there will be plenty of opportunities to participate in the future. Thanks everyone!

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I'm thrilled to announce that we've added a new member to the MyFitnessPal team! My good friend Steven has agreed to join MFP full-time, and we are very, very happy to have him. Steven is going to be helping in a variety of areas, including improving our help section and our response time in the technical support forum, as well as helping the forum mods with moderating the forums. If you've participated in the forums at all, you'll be sure to see Steven there shortly.

Speaking of the forums, we've had a few mods step down recently, so we're looking for some new volunteers to take their place. Our volunteer moderators play a key role in ensuring that the forums stay a safe and supportive environment for everyone. They help welcome new members to the site, they help make sure member questions get answered, and they help us moderate any disputes on the site and make sure the forum rules are enforced fairly and consistently.

If you're interested in becoming a volunteer moderator, we would love to hear from you! Here are the qualities we're looking for in forum mods:

A long-time user of the site who's been fairly active during that time
Great interpersonal skills and a strong writer
A very thick skin and ability to stay calm, diplomatic, and fair under any circumstance
The mods should represent a broad cross-section of the site and come from different groups, different countries, etc. For example, we'd like at least 1-2 mods from the UK
Ideally (but not required), someone with previous forum moderation experience

If you'd like to volunteer, please let us know by sending Steven a message on the site. And, as always, if you have any questions or concerns, please let us know that as well and we'll do our best to address them.

Thanks, and hope you are all enjoying MFP!

Mike & Al

54 votes + -

Posted on 2011-09-09 by mike
21 Comments