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Moderating Votes
Remember, you are protecting the integrity of the index when moderating. Accepting incorrect votes or rejecting correct ones reduces the usefulness of the BlogShares index.
Poor moderation, just like poor voting, may fall under the scrutiny of the BSEC and/or administration.
Pass-through moderation (the act of accepting or rejecting votes without actually verifying them by visiting the blogs) will not be tolerated and may yield significant fines and/or punishments.
If you do not want to take the responsibility of moderating carefully, please do not moderate at all - careless moderation is bad for the index and could be bad for your game play.
The next section of this page describes what a moderator is, then focuses on the moderation screen itself and, finally, describes the moderation process.
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Moderators
Moderators are players with over 750 karma, who are responsible for verifying the accuracy of other players' votes.
Once you have reached Moderator status (i.e. 750 karma), a "Moderate Industries" link appears just below Karma in the Members Area on your right side-bar.
On each moderation page, you are presented with 10 votes requiring verification. It is your duty as Moderator to ensure whether these votes are correct or not and then "Accept" or "Reject" the votes accordingly.
The Moderation Screen
Selecting the "Moderate Industries" link will open the moderation page, which looks like this:
As you can see above, the moderation screen has three columns: Blog, Industry and Outcome.
The Blog column has three links for each blog: a link - using the blog name - to the blogs.php page of the blog; a View link which will open the blog that you are to vote on; and a Report Error link, which will bring up the screen to report an error with this blog.
The Industry column has a link to the industries.php page for the industry in question, as well as the first 256 characters of the description for that industry. You can use this link to bring up the complete description of that industry, should what is shown not be enough information.
The Outcome column contains a scroll-box with three options: "Approve", "Reject" and "Don't Know". After you have visited each blog and verified each vote, select the appropriate option. Use "Don't Know" if you can not determine the validity of the vote.
At the bottom of the three columns, you will find two options: "Get Another Set of Blogs to Moderate", which will refresh the screen to another set of 10 votes, and "Submit", which you select after you have completed your checking of the set of 10 votes presented to you.
Note that the votes that you are assigned to moderate are selected from the outstanding votes queue at random, not necessarily in the order in which the votes were cast. You may find that you have multiple votes on one blog to moderate. Equally, all 10 votes on your screen may be for different blogs. Any votes for which you select "Don't know" will be returned to the outstanding votes queue.
How to Moderate
The method by which you check blogs may vary (e.g. you may check one blog at a time in a new browser window, or you may open each vote to be moderated in a tabbed browser).
Regardless of the method you use, it is essential that you check the accuracy of each and every vote that you moderate. As such, the following explanation is based on checking one vote at a time and then moving to the next vote on your moderating screen.
From your moderating screen, check the short industry description for the first vote which you are to moderate. If the industry description that is available on the screen is not enough information for you, open the industry page so that you can read the full description. At the same time, by opening the industry page, you can also have a look at the other blogs in that industry to better familiarize yourself with what is already there.
Once you are sure of what constitutes a correct vote for that industry, open the window (or tab) with the blog that your are checking.
First of all, is this a blog? If not, or if it is dead, report it as such and select "reject" for any votes for that blog on your moderation screen.
Secondly, is the Title of the blog correct, i.e. does the title on your moderation screen match the title of the blog? If not, report as such, but still moderate the vote(s) for that blog normally.
Finally, does the blog you are checking have substantial content, as per the industry description, for the industry which it has been voted into? (See note below regarding the lone exception to the substantial content rule.)
Please note: Substantial content should also be fairly recent. For example, if a blog had a lot of posts about human rights in 2005, but nothing on that topic since then, a vote for the Human Rights industry should be rejected, as the significant content is not current, i.e. the blogger is currently blogging about other topics.
If the blog does have substantial content, it is thus a correct vote for the industry, and you should use the Approve option.
If the blog is dead, does not fit the industry, or it does not have enough content relevant to the industry to be considered substantial, Reject the vote. Then report the error.
If you are unsure as to whether it is correct or not (e.g. the blog is in a language you do not comprehend), use the Don't Know option. It is perfectly legitimate to use this option for votes that you can not identify.
Once you have checked the accuracy or otherwise of that vote, repeat the three steps above for each vote.
When you have decided whether to Approve, Reject or Don't Know each of 10 votes on your screen, select the "Submit" button. If you find that you can not moderate any of the votes on your screen, use the "Get Another Set of Blogs to Moderate" option.
Please note that, very occasionally, you may receive an error message after clicking the "Submit" button, indicating that there was an error in processing your moderations. In such cases, simply refreshing the page will almost always solve the problem.
Some Tips for Moderating
An example of a vote that you would Reject because it is in the wrong industry is simple: it is a vote on a blog that has nothing to do with the industry it has been voted into. For example: a blog written in English and written exclusively about different breeds of dogs would not be acceptable in the Japanese or Abstract Art industries. This blog could, however, be accurately voted into the English and Dogs industries.
The use of translation tools such as babelfish or Google's page translator is acceptable, even encouraged, to attempt to verify foreign language blogs. Be certain to look through more than just the first few posts if a vote seems wrong, it may be that the substantial content you are looking for has simply shifted into the archives and off the main page. You are always welcome to leave a vote as 'Don't Know'.
The lone exception to requiring significant content is for the Blog Demographics industries, which are the sub-industries of the Gender, Language and Places industries.
Why Should I Moderate Votes?
Other than earning Chips and Karma, you will be helping to maintain the Index. When a blog is moderated into an industry, it is placed in the Index. Quacktrack is a search tool that allows people to search for blogs according to subject material. By moderating votes, you are helping to expand and maintain this research tool.