Moderators in Tatoeba

Translations of this article:

• in Esperanto. Dankon GrizaLeono!

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This is a little guide/FAQ to explain what is the role of a moderator in Tatoeba, and to make sure moderators use their powers wisely.

Why do we need moderators?

Every community needs their moderators, but in Tatoeba more specifically, the problem is that unless you are the admin, you (currently) cannot :

• delete sentences, not even your own sentences
• edit sentences that do not belong to you

So with the growing community, more and more sentences are getting in the "delete me" and "correct me" queues (due to members who never come back to correct their sentences).

Moderators are here to help take care of these sentences that no one else can take care of.

What can moderators do?

Moderator can currently delete, edit, link/unlink any sentence. Yes, this is a lot of power, but since contributions are logged and can be seen by everyone, we don't need to worry too much about a moderator going nuts and ruining others' work.

Keep in mind that the moderator's rights are not "stable" yet. We will balance out the permissions over time. For now, we don't really have time, so we'll trust moderators for doing the right things.

When should moderators edit or delete?

Only use your moderator rights as the last resort.

This is especially true when dealing with others' sentences. Some people will gladly let you edit or delete their sentences without having to be notified about it (they may even be annoyed by this). But other people may feel that you are abusing of your powers, not respecting their work, not acknowledging their presence in the project, or whatsoever.

To avoid any kind of conflict, only edit sentences where the latest correction request says "two weeks ago" (or more) and no correction has been made. Only delete a sentence after asking the owner if they're okay with their contribution being deleted.

Basically, give people the time to do their work first, and only if they don't do anything, you can step in.

How do you become a moderator?

You can either ask Trang or wait for her to notice that you are a good candidate to be a moderator. The criteria is that you are at least already a "trusted user". The rest is subjective.