Moderators, Mentors And Advisors – All About TCS Roles

As you frequent the cat forums you may notice that some of our members have special badges next to their username such as this one:

Additional badges are Mentor, Moderator, Site Owner and Veteran.

What do these badges mean? Who are these people and why do they have badges? What should you expect from them, and what shouldn't you expect from them? Here's the full guide!

Moderators (Mod Squad), Mentors and Advisors are all team members. They are all volunteers, site members just like yourself, who have been with us for long enough and agreed to contribute to the community by dedicating their time to performing certain tasks on the site. Veterans are former team members who have stepped down after having been on the team for a while. Site owner is self explanatory.

Forum Helpers

As their name suggests, Forum Helpers help new members to quickly find the information, advice and support they seek. They are longtime members who are familiar with our articles section and forums so when you see them around, don't be shy to ask for help!

Mentors

Mentors are the members you are most likely to meet first when joining the site. When you join the site, one of our mentors sends you a private message welcoming you to the site, suggesting where to start posting and offering his or her help with learning the ropes. Mentors can often be found welcoming new members in the New Cats On The Block forum.

 

What can mentors do for you?

If you're a new member in need of an answer regarding the site, the forums, how to post, where to find something or anything else you can contact any mentor. The easiest way to do this would be to reply to the mentor who sent you your welcome message, but any other mentor will be happy to help.

Advisors

Advisors are members who help with getting answers to questions about cats. They are assigned to specific forums where they make sure cat questions get answered. They are not professional cat experts but they have some experience with the subject matter.

 

What can advisors do for you?

Like other forum members, advisors can offer answers based on their own experience. They can also help you find answers by linking to articles on the site or previous threads on the same topic. They routinely scan the forums assigned to them trying to make sure no thread goes unanswered, so there is no need to alert them to threads.

If you see a thread with a cat question hasn't been answered within a day or two, please report that using the flag icon

and we'll handle the rest.

Moderators

Moderators are members who monitor the forum for rule violations. Reports of spam, trolls, flames, inappropriate language or any other issue reach the moderators who then discuss them to decide on which measures to take, if any. While it is usually a single moderator who carries out the actions vis-a-vis a particular member or issue, moderation decisions are a group decision and a single moderator acts on behalf of the Mod Squad. That's why it sometimes takes a while for an issue to be dealt with and while the process takes place, threads or posts may be temporarily removed from the public boards.

What can moderators do for you?

Any complaint about a post, thread or a member should be taken up with a moderator. The fastest and easiest way to do that is by flagging a post: clicking the little flag at the bottom of each post

.

You can also send a private message to one of the moderators to ask about the rules or express your thoughts about anything that goes on here, but if it's urgent, always flag instead.

How Can I Join The Site Team?

We occasionally turn to members and invite them to join the team. We look for members who are over 18, have been very active on the site for at least six months and have no infractions. Existing team members recommend members who meet these criteria and are also friendly, committed to good cat care and cat welfare, have good communication skills and whom they feel may be a good match for one of our team roles. We then approach these members and offer them to join.

This process takes place only when we need new team members, usually mentors or advisors. You may be a wonderful active member whom we all love and respect and may not hear from us simply because there is no need during that particular time for new mentors, advisors or moderators.

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