This week: What Does A Moderator Do? Edited by: Jeff  
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"You never know what you can do until you try,
and very few try unless they have to."
-- C.S. Lewis
About The Editor: Greetings! My name is Jeff and I'm one of your regular editors for the Noticing Newbies Official Newsletter! I've been a member of Writing.com since 2003, and have edited more than 350 newsletters across the site during that time. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact me via email or the handy feedback field at the bottom of this newsletter! 
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What Does A Moderator Do?
When you first join Writing.com, your account gets created with a little gray suitcase as your portfolio icon and you're a Registered User on the site. Once you create an item in your portfolio, that case becomes black and you suddenly find yourself a Registered Author. And as you explore the site, you'll inevitably notice that some people have yellow suitcases, or blue, or purple, or even red.
It's not really a secret what each of these portfolio colors stand for:
 Preferred Author
Moderator
Senior Moderator
Staff
NOTE: For a full listing of portfolio icons and their meanings, check out "Portfolio Icons" . There's also a white case color which denotes a memorialized member of the community who has passed.
But what does it actually mean to be someone at each of those levels? This newsletter is going to take a look at each of them, and particularly focus on the role of Moderators and Senior Moderators in our community. The concept of a "moderator" can mean very different things to different online communities, so it's worth taking some time to look into their roles and responsibilities in this particular community.
Before we get into the Moderators and Senior Moderators, though, let's quickly cover Preferred Authors and Staff. The former are Registered Authors who are being recognized for their efforts around the site, and Staff are the founders and owner/operators, responsible for all the backend stuff that makes this community possible. If you're curious about who becomes a Preferred Author and how it happens, you can read more here: "Promotion to Preferred Author" .
Moderators, by extension, are Preferred Authors who are promoted again (see "Promotion to Moderator" for more information) because they've shown themselves to be exceptionally helpful and/or demonstrated excellent leadership skills in the community. Moderators are entrusted with a number of additional responsibilities on the site.
While Writing.com Moderators are able to assist with some backend tasks like adjusting the rating of items that are incorrectly rated, their real responsibility here on the site is to be a resource for other members, whether that's answering newbie questions, helping arbitrate confusion or a disagreement among members, or leading by example and showing other members what good reviews, quality activities, etc. look like. A lot of people assume Writing.com Moderators have some sort of fancy techno-wizardry that allows them to do really complicated behind-the-scenes stuff, but for the most part being a Writing.com Moderator is a position in the community built on and around relationships. Their primary function is to help ensure everyone else is having a positive experience on the site.
Writing.com Senior Moderators are very much the same. We've been around a little longer, are a little more involved in the behind-the-scenes management of the site, and often find ourselves dealing with the same issues as blue-case Moderators, sometimes even dealing with those same issues among blue-case Moderators. Senior Moderators are essentially a very small group of (slightly) higher-level Moderators that help facilitate whether an issue is something that a blue-case Moderator can be guided to handle, something that a purple-case Senior Moderator has the ability to affect, or whether it's an issue that needs to be brought to the attention of the Writing.com Staff.
With all these different case colors and a rather broad interpretation of the word "moderator" that's influenced by a wide variety of meanings depending on where you encounter them on the web, it's easy to assume that blue-case Moderators and purple-case Senior Moderators are somehow "more important" than other members of the community, or that they're too busy to be bothered with your questions or concerns.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Fielding your questions and concerns is our primary job as Writing.com Moderators+. Many of us are also writers, reviewers, and/or activity organizers as well, but our primary job is a relational one. We're here to help you navigate this site and make the most of your experience here. Depending on our abilities and areas of interest, some of us might be better equipped to run activities or give tips on great writing rather than answer technical questions, or might be better able to point out the various technical features and limitations of the site than give a thorough review. That's why there are a lot of us. As a collective, we're the ones who can probably help you with whatever issue you're having. If we don't have the answer ourselves, we've probably been around long enough to know who to ask that can help.
Each of us has our own particular way of doing that, but we were all ultimately promoted to Moderator and agreed to accept that responsibility because we're able and willing to help other members of the community with their needs.
What does a Writing.com Moderator do?
We're here to help with __________.
Fill in the blank with whatever you need.
Until next time,
Jeff
If you're interested in checking out my work:
"New & Noteworthy Things" | "Blogocentric Formulations"
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This month's official Writing.com writing contest is:
I also encourage you to check out the following items:
EXCERPT: Seven year old Thomas and his mum lived in a flat very near to the local Tesco Express. One evening, before dinner time, she said they needed to go to the shop for a few things. Thomas knew they'd run out of milk, because that morning, as his mum started pouring it into his bowl of cereal, it ran out.
As they walked to the shop, Thomas noticed an old man who was sat down on a bench, all by himself. Thomas thought he looked very, very old, like maybe even close to 100 – a bit like the Queen, only he didn't look rich or well looked after like her.
EXCERPT: I am an adult with Cerebral Palsy, and when I was growing up, my Father told me ''stop feeling sorry for your yourself''. I guess, in his mind , it made a person weak, and make it look like the person was ''looking'' for sympathy. All through my childhood and in parts of adulthood, I was made to believe sympathy towards yourself was not a good way to live life.
EXCERPT: Angrly he walked towards room, slammed the door as hard a man can "You have no right to be here, none of you do!"
"Your anger is killing you, just sit down" said the woman with soft figure
EXCERPT: By the time everyone was back from getting their desired breakfast I was already half asleep. If I hadn't eaten before we got here I would be starving by now because of how slow they are.
"Uh. Yana? You Awake?" Christian asked as he passed out everyone's drinks, including a coffee for me.
"Oh. Yea. -sip of coffee- So, where were we?" I asked as I popped my back. No one said anything they just looked at me nervously. So, I decided to go the easy way out.
EXCERPT: It has been at least a half-hour since the lights became bright again. The music has stopped, and the stage has become empty. A massive giant of an individual is herding the remaining customers from the nightclub. The club named "The Birds Nest" is closing. The amount of smoke becomes visible with the lighting and hangs like a fog. The thick air resembles air from a battlefield. The last patron walks to the stage and attempts to talk to the previous dancer on stage. He mumbles something and stumbles toward the door. As he walks, his shoes stick to the floor that has been showered with warm beer and cigarette ashes.
EXCERPT: "Have you ever thought about what it means to be lost?"
That's the question Laudon found himself listening to, with his mind fuzzy. He couldn't remember how he had gotten here. He could barely even remember his own name.
"Personally, I believe that one can never become physically lost. The world is made of millions of pathways, and none of them cause you to become lost. Even straying off a path is still a path,"
Laudon began to finally regain clarity, and saw that he was within a pitch black room, with only one figure, the one who he assumed was speaking. But... was a person's voice supposed to sound so...ethereal?
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Feedback from "Noticing Newbies Newsletter (July 27, 2022)" about WritingML secrets:
Rhymer Reisen  writes:
I feel as if I’ve been over "Writing.Com 101" so many times I could rewrite it, and then this newsletter drops. I’m implementing most of these in future projects, they’re that cool. Thank you so much for this!
Ẃeβ࿚ẂỉԎḈĥmas  writes:
Great breakdown of the ML use, Jeff. It will be very helpful, not just for Newbies, but for many long-time members who need to explore some of the newer additions to the Writing ML.
Thank you!
~Webbie 
Nobody’s Home  writes:
Thank you, Jeff! This newsletter is golden! I go to the WritingML Help link frequently because I forget details - like which thing goes where when I'm making a dropnote. But you've opened up a whole new world! Okay, I'm being a bit dramatic, but this is great! I was wondering literally ten minutes ago (truly literal  ) how some people randomize their signature graphics, and I noticed someone else using a progress meter and I'll bet they learned it here! I've tried inverting/flipping emoticons before and it hasn't worked for me, but I was obviously doing it wrong  and will try again with your clean, bright instructions. So much cool stuff I can't wait to try! You're so awesome!
Schnujo's NOT Doing NaNoWriMo  writes:
Wow! Thanks for this installment! I learned several new things I'm excited about, most especially rotating font colors!  From time to time, I switch the font colors of the examples at the bottom of "The Contest Challenge" to help draw attention to them. Now, I don't have to manually do that anymore! I'm so excited! Thank you!
Sunny  writes:
Great Newsletter! I was gonna do a few of these in my next newbies' newsletter but I will wait for a while... Love your ideas and I may have to use some of them if you don't mind! |
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Noticing Newbies: August 24, 2022 Issue [#11531]
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