moderators for Q&A forum

[Ken Leung]

One thing about the Q&A forum I keep thinking about is the way we get moderators for that forum.

For now, the list consist of people me and a few others suggested to Brandon. We suggested those people because we've seen them on CD being really helpful to others when they ask questions. And that's it, nothing more was said about this.

The reasons for having "invite only" moderators are these:

To make sure no random person would go into the forum and give false answer
Have a reputation that you will get "expert" answers in the forum
To make sure the answerers understand it’s for Q&A only and not another forum


I can't think of anymore reasons for having invited only moderators... Like Andy Baker said, there are lots and lots of students out there in FIRST capable of giving great answers. I can already think of 20 more people who could be great answerers... Only I didn't suggest those because I want to see how the forum goes when things get started.

I have to admit this seems selective and unfair to many people out there. Some think that having invite only means others don't get a chance to help out even if they want to. Some other wonders why they aren't good enough. A lot of people told me they want to help out with the Q&A forum, and I didn't really know what to say. I answered "its CD's forum, not mine", and "we will see how things goes.", but I should've said "we haven't figure out a process yet."

A few things that many might have missed:

We really do need a list to keep out trouble makers.
The list of moderators ARE NOT limited to the list right now.
We hope to get as many good answerers out there as possible, as long as all of them understand that the threads must be kept as short as possible.
If you have answers for questions and not on the list of moderators, you should PM or e-mail one of the moderators so your answer will be posted.

My original idea about this is like past situations when others ask me questions and I refer them to people I know who can answer their questions better. Instinctively I would suggest the people I know the best from past experience in the forum who had great answers. And every moderator can and should suggest people they know to become moderators and help with the effort to make life easier for all teams in FIRST. It was never meant to play favorites. All rules are made so the forum will function smoothly and efficiently.

But I think we still need some sort of process for people to become answerers. Few criteria like these:

Interested in helping out
Posted in the forum before
Minimum 1 or maybe 2 or 3 (not sure yet) experience in FIRST
Minimum numbers of answers quoted by PMing moderators(to show they really can give good answers)


These are just some ideas of mine. The forum still belongs to CD, so they are the ones making the decision. Mean while, any comments/suggestions are most welcomed.

Please tell us what you think, and suggestions for the process of inviting moderators. (especially if you are a moderator already)