Here's a bit of an interesting topic! Sometimes it's tough to get a powerful forum moderation team... the kind of team that works together and lasts years. A good MSDN/TechNet forum moderation team will likely be a mix of Microsoft employees and community leaders (such as MVPs, MCCs, and Partners... or simply great contributors). Sometimes that might also include CSG vendors, helping customers find their answers.

And over the years we've used a plethora of methods for finding and promoting people to the Answerer and Moderator roles. We've found that a great way to do this is to be very open and public about what the requirements are, and who is being considered to be made an Answerer. Likewise, when someone proves themselves as an amazing Answerer, we want a clear path to becoming a Moderator.

And that's where today's featured thread comes in:

• Needed: More Answerers

That's an invitation for someone to self-nominate themselves or others who meet the requirements. Likewise, I nominated a few folks. We've done threads like this in lots of forums, and we systematically do this to recruit folks to help moderate forums. This soon results in a great team that includes Microsoft employees, Partners, MVPs, and more!

Now let's look at a snapshot in time of that forum thread:

We need more answerers in this forum! Let me know if you've been part of this community pretty consistently for at least 6 months, have answered at least 100 questions (with at least 1,000 Recognition Points) and are interested in helping propose and mark answers. Sorry about the requirements, but it helps make sure we get help from people who are experienced and known in the community.

The basic idea is that you would propose an answer and then mark it 7 days later. When the OP chimes in, we might need to provide new answers and unpropose the old ones. The Answerers will need to agree to follow these guidelines: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/1059.forum-moderation-guide-managing-posts-and-threads-marking-answers.aspx#Guidance

I'm inviting the following community members to be given the role of Answerer:

• Rachit Sikroria - Done
• Arindam Paul Roy - Done
• SMSVikasK - Done
• Sjoukje Zaal - Done

Reply here if you qualify and want to help or if you are accepting your invitation to join us! Please reply after you read the guidelines from the link above and reply whether you agree to follow them.

Thanks!

So we started that thread 14 days ago, and we already have 4 good answerers promoted. When someone becomes an Answerer, they can prove themselves and eventually become Moderators. Or sometimes they don't meet the guidelines and they eventually lose their status. Regardless, we greatly appreciate it when our community team members help moderate the forums!

So a big Thank You goes out to our four new BizTalk answerers, and we look forward to working with you!

 

Jump on in! The Forums are Fun!

- Ninja Ed