Understanding user behaviour and identifying problem areas
This is predominantly used for boards with very high post volumes, but where there is insufficient resource (people and/or money) available for full-time moderation. Understanding where trouble is most likely to occur is an invaluable aid to deciding what level of resource is required to reduce risk to an acceptable level.
One of the tools used for this is a breakdown of deletions by problem type, which is best done via the moderation software. Before deleting, the moderator selects a deletion reason from a pull-down list, and this is recorded for later analysis.
Below is an example of how this could be used, albeit that it was drawn from data that was collated manually. The problem type being analysed here was defamation (libel).
This analysis broke down libel deletions by each discussion board on the clients’ site, and converted this information into how many hours of posts had to be read before encountering an instance of potential libel. So whereas Board 3 was producing one instance of potential libel every 7.2 hours, a moderator of Board 15 would have to read 206.7 hours of posts before encountering a potential libel. Chat Moderators was thus able to give the client some basis on which to make resource allocation decisions.
Obviously there are other relevant factors such as the seriousness of said libel and the likeliness of actually getting sued, but this statistical information helped gauge how to reduce overall cost without a directly proportional increase in legal risk.
Conclusion
Statistical data can be collated either manually or via moderation software, but the latter is usually only possible with bespoke software. Using software to collect data can have a relatively high set-up cost with low ongoing maintenance. Manual collection has a high ongoing cost, but can also have a high set-up depending upon how many items of data are likely to need analysing
Chat Moderators currently provide human moderation services to brand owners across Europe and North America.