Guide to Building a Moderation Team

As a Broadcaster, choosing a good Moderation Team is one of the best things you can do for your Channel. Below are some frequently asked questions that will guide you in selecting efficient Moderators and building your Mod Team!

## Frequently Asked Questions

* Q. What do Moderators do for your Channel?
* A. Chat is one of the more cherished features of our site. In chat, users interact with each other to build communities, friendships, and discuss the content on streams. Moderators (Mods) ensure that chat is up to the standards of the Broadcaster by removing offensive posts and spam that detracts from conversations. They are easily identified by the green sword icon that appears next to their name, and can use commands found here to remove posts and alter chat.
* Q. What should you look for when choosing a Moderator? Make sure that you communicate to your Mods what you want removed, and what is acceptable. Select your Mods from viewers that are recommended by people you trust, or by several other Mods. If you are running infrequent streams, having staff and admins recommend Mods is considered best practice. If you are able to notice users that are helpful to other users, and show up to your streams often, you should talk to them about Modding and see if that is something they would want to help with.
* A. When choosing a Moderator, you should have a general idea of what you consider offensive and what you consider spam. In some channels, large capitalized text blocks are considered spam, as they make others' text very hard to distinguish. In other channels, particularly channels with slow moving chat, occasional caps blocks are less intrusive. This is only one example of spam, but there are many others that you should consider:
* Copy pasted text, often large
* Links
* Geometric block images
* Repeated text (texttexttexttexttexttexttext, lollollollollollollollollollollollol)
* Excessive use of emoticons
* Excessive symbol usage (are you serious?!?!?!?!?? wow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
* Q. How many Moderators should you have?
* A. This greatly depends on the level of chat in your Channel. For smaller Channels (< 1 text line per second on average), adding Moderators as you need them is best practice. Having 2-3 Mods active at any time is good. Medium Channels (< 5 lines of text per second) should have an active Mod for every ~200 viewers. For large Channels, it is best practice to employ the use of automated Moderation, and have Mods that interact with chat and manage bot filters. One active Mod per every 600 viewers is average for this type of moderation and Channel size.
* Q. How should you manage Moderation?
* A. As with any other team, good communication is key! Having chat rules in the info section is highly recommended, as this provides a centralized list of rules for your Mods to enforce. This also allows chatters to view it on their own and not feel bad when they get timed out. Some channels have 3rd party communication methods, such as a different room, e-mail lists, or IM clients. Site messaging is useful for real-time messages to Mods if you notice a problem that you would like them to correct.
* Q. Are there any Twitch Settings to help Moderators?
* A. Twitch has made several tools other than the Moderation Commands that can reduce the work that your Modss have to do. These include e-mail verified chat, and having links be posted by users with Moderator status. These can be found in your chat settings. Additionally there is a box that you can enter **space separated words** that will be replaced by "\*\*\*" in viewers chat if used by anyone.
* Q. What are some useful resources?
* A. https://web.archive.org/web/20130308052349/http://help.twitch.tv/customer/portal/articles/659095