A) Unless there are exceptional circumstances, such as illegal images, inappropriate revealment of others' personal information, files containing viruses etc., or illegal files, there is no moderator editing of posts; apart from those exceptional circumstances, all posts are left unedited, though they may well be moved. Locking of normal threads is not usual, barring exceptional circumstances (i.e. no locking of threads that are normal discussion threads, not offical HH announcements, writers' contributions or otherwise-special threads) or barring flame-wars or other violations of the rules . In Hub policy discussions, old threads may be locked if a new thread has been made to keep things on track and to the point. In other words, you are free within the rules to say what you like, though violating HH forum rules and admittance criteria will mean the risk of banning. Posts may or may not be moved, or threads be split, to better suit the nature of each sub-forum, as circumstances and mood dictate.

B) The admins of the Hub are Never and Gurdur. This is permanent and will not change, barring unforeseen circumstances. Policy is decided by them. You are extremely welcome to discuss policy and to argue with it in The Hub Itself subforum, but final decisions on what policy will be are up to Never and Gurdur.

C) If an admin official warning has to be given to a member, it will be noted in that member's User Notes, and those User Notes are visible to the member in question, and also to mods and admins, but not to anyone else. A public warning may also be issued in-thread on a relevant thread. Flame-wars that are not substantive in content enough will be split off to the Cellar, and eventually moved to the Dead Archives.

D) If you have a problem with another member or a moderator, please contact Gurdur and/or Never by PM, and we can see if we can solve it pleasantly, promptly and without fuss; or if you feel you must, open a thread in The Hub Itself subforum. Making an appeal over a modding action may be made to Never or to Gurdur. Admin actions are reviewed by Never, and all admin decisions are final. If you wish to appeal an admin action, you may appeal to Never, but please understand that Never has limited time, and appeals may therefore take a long time. During the course of an appeal, the original modding action stands as it is, i.e. it is not suspended or reversed, pending review by Never.

E) Moderators may be added or subtracted at any time.

It is expected of moderators that:

E_1) They will respect the privacy and confidentiality of member personal information.

E_2) They will respect the confidentiality of the Reported Posts / Mods' Room (the one and only private mods' room that we have), and that they understand and respect normal confidentiality. Whistle-blowing has its justifiable place, but disrespect of others' confidentiality for trivial reasons, or indications of such disrespect, will mean instant de-modding.

E_3) They will make members feel at home and not subject members to undue pressures or unfortunate seeming of such pressure. For example, if a moderator has a problem with a particular member, again, please contract Gurdur and/or Never at once.

E_4) In line with that above, please avoid seeming to inappropriately pressure members in any way; for example, please do not flirt with members or make advances to them unless the member in question has indicated clearly somehow that such advances are wanted. You would be surprised at how quickly someone may feel uncomfortable with such attentions; for example, please see this post here. This is especially important for moderators, representing as they do the Hub in an official or quasi-official way.

E_5) The main duty of any mod is to act as encouragement in the forum in which they mod; to prompt discussion, to get discussions moving along, and to assist bringing out other points of view. After that, mods also have the power and the duty to split and move non-substantive flame-wars to the Cellar, or to lock threads that have descended into petrified, non-productive conflict, where no amount of discussion actually gets things moving again and posters just get trapped in a downwards spiral of flaming.

• The main job of a moderator is simply to provide content, i.e. to start interesting conversations in the forums that that mod mods;
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• the next main job is to guide conversations so that they are productive, and lead to new information and to new avenues of discussion. Very few people will change their opinions quickly, if at all; so the purpose of a thread is not usually to change opinions, or to mark territory, but to provide information and to explore differences in outlook in productive, worthwhile ways.
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• After that, the next task of a mod is to quickly split off contentless flames, and to try getting people to cool down.

F) If you are an active poster and you would like to be a mod, we would love to hear from you. It is expected that you will have an interest in a particular forum (and thereby in a particular subject), and that you will provide the main impetus within that forum to get discussions started and to keep traffic moving well there, and that you are in full agreement with the rules as laid out here.