Aurora: Enable content moderation and set content moderation defaults

Community moderators review and process large volumes of member-generated content. Moderation is an important part of keeping a community a safe and engaging space for your members to participate.

Depending on how you configure the moderation settings, content can also be auto-approved and skip the moderation process. The moderation process depends on the defaults you set for various boards.

Admins can set these moderation defaults for forum discussions and replies, blog comments, ideas and their comments, event and event comments, media, and knowledge base comments at the community, category, and board levels.

• Auto-approved: The content is auto-approved and made public without going through moderation review unless flagged. Recommended for trusted areas that are self-regulated by a small group of members.
• Selective: The content is made public to the community without going through moderation. However, moderators can selectively review this content later, and based on the review, the content stays or is removed from the community.
• Required: The content must go through moderation for review, and based on the moderator's evaluation, the content is either published or removed from the community.

By default, Selective moderation is set for all boards.

Understanding the different moderation types

Before configuring the content moderation defaults, you must understand the benefits and risks of each option:

• Auto-approved: Set Auto-approved for places that are designed for open discussions without any need for regulating the content posted by members. Use this option in places that are self-regulated by a small group of members who are accountable for their actions. However, we still recommend you implement the moderation process within the community to avoid spreading inappropriate information.
• Selective: Similar to Auto-approved, the Selective moderation process also encourages open communication among members in that they can publish content immediately without prior review. Moderators can still review the published content to ensure the posted content is appropriate and adheres to the community’s principles. Use this option in places where members expect fast-paced and live interaction without having to wait long for the moderation process to complete. However, when moderation is delayed, there is the potential risk of inappropriate content (abuse or spam) being posted that impacts readers and disrupts the community. Compared to the Required moderation process, this process is less effective in avoiding spam and abusive content.
• Required: Required moderation is the best way to combat spam and abusive content because the content is sent to the moderation before it’s made public in the community. This also protects your community’s reputation and creates a safe space for your members by ensuring the appropriate content is posted in the community. However, this process relies on additional resources to review the content, which may delay making the content public. This can disappoint members who want their content to be made public quickly.

Set content moderation defaults at community level

1. Sign in to the community as an Admin.
2. Open the Account menu and go to Settings > Features.
3. Select Moderation.
   

   
   The Moderation Types settings displays spam and content moderation settings. Here, you can set default moderation types for discussions, ideas, replies or comments on discussions, blog posts, knowledge base articles, events, and media. The screenshot below displays the Moderation Types, numbered for clarity.

    

   

    

4. Select Edit for any of these options.
   A window to edit the moderation type opens. 

   

    

5. From here, you can: 

   • assign the moderation type for all members
   • override this setting for specific roles with another moderation type value
   • specify the roles that will bypass moderation
     
     

The following is an example for moderating discussions and replies. 

• The Community moderation type field for discussions and replies by all members fall under the Selective moderation type, and they are made public but go through moderation process. 
• The Role-based Override field is set to Required for the roles selected in the Apply only to the following roles field. Discussions and replies by members with these roles are hidden until reviewed and approved by a moderator.
• The roles added to the Exclude Roles field automatically bypasses any moderation action.

   

Similarly, you can set default statuses for other content types at the community level.

Set content moderation defaults at category, group, or board levels

The Moderation Types set at the community level are inherited to the category, group, and board levels. You can override these options at various levels as needed. Based on the inheritance, the settings applied at different levels are inherited to child places from their parent levels. For example, the content moderation defaults set at category or group levels are inherited to their child places. Learn more about setting inheritance.

Let’s look at an example in which you want to set content moderation defaults at category level.

To set content moderation defaults at category level:

1. Open the Account menu and go to Settings > Community Structure.
2. On the Community Structure page, select the category where you want to set the content moderation defaults.
3. In the category settings, go to the Moderation section and set Content moderation types for content review as required.
   
   When you’ve adjusted a setting for a child place, a PARENT OVERRIDE indicator is displayed next to that setting for the child place to indicate that it overrides the settings of its parent.
   

Similarly, you can set content moderation defaults at the group and board levels.

Based on these board-level settings, when members post content on the community, the content is immediately routed to the Moderation for review. When a board is set to Required moderation and members post content on this board, a confirmation message is displayed on the post indicating that post will be published as soon as it is approved from moderators:

 

From the Moderation tab, moderators can review content for appropriateness. They can then approve or reject it, and also message authors of the posts. Learn more about moderating content.

Grant permissions to moderate content

Moderation permissions should be granted only to roles assigned to trusted individuals.

To manage this permission:

1. Navigate to Admin > Settings > Users > Roles and Permissions.
2. In the row of the role for which you want to manage this permission, select the Options menu and then Edit.
3. In the Permissions area, below Moderation, locate Moderate Content.
4. Select Grant or Deny as required.