How to Moderate Answers

Amber Taus and 5 other contributors

Last updated on February 1, 2024

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Moderate

Difficulty rating: Moderate. Follow instructions carefully to succeed.

Introduction

Go to step 1

This guide demonstrates how to moderate answers to posted questions on the Answers forum.

Who Can Moderate Answers?

The Answers forum is a community-based forum that invites all community members with 20 reputation to participate in the voting process for moderating the answers to posted questions.

Before action is taken, each option for moderation requires a certain number of votes from individual users in the community.

However, if necessary, Moderators or Admins can override pending votes and make an immediate moderation decision.

Step 1 Open Answer

• Navigate to the question page with the answer that you want to moderate.
• Scroll down to the answer and click Options in the top-right corner of the answer box.
• Select Moderate from the drop-down menu.
• This option is only available to users with reputation over 20 points, privileged site users, and the user who posted the question.
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Step 2 Accept as Solution

• Five community user votes are required for the answer to be accepted as the solution to a question.
• This labels the solution as the selected answer for the question.
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Step 3 Remove as Spam/Offensive
• Five community user votes are required for the answer to be removed as spam/offensive.
• This deletes the post and docks the author's reputation 100 points.
• This should be used as a last resort. Reputation is too hard to come by to punish someone for a one-time or innocent mistake.
• If you're not sure if something qualifies as spam, post the link in the monthly spam thread on our Meta forum.
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Step 4 Remove as Not an Answer
• Five community user votes are required for the answer to be removed as "duplicate or off-topic."
• This deletes the answer and makes it invisible to normal users.
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Step 5 Switch to a Comment
• Three community user votes are required for the answer to be "switched to a comment."
• This changes the answer to a comment when someone posts an answer that is not really a solution to the problem.
• This is typically done when someone posts saying they have the same issue, which really contains no helpful solutions.
• Switching the answer to a comment bumps the question to the top of the activity queue, which benefits everyone.
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Step 6 Switch to a Question
• Three community user votes are required for the answer to be "switched to a question."
• This changes an answer to a question when a user (who might not understand how things work quite yet) posts another question as an answer on someone else's question.
• This is great because the user now has a chance to receive a response. It also gives users more opportunities to share their knowledge.
• If there is not enough information to answer the question, it is better to remove it so it doesn't clutter the site.
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Step 7 Switch to Update to Question
• Three community user votes are required for the answer to be "switched to update to a question."
• This moderation button is only available when you're moderating the original authors content within their Answers Forum thread.
• This turns either a comment or an answer to a question into an update to the original question.
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Step 8 Forcing a Vote to Pass
• If you posted the question or have Moderator or Administrator privileges for the site, you will see the Force vote to pass? checkbox under the moderation options.
• Checking this box means that you are using your privileges to bypass the additional votes required to complete your moderation selection.
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Author

with 5 other contributors

Amber Taus

Member since: 01/10/22

11 Guides authored

Team

iFixit Member of iFixit

2 Members

67 Guides authored

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