Thread:MDbugs/@comment-24668482-20160823104541

Hi MD, I've added the discussions moderator rights to your account now. These allow you to:

The forum tools work similarly to the ones you already use, and can be accessed by pressing the 'more' button underneath a thread/comment. The forum management section of Help:Forum gives a basic run down of the tools, but it might be easier to just try them out on your own test threads to get a proper feel for them.
 * Remove and restore threads and replies from any user.
 * Close and reopen threads
 * In the Forum feature specifically, moderators also have the ability to manage Forum boards, move threads from one board to another, and highlight and un-highlight threads.
 * Moderate chat
 * Delete blog comments
 * Edit and delete article comments

The vast majority of the time, you would only ever need to do these things after a request from a user (e.g. if they accidentally posted in wrong place and would like post moved rather than duplicating it elsewhere), or on the very rare occasion if a conversation does get out of hand. However, the real role of a discussions mod is to find ways not to have to delete or close threads - that is, to be the peacekeepers who help users find common ground when the (very rare) disagreements happen. Help:Assuming good faith and Help:Best practices for administrators (although that is aimed at admins, there is a lot of good advice there for everyone) are good resources for getting started.

Discussion mods are hopefully also (some of) the friendly faces that helps new users learn the systems since this place is definitely a bit intimidating at first (message walls, forums, articles, blogs... there is a lot going on here and not much of a road-map when you first arrive!).

From time to time, the community will make a request for the forum to be extended/rearranged (e.g. renaming boards, adding new boards, merging boards etc,), and discussion mods can do this (once there are enough posts in the thread so it's clear that the majority want the change being requested) if an admin isn't around to do it. This is done from the main page of Special:Forum - under the list of boards there is a blue 'manage boards' button that brings up the tools.

Please let me know if you have any questions or problems,

Foss 