How do I moderate interviews and/or members in my community?

A moderated community is any community on archive.storycorps.org that requires approval from a moderator before new interviews and/or new members are accepted into the community. Moderation gives community owners more control over the online presence of the community, but also requires more administration by the community owners and moderators.

Unmoderated communities allow members to join and interviews to be added without moderator approval. Owners and moderators of these communities still have access to some moderation tools, allowing them to remove interviews or block members from their community.

There are two main ways you can moderate a community on archive.storycorps.org:

membership moderation and
interview moderation.

You can choose to moderate members, interviews, or both, to screen new additions to your community before they go live. Community owners can edit or update these community moderation settings at any time by selecting Edit Community on their community home page. Owners can also invite other community members to become moderators if they need additional help moderating a community page. You’ll find more information on how to promote community members to moderators in the Help Center articles below.

How do I add (or remove) a moderator to my community? Can I add an additional owner to my community?

Membership moderation

When creating a new community, community owners will be asked to select one of two membership moderation options:

Unmoderated- Anyone can join my community without needing approval
Moderated- Community moderators must approve each new membership request

When community members are moderated, no member who attempts to join your community will be accepted until an owner or moderator approves them.

To approve, decline or block a membership request in a community

Log in to your account on archive.storycorps.org and go to your community page.
Take a look at the members in your community and find the member or membership request you would like to approve, decline, or block.
- Members awaiting approval will have the words pending member in red beside their name.
Select the gear icon beside the username to access the available moderation options from the dropdown menu.
If a user has a membership request pending, your moderation options will be:
- Accept this Pending Member
- Reject this Pending Member
- Block this Pending Member
Select the moderation option you prefer, and you’re done!

Need more help? Try this step-by-step walk-through:

Interview moderation

Additionally, when creating a new community, community owners will be asked to select one of two interview moderation options:

Unmoderated- New interviews submitted by members are automatically added to the community.
Moderated- Community moderators must approve new interviews before they appear in the community.

When community interviews are moderated, no interview submitted to your community will be publicly seen on your community page until the owner or moderator approves it.

To accept, reject, remove an interview in a community

Log in to your account at archive.storycorps.org and go to your community page.
Scroll down until you see your community’s interviews.
- Interviews awaiting approval will have a red “Pending” notification on the interview image.
- To find all of a community's pending interviews in one place, you can choose Sort by on the top of the page and select Pending Interviews.
Find the interview you wish to approve, decline, or block and select the gear icon on the interview photo to access the available moderation options from the dropdown menu.
If the interview is pending approval, your moderation options will be:
- Accept this Pending Interview
- Reject this Pending Interview
If the interview has already been added to a community, you will have the option to:
- Feature this Interview
- Remove Interview
  - Please Note: when an interview has been removed, email notification will be sent to the owner, moderator, and member.
Select the moderation option you prefer, and you’re done!