A reason to moderate Ning Members

Published by in isafety, socialnetworking on April 14th, 2008

This new member just joined our Celebrate Oklahoma Voices learning community on Ning. Problem? She (or he, we never know…) is promoting an online dating service:

A reason to turn on membership moderation on Ning

Result? We’ve turned on Ning moderation for new member requests, and also turned on moderation for submitted videos and photos:

Moderation options in Ning

Is this the right decision? Given our expectations for project growth, I think so.

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On this day..

7 Comments »
  • http://nextsteped.blogspot.com Cory Plough

    I agree with you completely, although I’m coming from a different angle. I have a Ning Network for my HS students. We have about 200 students and physically monitoring each individual page is very difficult. We still need to do it because there are certain things that moderating doesn’t catch (profile pic, personal text/html) but our administrative load is a lot less.

  • Danielle

    Yes, I agree with you. While it’s a shame that you have to do it, the benefit is that your network will have more credibility in the end. You know the people who are joining/participating have an interest in the same topics and goals.
    I had a Yahoo! Group back in 2001 for my High School Reunion organization. We had almost every classmate signed up. Then the trolls began posting and no one wanted to continue with it. The trolls ruined our group. Don’t let them ruin your Ning Community.
    I’d be okay if someone in my network knew I had a passion for something off topic- like a play – and they posted that they had tickets for Lion King. However, it’s another thing if they post something totally irrelevant and never stay on the topic.

  • http://kevinhoneycutt.org Kevin Honeycutt

    I and my administrators deal with these issues every day as our art snacks network grows toward 1000 members. I feel that in order to offer a positive environment, the cost is monitoring but you must divide this up and anoint others to help. Sometimes a member can do something less than smart but we eventually catch it. Some people feel that even one negative event on a network is a reason to shut it down but I would offer that when kids cross behavioral lines in schools, we don’t shut them down, we address the issue and try to learn from the experience. In the end I think we must build online cultures that are self monitoring. It is obvious to me that this is an area of learning that we must spend time growing.

  • Cindy

    I, too, agree. We have found the same thing with other sites that allow groups – such as Quizlet. For teachers to be comfortable using these resources, it is important for them to view this virtual space as an extension of their physical classroom – and that means retaining some control. I hope, too, that we continue to use these opportunities to talk to students about appropriate and inappropriate uses and what impact their actions have on other people and groups.

  • http://www.yis.ac.jp/page.cfm?p=909 Brian

    We have the same issue on Twitter. Is it a problem? if these types of people are following us but we’re not following them.

  • http://franksblog.edublogs.org Frank’s Blog

    Wes, Can you please join me in dialogging with Ning. They are listening to me, but somewhat with deaf ears. I have had to submit justification after justification that Ning has very little moderation controls for the Creator.

    Here are my recent complaints, I even changed my Ning Developers nick to “nobody” and reverted to the faceless avatar, because that is how I feel. I love Ning, but they are being unreasonably stubborn on moderation controls. Of course you know that they do not use email verification for registration? Ridiculous. I can see where you might want to toggle it off (setting up a training session, or signing up a group of students, etc.). But email verification is basic. They want ME to justify why it is necessary. But, to me it is obvious that if someone can sign up with the Police Chief’s email account and then create another dummy account .. they could actually start sending smut to the Chief’s real email via your Ning Site. That’s bad. Or they could use the Chief’s account to send smut to other members. I can’t believe that Ning can’t see the huge vulnerability here.

    I have many bogus smut mongers signing up now because everyone knows that Ning does not validate email accounts. I am now doing all validations by hand! Good use of technology? N0!

    My recent posts:

    http://networkcreators.ning.com/forum/topic/show?id=492224%3ATopic%3A195556

    http://networkcreators.ning.com/forum/topic/show?id=492224%3ATopic%3A200631

    http://networkcreators.ning.com/forum/topic/show?id=492224%3ATopic%3A195575

    http://networkcreators.ning.com/forum/topic/show?id=492224%3ATopic%3A193692

    http://networkcreators.ning.com/forum/topic/show?id=492224%3ATopic%3A193185

  • craig

    I encountered this problem early on with my ning network for art educators and decided I had to start moderating membership requests. My general rule is that when someone applies they need to show some connection to art education and/or technology in order for me to click on the “accept” button. I tend to deny requests that appear to be fronts for advertising and persons who seem to bringing a personal agenda with them. I have on occasion emailed the person and asked them to be more specific in their profile. The system is not perfect perhaps. . .but I feel better about approaching it this way rather than having to “ban” someone after they’ve come abroad.

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