On
Internet websites which invite users to post comments, a
moderation system is the method the
webmaster chooses to sort contributions which are irrelevant, obscene, illegal, or insulting with regards to useful or informative contributions.
Various types of Internet sites permit user comments, such as Internet forums, blogs, and news sites powered by scripts such as phpBB, a Wiki, or PHP-Nuke. Depending on the site's content and intended audience, the webmaster will decide what kinds of user comments are appropriate, then delegate the responsibility of sifting through comments to lesser moderators. Most often, webmasters will attempt to eliminate trolling, spamming, or flaming, although this varies widely from site to site.
Also known as unilateral moderation, this kind of moderation system is often seen in Internet forums. A group of people are chosen by the webmaster (usually on a long-term basis) to act as delegates, enforcing the community rules on the webmaster's behalf. These moderators are given special privileges to delete or edit others' contributions and/or exclude people based on their e-mail address or IP address, and generally attempt to remove negative contributions throughout the community.
User moderation allows any user to moderate any other user's contributions. On a large site with a sufficiently large active population, this usually works well, since relatively small numbers of troublemakers are screened out by the votes of the rest of the community. Strictly speaking, wikis such as Wikipedia are the ultimate in user moderation, but in the context of Internet forums, the definitive example of a user moderation system is Slashdot.
