Tricks of the Trade

When administrating or even moderating a public social Internet site, you have to learn lots of tricks in order to protect it as well as the active members using the site. One of the first tricks I learned as a moderator and administrator was to utilize the IP geolocation software available to me. To understand how to use this software one must understand what it does.

"IP" stands for Internet Provider and is the address associated with each computer at a specific address. It is like a fingerprint that traces a user to the location of the computer when that person made a specific post. The IP geolocator is a very handy trick to use if you need to monitor a certain member on the site that is not participating within the rules of the site. Once the person is warned several times, you can use the IP address to ban the person permanently from the site. It is a much better solution of moderating rather than banning by e-mail address, considering e-mail addresses are very easily obtained.

Spammers are also a huge problem on most social networking sites. They become legitimate members and then begin posting advertisements to different sites trying to draw people to the site they are advertising in order to get purchases. Many spammers have access to hundreds of e-mail addresses but often only have one IP address. Using IP geolocation,an administrator or moderator can ban the spammer by IP address and never have to worry about them again. The problem with so many social networking sites is the moderators are not taught how to ban by IP and simply ban by e-mail address. Twenty minutes later the same spammer is back on the site with a new address.

The first thing I did when creating my site was to add IP geolocation software and then train my moderators how to use it. I was able to minimize the amount of spam that was posted on my site as well as take control of hostile situations that happen between members. This has been a tool I would not want to live without when owning a social networking site. Having the ability to stop somebody in their tracks and knowing they have little options in getting back on my site helped me to run a clean stress free site with little spam and few arguments between members.