The RootsChat Moderating Team

RootsChat is a privately owned, moderated forum. The moderators are volunteers, who have been invited by RootsChat administration to help to keep the forum running smoothly. Many of the moderators have jobs and families and carry out their moderating duties in their free time.

They work as a team, within the guidelines determined by the site owners.

The moderators perform mainly "housekeeping" duties on the site:

  • Moving topics to a more suitable board
  • Merging topics with similar themes
  • Editing topics
    - deleting private e-mails,
    - editing public e-mails,
    - deleting details of living people,
    - deleting copyright infringements,
    - shrinking links,
    - editing titles,
    - cropping/resizing images
    - etc.
Board Moderators are responsible for individual boards and can only moderate their assigned board(s).
Global Moderators can moderate all boards. They may be responsible for individual boards,
and are also responsible for all otherwise unmoderated boards.

Occasionally the moderators will need to delete or edit postings with unsuitable contents.
In such cases the posting(s) will usually be moved to the Quarantine board, and be discussed privately (PM) with the member(s) concerned.

If your posts have been edited by a member of the moderating team then do not edit these comments !

The moderators are volunteers appointed by the site owners and any personal attack on them will be considered a breach of the terms of use of this site. While it is hoped that such circumstances will never arise, if such an attack is reported, Administration reserves the right to remove, either temporarily or permanently, a Rootschatter's access to the site.


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Contacting a moderator ...

1) Using the "Report to moderator" link

At the bottom-right of every posting is a link: Report to Moderator

When you click on this link, you see an input box, with this message:

Use this function to inform the moderators and administrators of an abusive or wrongly posted message.

This is only a very short description. Here is a more detailed description:

You can use this link to inform the moderators of anything you think they should know,
for instance:
  • this post is on the wrong board
  • this is a duplicate post
  • this particular reply (within a topic) and the replies to this should/could be a separate topic
  • the post would be better merged with ...
  • the post contains copyright violations
  • the post contains details of living people
  • the post contains personal data (private addresses, telephone numbers and/or e-mail addresses)
  • the posting is just advertising commercial services, pay-sites, etc
  • the posting is abusive, insulting, or generally in bad taste
  • you feel the post needs deleting/editing
  • etc, etc.

The moderators are not always online, so this is an easy way for you to get in touch with us, and help us.

Please note that if you use this link your email address will be revealed to all the moderators,
but only to the moderators. Your email will not be divulged to anyone else or used to contact you without permission.

If it concerns your own posting, then you will not be able to use this link
("You cannot report your own posts"), so you will have to use the
link in the posting above or below yours, or contact a moderator by Personal Message (PM).

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2) by sending a Personal Message (PM)
  • If you need to get a post moved quickly or want to ask a question off the boards and want a quick answer then have a look at the home page, to see who is online. Near the bottom of the page there is a list of "Users Online" - these are members who have been active on the site within the last 30 minutes.
    If you see a moderator's name there, you can click on the name and send them a personal message (PM). If they are still online they will come back to you as soon as possible.

  • If your query concerns a particular, moderated board, the moderator's name can found (as a link) near the board name.

  • You can PM any moderator direct from your Rootschat PM box, as long as you know their user name. See Personal Messages (PM)


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Complaints about members or topics

If you have any complaints about the behaviour of other members or about topic contents,
please raise the issue with a moderator (see contact possibilities, above).
Do not try to resolve these issues on the public forum boards, as this usually only leads
to acrimonious escalation.



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