I joined DIY Drones in August last year, and have been one of the Moderators since December. The Moderators are members of the site who approve new joiners, Blog posts, etc and generally keep an eye on the site content in accordance with the published guidelines:
http://www.diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/updated-site-policies
With a few months experience under my belt, I thought I would publish a few points about the mistakes people tend to make. This is meant as nothing more than a guide, and is written with the sole intention of saving you time and effort.
Why didn’t you approve my membership application?
Spammers will attempt to join the site in an effort to Spam the forums and blog posts. Sometimes, filtering the real applicants from the Spammers is very tricky. The spammers will use acronyms such as UAV in their application, but as soon as they are approved they are leaving comments all over the place. If you do not fill the application questions clearly, this can cause a problem. Sometimes we see responses such as “etc, etc” which could be anything. If you are recommending someone join, please ask them to answer the questions accurately, they are reviewed by a human.
Why didn’t you approve my blog post?
There are a few reasons that this happens, almost always one of the following:
- No picture, video, or anything else to visually describe the nature of the Blog post. All blog posts should, as far as possible, have something visual to describe what it’s about.
- Military content: This site is dedicated to civilian/hobby use of UAS technology. Generally, postings relating to military use will not be approved.
- Questions as blogs: It can be frustrating when we have a question in the forum that isn’t being answered. But the forum is for questions, and the blog is for news. Consider rewriting your forum question, posting to a more appropriate forum area, or better explaining the issue. I have personally modified my forum questions a number of times and got much better responses.
- Lack of detail: You may wish to post a video of your latest creation doing its stuff, that’s great, but please include details. What is it? How did you create it? What is its objective? What makes it different?
- Lack of newsworthiness. This is by far the one I struggle with the most. Blog posts are meant to be newsworthy. That’s a difficult call. I crashed my Arducopter last Tuesday (my bad), but with 15,000 members, I would imagine lots of people did the same. Please consider if what you are posting will be for the good of the site, and is genuinely informative.
Luckily for me, my job as a Moderator is a pleasure. And I honestly thank you for the civility and consideration that the members show their peers.
