Microsoft Q&A moderation

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Accessing the moderation queue

Moderators will see a secondary button on the header, next to the "Ask a question" button that reads "Moderator tools". Selecting on it will take the moderator to the moderation queue.

Moderation queue

The moderation queue has two tabs:

  1. Moderated: Moderators can see all the content that has been manually reported by other users.
  2. Deleted: Moderators can see all the content that has been deleted.

In both pages, you can

  • filter the content by "Suspended users" or "Non-suspended users".
  • sort the content by "Newest", "Oldest", or "By user".

Processing reported content

In this page, you will see all the content other users have reported for moderation. Here are the actions you can take:

  • Edit content: You can edit the content to remove any content that doesn't follow the guidelines. Note that when you submit the updated content, the content is no longer reported and it gets restored on the site.
  • Approve content: You might find the content was reported by mistake, so you can restore it back to the site.
  • Delete content: The content should not be on the site, so you delete it, and users cannot see it (except for moderators).

Processing deleted content

There are few scenarios where the moderators might want to see the full list of content that has been deleted. For example, the moderator might want to see why the content was deleted; they might want to edit some inappropriate content and then publish it back to the site.

In order to see the list, on the moderation queue, select the "Deleted" tab. You will see all the content that has been deleted, together with the details of the deletion that includes who deleted the content, when, and the their reason.

Actions on the Deleted content page

  • Edit content: You can edit the content to remove any content that doesn't follow the guidelines. Note that when you submit the updated content,, the content is no longer deleted, i.e., it gets restored.
  • Undo delete: You might find the content was deleted by mistake, so you can restore it back to the site.

Suspending users

Moderators on Microsoft Q&A can suspend users who are violating our site code of conduct. Suspending users is a reversible action, and details on removing the suspension are included below.

What limitations does a suspended user have?

  • Ask a question
  • Add an answer
  • Add a comment
  • Edit their content
  • Report content
  • Accept answer
  • Vote on comments
  • Rate questions
  • Rate answers

What actions can suspended users still do?

  • Share a question thread
  • Save a question thread to a collection
  • Follow a question thread, user, or tag

Note

Suspending a user doesn't delete any of their content from the site. This requires an additional step to remove the user's posts. For more information, see Deleting content on Microsoft Q&A.

Suspend a user

A moderator can suspend a user from either the "Reported" or the "Deleted" tab.

  1. The user information appears on the right side of the reported/deleted content card.
  2. Select the “Suspend user” button.
  3. A modal appears asking you to confirm the action. Select “Yes, suspend user” to confirm the action and suspend the user.

Screenshot on how to suspend a user.

Undo suspending a user

A moderator can undo suspend a user from either the "Reported" or the "Deleted" tab. Doing that will allow the suspended users to participate on the Q&A site again.

For suspended users, the “Suspend user” button is removed and replaced by the “Unsuspend user” button.

  1. The user information appears on the right side of the reported/deleted content card.
  2. Select the “Unsuspend user” button.
  3. A modal appears asking you to confirm the action. Select “Yes, unsuspend user” to confirm the action and restore their permissions on Q&A.

Note

Removing a user suspension doesn't undo deletes all their content from the site.

Delete all reported content by a user

A moderator can delete all the reported content from a user, wether the user is suspended or not.

Select "Delete all reported content by user". Confirm the modal. Content will be deleted from the site and you can see it in the "Deleted" tag on the moderation page.