1) Identifying A Problem Post
Firstly, what qualifies as a "problem post"? There's a comprehensive list here, but using your good judgement is usually good enough. This also applies to the shoutbox, though things like double posting obviously do not apply there.
2) Communicating With The Administrator or Moderators
Once you've found a problem post, you'll need to tell someone about it. There's an easy way to do this, and it's called the Report feature. In the bottom left corner of each post, there's a button that looks like this:
Report. If you click this it will being up a page where you can type, in detail, why you think that the post is a problem post. The administrator and the moderators will be able to see which post was reported and can act on it depending on the explanation that's given. Then after an action is taken every other moderator will be able to see how the post was dealt with and can discuss what courses of action should be taken should that member commit repeat offenses. This is important! If the report feature is not used or a moderator doesn't document how the report was completed, we cannot catch problem members in the future. This is why you should always use the Report feature and never use personal lines of communication for reporting posts, even if it's for something really minor.3) Making a Proper Report
This is the make-or-break part of reporting, especially for the shoutbox. All reports should contain sound reasoning for the post to be moderated. This does not mean that you should report a post if it states an opinion that is contrary to your own. If you do that enough times, we'll warn you for abusing the Report feature. If you're reporting something simple like spam, then at least quote the post in the report. Generally, when someone reports and quotes a post, I deal with it immediately.
For shoutbox posts, you must ALWAYS quote the offending shout or we will not do anything about it. The sbox archive doesn't always work correctly and we're not going to go looking for one or two specific shouts amongst the hundreds that are generated daily. It doesn't matter if it's in text or a picture, no quote means no action will be taken.
4) Aftermath
If you reported someone, don't tell them. Don't make a post about it. Don't blog about it. Don't do anything that would inform anyone but an administrator or moderator that you reported someone. No one needs to know except those with the power to deal with problem posts. If you tell other people, the person who got reported will almost definitely get mad at you and then more problem posts will be generated.
Now that you know how to deal with problem posts, the forum can be a little cleaner as things get dealt with in a swift manner.
