This is true. If it is a big job, though, they should still be paid for their time.

Perhaps if there is a big forum attached to a company/organisation that is benefitting from the forum, then a professional moderator who is not involved in the day to day posting can be hired and paid to do the job.

Most forums though are a labour of love, and the people on them actually want the 'honour' of having 'super mod' under their name, and mostly this is payment enough.

I guess it also just depends on how involved you are in the subject. In most cases, it probably won't feel like work.

As you say tricky.. When the time comes for me to add some mods, I will choose long standing members, that I know are sensible and can be depended on to be even handed, and also be willing to take some flack for the sake of harmony.

I am sure though that in some cases a paid moderator as SageMother suggests, may be the best option. I would say in forums run by large public groups that are not quite a community linked by common interests.

Sites that hire people to moderate have to huge and not only that, they are probably corporate sites. Most forum webmasters care about there sites too much to allow a stranger (even if they are getting paid), to have moderation access.

Most foums I'm a member of have asked users to volunteer for specific boards when they've got to the stage that extra moderatio help is required. It keeps the workload down for everyone that way, and moderators are just keeping an eye on soemthing they'd be looking at in their free time anyway. Everyone's happy!

Exactly, its been either the webmaster asking people that post a lot, or that he/she can trust, or the other way around. I've seen members requesting moderator status.

Good to earn as a moderator from home. I would rather love to join as a moderator, but I wonder if I really qualify for this position. I would rather do it for free and learn more about moderator position.

I would only give mod rights to people I know and trust. Perhaps my resident movie expert, the entertainment section or whatever.

I often get noobs log in and after a few days they are sending me PM asking(in some cases insisting) to be made mod...

My replies are usually short and not so sweet.