Moderators, aka mods, are essential for ALL streams and communities alike. Trying to juggle a stream, play the game AND monitor chat is virtually impossible. Sure you can pause the game, purge or ban someone in the chat and then resume the game but this is a good way to make viewers grow tired of the stoppage in play and commentary/user interaction.

How do you improve this?

Pick people to moderate your channel!

How do you know who to pick?

Pick someone that you either trust or a regular viewer who is familiar with your chat rules and you think is active enough and willing to moderate your channel. Pay attention to who is around a lot and who follows the ideals and rules you have set for your channel. If you don’t have anyone to help moderate, consider getting a bot such as Moobot or Nightbot to help!

How do I nominate a moderator on Twitch?

There are two ways you can promote someone to the moderator position to your channel. Note that only the streamer can promote a moderator to their own channel.

1. Click on a Twitch username of someone who has typed in chat. If you are not using Better Twitch TV, there will be a lightning bolt symbol that says OP User when you hover over it. Click that! If you are using Better Twitch TV, it will say Mod.

2. Simply type in chat: /mod username
Make sure to include the slash (/) and the username should be exact (but is not case-sensitive)

It may take a few minutes for the promoted moderator to get a green sword by their username and moderator powers. If after a few minutes there are still issues, try having the new mod refresh the page. If the problem still persists, try promoting them again to mod.

To demote or unmod a user:

1. Click on the mod typing in chat and click to unmod them.
Or
2. Type in chat: /unmod username

Note: Purging or timing out a moderator will remove their moderator status. You must promote them again if you want to give them back their powers.

 How many moderators are too many?

This number is completely dependent on the number of viewers your channel normally gets. You want enough moderators to fill all the time gaps so that there is always someone watching your chat and making sure people abide by the rules. You also need to be careful to have a lesser amount of moderators so that you can avoid such things as a “mod wall”, aka a chat with over 50% of just mods talking all the time.

You need to remember you want to please viewers, not make them feel like they are being watched and judged all the time by having too many moderators; this will lead to people fearing to say anything, causing them to leave your stream for someone else’s stream. One method to help curb these issues is to use an automated bot such as Moobot or Nightbot to handle purging and timeouts based on your channel rules (such as foul language, caps, spam). This puts the blame on a bot for doing the dirty work and is a great tool for all types of channels.