Moderation view

The moderation view is a browser page for the people who look after an event’s chat. It shows every message, lets you publish, discard and reply, forwards questions to the presenter, and keeps an eye on polls, viewers and the live stream in the same window. It works on a laptop and on a tablet.

Moderators do not need a Videosync account. Anyone with the link can moderate, so share it only with your moderators.

This article covers the view itself. For the chat formats and where chat is switched on, see How to enable chat in your event and How to moderate chat and messages.

Opening the view

In Event Admin, open Event Quick Links in the left sidebar and click Chat moderation. The view opens in a new tab. The same link is behind the Open moderation page button next to the Moderation toggle under Audience interactions.

The first time you open the view in a browser it asks for your name. The name is shown on every reply and message you send, and other moderators see it when you are working on the same message. You can change it later in Settings.

Sharing the link with moderators

Open Settings in the top right and click Copy next to Moderation view link. Send that link to your moderators. They open it, type their name and are in.

The link contains the event’s moderation code, so treat it like a password. There is one link per event.

Layout

The header shows the event title, a search box, the Backstage and Settings buttons, the event state badge (Pending, Live, Paused, On demand) and the current viewer count. All of these update live.

The bar below it has one button per panel: Private (only when private mode is on), Chat, Polls and People, plus Live for the stream preview. Panels are not tabs: you can open several at once and they share the width. Drag the divider between two panels to resize them. The view remembers your panel sizes and which panels are open in this browser.

Chat panel

The Chat panel shows messages in columns, one per message state. Click Columns on the right of the panel bar to choose which columns are visible.

Column	What is in it
Pending	New messages waiting for a moderator. Viewers do not see them. Only exists when Moderation is on for the chat.
Published	Messages visible to the audience on the event page.
Presenter	Messages forwarded to the presenter. They show up in the presenter’s slide changer and in Web Studio, never on the event page.
Discarded	Messages a moderator has discarded or deleted. Hidden by default.
Private	Messages only the sender and the moderators can see. Hidden by default; the Private panel is a better place to work with these.

Pending, Published and Presenter are on by default. New messages appear at the bottom of their column, and pinned messages stay at the bottom of the Published column so they are always in view.

The search box in the header filters every column at once. It matches names and message text, replies included.

Acting on a message

Click a message to open its actions. The buttons depend on the column the message is in.

Pending messages

• Publish sends the message to the event page.
• Discard hides it from everyone. It moves to the Discarded column, where you can still read it or publish it after all.
• Presenter opens the forward dialog (see below). The message stays in Pending until you publish or discard it.

Published and presenter messages

• Pin lifts the message to the top of the chat on the event page, and keeps it at the bottom of the column here. Use it for a question the speaker is answering right now, or for a notice the whole audience should see.
• Highlight gives the message a highlighted background on the event page.
• Delete removes the message from the event page. It moves to the Discarded column.

Presenter messages have the same three buttons, but they only change what the presenter sees: pin keeps the message at the top of the presenter’s list, highlight marks it, and Delete takes the copy away from the presenter. The event page is not affected either way.

Set message color adds a colour tag that only moderators see. Use it for your own workflow, for example red for questions the CFO should take and green for the ones already answered.

Open fullscreen shows the message in large text, handy for reading a question aloud.

If another moderator has the same message open, their name is shown on it so you do not both answer it.

Replying

Type in the Reply box under the message and press Enter. The reply is posted under your moderator name.

• Replies to published and presenter messages are public.
• Tick Private Message to reply so that only the sender sees it. This is available on pending messages and on private messages.
• Once a message has a public reply, further replies are public. Once it has a private reply, further replies are private. Publishing a message that already has private replies sends it to the Private column instead of the event page.

Replies to pending messages wait in Pending as well. Expand View reply on the message to publish or discard each reply separately.

Forwarding to the presenter

Presenter copies a message to the presenter so they see it in the slide changer or in Web Studio. The dialog lets you edit the text before sending, for example to shorten a long question or fix a typo. The original message is not changed.

A forwarded message gets an arrow icon in its column, and a copy appears in the Presenter column. A message can be forwarded once.

Dragging messages between columns

You can also drag a message from one column to another. The drop targets show what will happen:

• Drop on Published to publish a pending or discarded message.
• Drop on Presenter to forward it.
• Drop on Discarded to discard it.
• Drop a published message on Pending to take it off the event page without discarding it.
• Drag within the Published column to change the order shown on the event page.

Writing a message as a moderator

Click the column name at the bottom of the Pending, Published or Presenter column to open a message box. The message is posted straight into that column under your moderator name, so writing into Published puts a notice on the event page immediately.

Private panel

The Private panel appears when Private Mode is on under Audience interactions. In private mode every viewer message is a private conversation between that viewer and the moderators, like a help desk. Nothing is published to the event page.

The list on the left shows one row per viewer with their latest message, who replied last, and a badge with the number of messages you have not seen yet. Click a row to open the conversation and reply at the bottom. Each viewer sees only their own conversation on the event page.

Each message has two status marks: Mark as in progress when someone is working on it and Mark as done when it is handled. Filter the list by status (New, In Progress, Done) or by moderator with the pills above it.

The three-dot menu on a message has the same colour tags as the Chat panel, Reply and Forward to presenter.

Polls panel

The Polls panel lists the event’s polls and surveys. Activate one from here and follow the answers as they come in; the expand icon opens a poll in fullscreen. Polls are created in Event Admin under Audience interactions. For the full walkthrough see How to control polls and results during live.

People panel

The People panel shows who is watching: registered attendees with their online status, anonymous viewers as a count, and, on events with a teleconference or Talkback, the people on the call and the speaking queue. Those controls are described in How to use conference call controls.

Live preview

Live opens a floating window with the event page as viewers see it, player included. Drag the title bar to move it and the bottom-right corner to resize it. The position is remembered. Use the player’s own controls for sound.

The preview is available while the event is Pending, Live or Paused. It is not counted in the event’s analytics, and it works on password-protected and registration events without signing in.

Backstage chat

Backstage in the header opens a chat that only the event’s staff can see: moderators, Web Studio operators and speakers. Use it to tell the presenter which question is coming next or to coordinate with other moderators. A badge on the button shows unread messages. Press Esc or click outside the panel to close it.

Settings

Settings in the header has three things:

• Moderator name, the name shown on your replies. Click Change to edit it.
• Moderation view link, with a Copy button for sharing the view with other moderators.
• Text size, from Normal to Huge. Useful on a tablet or when the view is on a shared screen.