I personally hate getting tagged. I'd rather someone change their subject line to indicate that they have a question, and a paraphrase of that question in the subject line. That way, you aren't depending on the particular person seeing their tags, or being on. I don't get emails for tags and sometimes people either don't tag correctly (and don't realize it), or the tagging notification doesn't work. However, there are times when I'm not online, when I scan the subject headings to see if anyone needs help. The second part of this is the request that people update their subject line when the question has been answered, so we don't have to stop in unnecessarily. Time is precious.
Then there are people who always tag a huge number of people, sort of a shotgun approach to "look at me, help me", that is the worst approach of all. Sort of like the boy who called wolf - after a while people stop looking in.
Moderator are only a small set of people. There are only 4 of us currently active, and one spends most of her time on the FB site. Our job it to try to keep the forum running smoothly. That means weeding out spammers, moving posts that end up in the wrong place, checking for family friendly content (no politics or religion please!) and trying to keep posted information up to date. Plus other duties. We have one admin or webmaster, Robert, and he does the site administration. Makes sure the software is working properly, adding update, etc. He happens to be the nephew of the the lady who started this site. You can tell who the Moderators or Admin people are by the green "collar" below our avatars. Anyone else on the Feline Health forum is not a mod or admin, just someone stepping in to help.
The phrase "well known members" doesn't really mean anything on the message board, it just means people who have posted a certain number of times. They can range from people who have been here a long time with a lot of experience with insulin and cats, to people who like to "chat" and stop in and say hello to everyone.
We also have no "experts", but we do have people who have more experience that others. We are not vets, or at least all but a couple of members who are vets who have posted in the past.
From the forum:
Announcements & How to use the FDMB a couple posts you might want to read.
FDMB Guide to Posting and Etiquette and
Dosing adviser clarification