Moderation

Unless you want your forum to become full of spam, you are going to want moderators.  The following modules will assist with the moderation process.

Fasttoggle

By default, moderating posts can be a bit involved.  Without Fasttoggle, you would have to click the edit tab for the post, then make your selections here and save it, which I don't think many non-techie moderators would really like (heck, I don't like it either.)  This module places links in the post to perform most of the administrative tasks directly from the post view, saving page loads!  Allows changing post status (published/unpublished), comment status (read/write, read-only (ie. "locked"), or disabled (shows first post only.)), sticky setting, and whether the post is promoted to the front page.  Also allows for toggling the status of the comments and the users' activation state.

Links to edit or delete a post directly on the post

This one isn't a module and requires modifying your theme's template.php file.  My feeling is that many of the moderators on our forum would find the way to go about deleting a post fairly non-intuitive (click the edit tab, scroll down, click delete, confirm.)  If it was possible to put a delete button right on the post, as is done with the comments, then that would greatly simplify matters.  After a bit of searching, I came across this article: http://11heavens.com/quick-edit-and-delete-links-for-the-Administrator which basically explains how to go about doing this.  The code in the article only places the links on the teaser, so I modified that in order to have them placed on the nodes.

First, open your theme's template.php file and look for the function THEME_preprocess_node(&$vars, $hook).  You will want to uncomment this and then replace the default code ($vars['sample_variable'] = t('Lorem ipsum.');) with the following:

  // If we're in teaser view and have right to update(edit) the node
  if (($vars['teaser'] || $vars['node']) && node_access('update', $vars['node'])) {
    // get the human-readable name for the content type of the node
    $content_type_name = node_get_types('name', $vars['node']);
    // making a back-up of the old node links...
    $links = $vars['node']->links;
    // and adding the quick edit link
    $links['quick-edit'] = array(
      'title' => 'Edit ' . $content_type_name,
      'href' => 'node/' . $vars['nid'] . '/edit',
    );
    // and then adding the quick delete link
    // if we have the right to delete the node
    if (node_access('delete', $vars['node'])) {
      $links['quick-delete'] = array(
        'title' => 'Delete ' . $content_type_name,
        'href' => 'node/' . $vars['nid'] . '/delete',
      );
    }
    // overwriting the $links variable with our new links THEMED
    $vars['links'] = theme('links', $links, array('class' => 'links inline'));
  }

Note that I have

($vars['teaser'] || $vars['node'])

in that first if statement. The teaser check is probably unnecessary since teasers are nodes, but I left it there from the original code. By making sure it is a node, the links will be placed on the actual post, which is what I wanted for the forum.

Modr8

The Modr8 module creates a queue of posts for moderation.  This is mostly to have a moderator preview posts before they are published.  These posts are placed in a queue so that when a moderator logs in, they can view them easily.  Since I don't make use moderator previews, this module is of little use to me...

Abuse

The Abuse module puts links on the content to report abusive posts to a moderator.  You can define reasons for reporting abuse (foul language, derogatory comments, etc.)  Once installed, go to Administer -> Site Configuration -> Abuse Moderation Settings to adjust the settings for the module, then go to Administer -> Site Configuration -> Abuse Moderation Settings -> Abuse Moderation Reasons to customize the reasons for reporting abuse.

Under Administer -> Site Configuration -> Input Formats, configure the forum input format, and select the Bad Words Filter.

Under Administer -> Content Management -> Content Types, edit Forum Topic by expanding the Abuse Moderation Settings and check the desired boxes (at least check 'Allow flagging for Forum topic nodes'.)