Moderator may refer to:

Government

Moderator (town official) A moderator is an official of an incorporated town who presides over the town meeting, and in some cases, other municipal meetings. In the United States, the New England town is best known for the town meeting form of government. The office of moder ...

, elected official who presides over the Town Meeting form of government

Internet

Internet forum moderator An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are often longer than one line of text, and are at least temporar ...

, a person given special authority to enforce the rules on a forum or social media platforms *

Game moderator A gamemaster (GM; also known as game master, game manager, game moderator, referee, or storyteller) is a person who acts as an organizer, officiant for regarding rules, arbitrator, and moderator for a multiplayer role-playing game. They are ...

* Moderator of a

Usenet newsgroup A Usenet newsgroup is a repository usually within the Usenet system, for messages posted from users in different locations using the Internet. They are discussion groups and are not devoted to publishing news. Newsgroups are technically distinct ...

Google Moderator Google Moderator was a Google service that used crowdsourcing to rank user-submitted questions, suggestions and ideas. It was launched on September 25, 2008 and shut down on June 30, 2015. The service allowed the management of feedback from a lar ...

, an application to assist chairmen of online meetings

Religion

Moderator of the General Assembly The moderator of the General Assembly is the chairperson of a General Assembly, the highest court of a Presbyterian or Reformed church. Kirk sessions and presbyteries may also style the chairperson as moderator. The Oxford Dictionary states th ...

, in Presbyterian and Reformed churches *

Moderator of the curia Moderator of the curia is a top administrative position held by a Catholic priest in a diocese under the supervision of the bishop. The moderator coordinates the exercise of the administrative duties and oversees the office holders, or curia, in ...

, an administrative position in the Catholic church

Nuclear engineering

Neutron moderator In nuclear engineering, a neutron moderator is a medium that reduces the speed of fast neutrons, ideally without capturing any, leaving them as thermal neutrons with only minimal (thermal) kinetic energy. These thermal neutrons are immensely mo ...

, a medium that reduces the velocity of fast neutrons, for example in a nuclear reactor

Other uses

Moderator variable In statistics and regression analysis, moderation (also known as effect modification) occurs when the relationship between two variables depends on a third variable. The third variable is referred to as the moderator variable (or effect modifier) o ...

, in statistics, a qualitative or quantitative variable that affects the direction and/or strength of the relation between dependent and independent variables *Sound moderator, a

suppressor A silencer, also known as a sound suppressor, suppressor, or sound moderator, is a muzzle device that reduces the acoustic intensity Sound intensity, also known as acoustic intensity, is defined as the power carried by sound waves per unit ...

attached to a firearm *A faction in the

Regulator–Moderator War The 1839–1844 Regulator–Moderator War, or the Shelby County War, was a nineteenth century feud in East Texas during the Republic of Texas years between rival factions. The war started out as a dispute of land ownership before becoming a viol ...

Discussion moderator A discussion moderator or debate moderator is a person whose role is to act as a neutral participant in a debate or discussion, holds participants to time limits and tries to keep them from straying off the topic of the questions being raised in ...

, a person who controls the tone of a discussion or debate {{disambig