Staff: How do you hire?

[Mandoli]

(I don't know if this is more suited for this board or the Discuss Your Board section. Move if needed.)

I run a board where I don't approve of people asking if they can become a staff member. I decide who's going to be part of the staff based on their contributions to the board. When one of the co-Admins passed away last year, I got two PMs from a new member: If X really did pass away, and if Y could become a staff member.

I told Y that yes, X did pass away. I also told this person that (at the time) I was not actively looking for someone to take X's place on the staff team.

My question is: How do you pick staff members for your forum? Do you look for consistency and contributions, or do you pick people who apply and may have no clue how to help run a board?

[Mixed]

I would recommend you look for consistency and contributions. See how active a person is as a regular member as this will give you a better idea of how they would act as a staff member. Sure, you could open up an application process so that you know who is interested, but interest shouldn't be the primary reason for bringing someone into the staff. If there is someone you really like and trust from your boards, and who you've seen acting responsibly and with respect, you could reach out to them asking if they would be open to becoming staff.

Now, I wouldn't promote them directly to co-admin, especially since it sounds you have at least another still active. You could put them in a staff position with more limited powers as a sort of test period. See how they handle those powers. Thinking of that, you could promote one of your already pre-established staff to co-admin and then offer the other position to members new to being staff. But that's up to you and your staff.

Something that is new to me but my partner and I are applying to our shared forum includes interviews. We have a hidden board (well hidden to the general public) for interviews. We use permissions and a member group to set up these interviews so they are privy only to the applicants and our staff. Members can apply and then through these interviews we can get a better idea of why they want to be staff and organize our own thoughts. I have yet to know how well this will go in the end, but it is another option.

What I would highly recommend you not do is offer staff powers to anyone you don't know at least from the forum and that you don't trust. You risk opening your forum to sabotage if you do that.

I would probably want to know more about Y before offering the position. Like is Y new to the forum or an established member? Do you trust Y? Does the community trust Y? Maybe Y comes off overly-eager? But these are all things you only need to answer for yourself to get a better idea of Y as a potential staff member.

Hoping this helps you, Mandoli.

[Former Member]

Mar 16, 2016 6:40:28 GMT -8 Mandoli said:

(I don't know if this is more suited for this board or the Discuss Your Board section. Move if needed.)

I run a board where I don't approve of people asking if they can become a staff member. I decide who's going to be part of the staff based on their contributions to the board. When one of the co-Admins passed away last year, I got two PMs from a new member: If X really did pass away, and if Y could become a staff member.

I told Y that yes, X did pass away. I also told this person that (at the time) I was not actively looking for someone to take X's place on the staff team.

My question is: How do you pick staff members for your forum? Do you look for consistency and contributions, or do you pick people who apply and may have no clue how to help run a board?

I would go with selecting a capable person not selecting a person simply because they want to be staff. 

[Mandoli]

Mar 16, 2016 8:07:34 GMT -8 Mixed said:

Hoping this helps you, Mandoli.

I got the understanding that Y wanted to be a staff member for the sake of being a staff member. The staff quickly talked about this in our private part of the board, and I was told that Y actually asked the other co-Admin about it first. It set off warning signals: Why am I supposed to trust Y when this person had made less than a half-dozen posts, all in the same thread - none of which were in a thread that the board is revolving around?

I trust who I've picked as staff members. I'm not going to make someone a staff member just because they ask.

If they have a warning attached, they're disqualified to become part of the team. If they're inactive, same thing. There are no questions - I'm not sucking up to people and making them staff.

[Mixed]

That all sounds good. I agree with what I am hearing and it sounds like you are handling Y well.

So may I ask if you've presented this question for future reference or application now? How did you find the staff you have now? Just from what I've read here, it seems like you have a good team.

[♥ ℒʊ√ ♥]

Whether or not you actually need staff at the moment is also something to consider.

I agree wholeheartedly, Lynx . I've seen so many forums with more staff than active members. What and who exactly are they managing or moderating?

And I absolutely prefer quality, contribution, and a personality that unites rather than divides when choosing staff.

[Mandoli]

Mar 16, 2016 10:16:03 GMT -8 Mixed said:

How did you find the staff you have now? Just from what I've read here, it seems like you have a good team.

I have a staff team of three - myself and two others. We all know each other from a now-defunct message board on another server. I picked the Moderator once I hit a certain member point. The co-Admin ran a similar style forum, and we merged our boards together. I didn't pick them because we're familiar with each other, though. I picked them because they're people I can trust.

[Mixed]

Mar 16, 2016 17:36:18 GMT -8 Mandoli said:

I picked them because they're people I can trust.

Always the best way to go.

[Former Member]

Longevity mainly.

Have 3 with me, one was an original member 12 1/2 years ago but also knew her for 18 months before forum began.
Another has been with us for 10 years.
The other for 9 years.

[Mandoli]

Mar 16, 2016 14:40:37 GMT -8 ♥ ℒʊ√ ♥ said:

I agree wholeheartedly, Lynx . I've seen so many forums with more staff than active members. What and who exactly are they managing or moderating?

That's a main problem. I'm hesitant to join a site like that. Been on one site where the main Admin made pretty much everyone else an Admin. Honestly, I'm worried that there's going to be a lot of power-hungry people.

[♥ ℒʊ√ ♥]

I understand that, Mandoli. It does make one wonder what's going on. More staff than posting members doesn't seem to have an up side. Sometimes, it almost feels as if the admin must do this to reward/bribe the few folks that post.

[Mandoli]

Mar 17, 2016 16:29:59 GMT -8 ♥ ℒʊ√ ♥ said:

I understand that, Mandoli. It does make one wonder what's going on. More staff than posting members doesn't seem to have an up side. Sometimes, it almost feels as if the admin must do this to reward/bribe the few folks that post.

I think it was because they didn't want the board to go without an Admin again. The idea that they came up with was that the original board was deleted because of a lack of Administrator being there in a while. (PB was the one who removed it.)

[♥ ℒʊ√ ♥]

Well, if that works for them, that's all that matters.   

[Mandoli]

Mar 17, 2016 21:24:47 GMT -8 ♥ ℒʊ√ ♥ said:

Well, if that works for them, that's all that matters.   

Yeah, but will PB actually delete a board if Admins aren't there after a long period of time?

[Mixed]

Mar 18, 2016 7:52:29 GMT -8 Mandoli said:

Yeah, but will PB actually delete a board if Admins aren't there after a long period of time?

No. I know of a forum that's been more or less inactive since 2009 and the admin hasn't been online since the end of 2008; it's still online. I believe the only time a forum will be taken offline is if the person who OWNS the forum, the one with the 'admin' account, decides to manually delete it. Or the forum is flagged for a TOS violation and never responds.

At least those are the two ways I know a forum would be actually deleted.

But are we talking about the site that lost it's only admin or the forum that had a plethora of admins? Because it is possible that anyone with the power could decide on a whim to delete the forum. Or maybe the power to delete the forum is ONLY available to the admin user.

Either way, I don't see why PB would delete a board unless there was an unanswered violation.