Admin Or Member?

[pinkerz]

on my board there are people who have "cyber met" me and the other members on another message board, which has now closed so they came to my board, giving me 6 more members and coming
i try to be as active as i can and if possible, I try to come on every day
I was only on here because i didn't know why my forum wouldn't work:)

[Rhinestone Eyes]

I much prefer being the admin of a board or at least a staff member rather than a member. As a member, my duties are to post back to threads and when my muse runs dry, I feel like a failure. With people relying on me to post in order to advance a plot, I can't help but feel absolutely horrible if I can't get to a thread at the moment or, even worse, if I have to leave a forum.

As an admin, though, I always have something to do, whether it's making a new advertisement, updating claims, greeting new members, etc. I love any of these duties and it never really gets old. I'm very much a people person so meeting new people is a thrill and it drives me to keep advertising as much as possible so I can keep that up. Also, I hate seeing undone claims. I can't stand it. Claims are the first thing I do everyday when I log on, no matter what. I'm really prompt with answering questions and, even if the member happens to be getting on my last nerves, I like to think that I still try to be patient around them.

The board I created about a week ago (below) was actually created out of bad circumstances. I knew my fellow co-admins from another board we were on and had been on for a while when the admins began falling apart. The creator of the older board had to leave because of personal reasons and the admins left in charge began to appoint other admins who didn't do anything BUT create skins. That can be all fine and dandy, but the point remains that that is not the admin's only duty. But my point is not to complain about that. My co-admins and I created our board and I'd like to think that we are an incredibly efficient team. I tend to do the claims and advertisements and graphics since that's something I really enjoy while my co-admin, Lacy, does skins since she understands all the coding. My other co-admin, Ben, doesn't do as much of the appearance of the site, but he enforces the rules since he is much more firm than Lacy and I are. Out of a bad situation, we created a new one and managed to coax a good amount of the members off of the old site and onto our new one.

[R A Y N E !]

I think the key to a successful board is to have more than one administrator. I was a member of a few boards for a while and when they died, the friends that I had made on the site and I created a new one. Right now I am the creator and head admin of my two sites and I realize that on my high school one, where there are three admin, it is more successful and with more activity than my other wolf site where I am the only admin.

Being an admin isn't just being able to make fancy skins and moderate boards to tell people what to do, but it's to make a fun environment that will draw people. I also make sure that I know what is going on with everyone, whether it be school, work, or things at home. Good communication with your members, throughout the site, and throughout the community helps if you would like to be a successful admin.

Also, being an admin is also being a dedicated member to your site. If there is a lack of activity, just due to a boring plot, it is an admin's job to come up with new ideas that might bring members back.

[AmberMcAmberson]

I prefer to be an admin only because I have many sites that are sucsessfull. I look at evrey code and then use it . One of the main causes to forum failure is the admin themselves. They can be never on, board or other reasons. Some people are just board and make a forum. Those never sucseed. Also, some people are mad that they're not an admin of a site. So they make their own to be the boss for a change. Those always die

[LunyRed]

I've been a staff member before from one forum and I've been active in it from June 2008, although I decided to quit because the forum started to lack activity and members stopped participating actively around the forum.

I have to admit, I was very inexperienced before in being a staff member, and I could only do limited things. However, I couldn't blame our admin from that forum because it was he who decides what staff powers he should give me. During that time, I just wished I was just a regular member, wherein I could just sit back and relax, without worrying too much about all the biggest responsibilities around the site so I could just watch. Unfortunately, there's not much to rely on the other staff members so most of the work was left to me with the main admin being absent very often back from the past.

It was just this month that I built up confidence to create my own forum. I've learned from my modship experience a few things on how to handle a forum on my own. I've also used the Proboards help V4 to assist me. Now I'm no longer just a staff member or a regular member. I'm now an admin of my own forum, which I just recently started more than 2 weeks ago. I'm also the own graphics designer of my own forum. I'm thankful I had Photoshop knowledge; therefore, I can make banners, avatars, signatures on my own without asking anybody else to create graphics for me. I can work with my graphic templates just the way I imagined them to be, because it might turn out different from what I expect it if other people would make the graphics for me.

Being an admin shall be a bigger responsibility, but it's something that you should be proud of, so you have to do your best. Getting bored out of the forum an admin manages will surely lead the forum to its possible downfall. Put all your devotion and heart into your forum to keep it productive so all its members will enjoy coming back into it.

[grieves and squick]

May 31, 2006 15:34:36 GMT -8 ∞ ConqueringWolf ∞ said:

It seems to me that a lot of people who are making forums don't have the proper personality to run a forum and would probably be better off as a member of another forum and helping to make it more successful than to be an admin of their own.

The problem seems to be that the very personality types that aren't fit for leadership {at least, not forum leadership} also seem to be the ones less likely to see that for themselves, at least, before they try running a board. They go on a fun, active forum and think "Wow I want to be the head honcho of a place like this!" Till they actually start trying to do it...and see how much WORK it is.

It's ten times as much work to head a forum as to be subordinate staff, and way moreso than just a plain member. It is more stressful, and when things go wrong you're the first one everyone blames. When you're a leader, everything is your fault.

I see people who throw on the first generic template they can download off the first graphics site they come across and then they throw up a few general boards and proclaim their self as the greatest forum in the world. Personally I believe one of the keys to success for a forum is a unique look that distinguishes itself from someone who just uses a template that 2,000 other boards already use. If an admin cares enough to run a good quality forum they should be willing to spend the time to learn how to design it their self so they can offer something unique to their members and also offer upgrades and changes in the future.

I also see admins who refuse to post in their forum saying, "I am waiting until I get members and then they will start posting on their own". I know from experience that members will not just come in to an empty forum and start making threads on their own. If they have something that interests them enough to reply to then they will join to do so. Once your forum becomes active and new topics are made every day then new members will come in and start new topics and join in on the fun but never will they do that with a forum that is starting off with no topics or posts. Forum activity should be driven as equally if not more by the forum admin than anyone else.

Because again, they want all the success and none of the hard parts. They don't understand what brings you success, and ultimately a sense of satisfaction for a job well done:

Work.

They also don't seem to see that if you don't enjoy it to the Nth degree, your forum will fail. It is purely a labour of love. You have to do it because you love it, not because you want to be in charge.

You also need patience to run a forum and I see too many people who say, "I have had my forum for a week and I don't have any members". If you are not willing to suffer with your forum and endure with it for months at a time with no or little activity then maybe you shouldn't be an admin.

Basically not everyone is cut out to put in all the time, effort, and stress that is required to run a successful forum and they would be much better off if they were just a member on a forum that they enjoyed and were helping the admin of that forum create a successful forum.

So before you create a forum, ask yourself; are you an admin or a better member?

Other things that crop up are issues pertaining to how to keep a forum going healthily along as it grows. Let's say these new admins put a lot of work in at the outset and get a few members, and start things going along well. They can't then just sit back and put their feet up. They have to continue to be involved in the board's development, especially if it's an RPG because those rely largely on creating interesting storylines to play by. They have to know what qualities make good staff {and what ones don't!} because if they pick the wrong people for staff, it will sink the board. They will need staff as the forum grows, it will quickly become larger than one person can handle. Growing pains often sink a board. The bigger it is the harder it is to run. And the faster forum drama can spread, if that isn't controlled closely it too will sink your board really fast. No one wants to spend time on a forum full of fighting. {Unless they're a troll.} And then they have to remember: No putting your feet up. The forum will usually tail off in activity and die unless you constantly participate in it and keep it fresh, and oh yes keep advertising. {In the rare cases it doesn't, you were lucky enough to stumble into staff members skilled enough to keep it afloat for you. But is that why you wanted to be head admin? To just let someone else wind up running your new board, too?} Most members will stay for less than a year {most long term members, less than 3 years}. You'll be needing constant replacements. You need self-discipline, patience, bucketloads of patience. You're setting an example to the rest of your board.

[My Kitty Twofer]

What generally ticks me off with unactive admins, especially if they have a URL that would be easier for you to use than settling for second best, is that, they're the only member, are never on, are denying someone THEIR chance, and they don't delete the board!

Also, people will create a forum in an hour, step back and say "We're open for business!" I tend to lean towards sites that, I learn later, have taken time to build the site they have and don't just fly around like a tornado and make the debris look good.

[grieves and squick]

From what I've heard, deleting a board doesn't free the URL back up again so no point in asking them to do that.

Yeah...Seen that many times. People: Wait till your board is finished AND has a few threads begun BEFORE you begin the advertising! And what's with all the "Needs Staff" ads? Shouldn't you pick your staff out from members who joined your board as members, in the first place? And if you don't have that many members to pick from yet, then your board isn't big enough to NEED other staff.

[FLASHiNGLiGHTS !]

Oct 14, 2009 17:18:43 GMT -8 grieves and squick said:

"Needs Staff" ads? Shouldn't you pick your staff out from members who joined your board as members, in the first place? And if you don't have that many members to pick from yet, then your board isn't big enough to NEED other staff.

I agree completely. Staff should be chosen out of members who joined your board to become a member at first. Most sites don't even need more than the original Administrator until you hit, like, 30 members.

I see people who throw on the first generic template they can download off the first graphics site they come across and then they throw up a few general boards and proclaim their self as the greatest forum in the world. Personally I believe one of the keys to success for a forum is a unique look that distinguishes itself from someone who just uses a template that 2,000 other boards already use. If an admin cares enough to run a good quality forum they should be willing to spend the time to learn how to design it their self so they can offer something unique to their members and also offer upgrades and changes in the future.

When I started off with my forum, I used a pre-made template. Members started telling me that there were a lot of other sites using the same skin, so I edited it so it looks, not completely, but mostly different from other sites, and there isn't one that is quite the same. The banner is still the same, but I'm in the process of creating a new one for my site. I think that if an Admin is willing to make any changes to the skin to make is significantly different from the other forums made from the same template, it isn't like they are not putting any time into creating their forum.

[chris22]

lol

[🎶Sossity🎶]

Oct 21, 2009 9:21:54 GMT -8 @chris22 said:

lol

Please do not spam the board. Note:.

"This board should be used for intelligent discussion of the topic presented. If you don't have something valuable to add to the topic, don't post."

Please read the rules, before posting

[grieves and squick]

I see what angle the "Needs Staff" thing comes from, it's more in terms of considering the position like a real life job, where companies routinely hire people they've never met, after usually a single interview. However...these employees, 1. Are paid! Meaning they've got a strong incentive to behave properly and do their job! Your new staff on your forum won't have money as an incentive; 2. Are not usually given access to things that could potentially bring down the entire company, at least not at first. They start small and work their way up. And again, money is the chief incentive. You don't have money to dangle in front of people and are therefore relying solely on their true desire to be a helpful member/mid-level manager of your forum. You've basically operating on the honour system. Which in my experience rarely works indefinitely.

[matsee]

On my board someone keeps on harassing me by using posting as Guest. So I deactivate the Guest sign in but the problem was non-members are not able to read it and that it was not what I wanted to do.

So using the security log I tried blocking this person's IP address but it turned out to be my own and I accidentally banned myself from my own forum.

So how do unbanned myself?

[BEAST]

Jun 4, 2010 11:49:30 GMT -8 matsee said:

On my board someone keeps on harassing me by using posting as Guest. So I deactivate the Guest sign in but the problem was non-members are not able to read it and that it was not what I wanted to do.

So using the security log I tried blocking this person's IP address but it turned out to be my own and I accidentally banned myself from my own forum.

So how do unbanned myself?

Hi and welcome to Proboards.

Post this message in the Support board. It could get missed here.

[Zuki]

I personally prefer to be an administrator of my own forum, though I do think that I'm an excellent short to mid-term member for other sites. I'll toot my own horn and say that I'm active and literate, which is what sites are looking for, but I'll also admit that I tend to be flighty and if a site can't hold my attention and keep holding it, I'm gone like a flash.

I tend to need to be busy at any given moment of the day, so I feel that running my own site is a hobby and a way to keep busy. I enjoy modifying, adding extensive histories to the plots (long enough that no one bothers to read them) and I fill in every bit of information that I possibly can so that my forum works out. My current forum was in the works for over a month before I finally opened it to the public, and even now I'm constantly adding and shifting things around. I feel that I'm at least an active and concerned admin if not a good one, and I'm trying to reach that "good admin" status. <3