How Admin Etiquette Can Effect Your ProBoard

[myke]

Believe it or not, part of many forums' success if determined on how the majority of the populous sees the admin of said forums. I, personally, have seen a many forums take off because it's admin was well liked by outside communities they were a apart of.

Think about it for a second, you see two different people with two different forums, but the same subject, a subject that interests you. Guy A is a pretty nice guy. He is willing to interact with you, and post with you in a fun, mature way. He is considerate of others' feelings, and always brings something interesting to the table. Guy B is a jerk. He likes to spam his forum, begging people to join. He likes to make smart Aleck comments towards other members, post spam replies, and flames others when they point out that he is wrong.

Now, whose board would you be more likely to join? Person A, or Person B?

No one likes a spammer. Spamming your site begging people to join is one sure way to never get any real members. If you're lucky a few people will register with obscene names as insults directed towards you, but no real members. Would you join a forum where it's admin didn't have any more sense then to go around advertising in the least effective, and most annoying way possible? What does that say about their maturity? More importantly, what does that say about the chances of success for their forum when they obviously have no common sense, let alone enough sense to run a successful forum.

No one likes a rude smart Aleck person. If you are part of another community you hope to get members from, and are just plain rude, then people will stay as far away from you as possible. I mean, would you want to join a forum where the admin likes to insult others, spam, make fun of you, makes rude comments about other people and other things? Highly unlikely.

How you present yourself on other forums, other communities, is how people will form opinions of you, and form initial opinions of your forum. You can have the best forum in the world, but if you go around acting like person B, then no one will ever give you a chance. No one wants to be around anyone like that, unless they, themselves are immature, smart Aleck, rude spammers.

The admin of a site is the most important member to a forum's success. He/She is the one who sets all of the examples that others will try to follow. He/She is the one who ultimately stands before the judge and jury every time there are out in other communities hoping to get some members.

When I became a regular here at ProBoards Support, I tried my hardest to be an upstanding, productive member, because i KNEW my actions, and attitude here would reflect back on how people viewed my forum.

What you want to do while visiting other communities (and while visiting your own forum) is to be nice, caring, productive, entertaining, mature, sensitive to others, ect. Be silly if you want, that's fine, we are all a little bit silly, but do it in an acceptable way. Follow all of the rules, don't get branded as a constant rule breaker. Again, what does that say about your forum if you can't follow simple rules on other communities? Would you elect a mayor who was a rapist?

Just use some common sense, and do the right thing, and treat people right. By doing that, you will only gain. By acting like a fool, like person B, you will always loose.

Thoughts, comments, questions?

[Artemis]

This is a topic I can easily relate to. I've seen forums that ban people just for disagreeing with the admin.

The forum's activity and attitude revolves almost completely around that of the admin. For the board to be active and get along well, the members need someone they can look to as a good, well respected admin; not a spammer who doesn't do well as a regular member, much less an admin.

Personally, I look at the admin before anyone else before joining a board. I look to see what they are like, how they run the place (the rules they set) and most of all, how they treat and interact with their own members. I would only consider joining a forum if the admin was someone I could find myself respecting.

This goes to the other topic as well; some people are better as admins, some as members. Those who try and fail to be an admin won't find themselves going very far with their forum, because they don't know how to run it very well, and quickly lose members because of their attitude.

[Diode]

How you present yourself on other forums, other communities, is how people will form opinions of you, and form initial opinions of your forum.

Very well said, Myke. I too have seen forums where the admin powertrips and appears corrupt. I steer clear of these. In addition, i'll never join a forum where guests cannot view, unless i know the admin from somewhere else, for the same reasons.

On my board where i'm the main admin, i have another co-admin and a moderator. All of us act and post like regular members and do not use our "powers" unless absolutely necessary. I believe those factors make us a fun bunch and a welcoming forum overall.

[creeper77]

My boyfriend was a member of an "official board" that was and still is run like anything but an official board.

The staff play favorites to creeps who flame people for no reason whatsoever.

That's why i have no favorites and i treat everyone the same.
People aren't dumb, if you act like a loser with them they will find another place to call home in a few minutes.

There's alot of boards out there for them.

[Raven]

There is no necessary requirement for coolness that anyone needs to be an admin.
But there are many things that will make you forum successful if you do the right things.
When members arrive, help them and make them feel welcomed, but make sure you give them space to roam and feel free at home.
Be active, you should make the majority of the posts, show them you care and have intelligence into your posts.
When designing your forum, make sure all the codes work in the major browsers (Netscape, Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Opera).
Make sure the graphics match and blend in with the color scheme.
The color scheme should be something simple, but elegant.
It should be creative, the text colors should be readable and the opposite of the background colors.
What I mean is don't use black text on a black background and don't clash colors together.
Be nice and friendly on your message board.
You want them to feel welcomed and you want them to know you have a bit of intelligence inside you.
You have to be hard working to be an admin. Your heart has to be in it, things don't magically happen.
Members don't get on your message board and start posts out of nowhere, I had to wait a good 5 months for my forum to get active and it took even longer to find an efficient design team to work with me.
Don't forget the seasons. At the end of spring, there will be a lot of EOG and EOC tests, people have jobs, they can't always be on the message board, but if you're friendly and intelligent, they should come on when they get the chance.
Don't pm advertise, I admit I did it in the past and it is a foolish way to advertise.
When you advertise, do it in your signature, far more effective.
Get a nice signature to represent your message board and make sure it has a few of the activities you can do on the message board on the signature.
Post often and reply to all posts, it isn't a requirement, but it helps and it'll give the forum a bigger post count overall.
I used to be apart of a forum where members got flamed.
I would pm the members and tell them they didn't have to take that and show them my forum.
And most liked it better and even joined.
Flaming should not be allowed, it's immature and futile toward the productivity of your message board.
It is in no way professional either.

[Drewz]

My advice would be not getting too worked up over the little things. I made a thread asking members to sometimes post in polls rather than just vote. It's a small problem (which I pointed out) but I needed to get that off my chest.

I use the warning meter as a last resort. If a member does something wrong, I'll warn them, if they do it again, I'll warn them again with a little more seriousness, if yet again I'll adjust their warning meter up. That's only for small problems though, like insults, etc.

It's alright to give member a size limit on their sig, but I suggest allowing them to put almost anything in their sig. Banners to their site is perfectly fine in my book.

Also don't be obbsesive about the direction you want your forum to go in. If you want a "G-Rated" forum, don't go mental becuase the term 'loser' was brought up. Especially if it's not directed as an insult at a member.

And most importantly, don't let the power go to your head. Although be aware of what powers you do have. It's only and internet forum after all.

Their just my thoughts and ideas, things I've noticed at other forum admins (and myself). Some may disagree on some points, that's fine.

[Jesusfreak]

myke said:

Believe it or not, part of many forums' success if determined on how the majority of the populous sees the admin of said forums. I, personally, have seen a many forums take off because it's admin was well liked by outside communities they were a apart of.

Think about it for a second, you see two different people with two different forums, but the same subject, a subject that interests you. Guy A is a pretty nice guy. He is willing to interact with you, and post with you in a fun, mature way. He is considerate of others' feelings, and always brings something interesting to the table. Guy B is a jerk. He likes to spam his forum, begging people to join. He likes to make smart alleck comments towards other members, post spam replies, and flames others when they point out that he is wrong.

Now, whose board would you be more likely to join? Person A, or Person B?

No one likes a spammer. Spamming your site begging people to join is one sure way to never get any real members. If you're lucky a few people will register with obscene names as insults directed towards you, but no real members. Would you join a forum where it's admin didn't have any more sense then to go around advertising in the least effective, and most annoying way possible? What does that say about their maturity? More importantly, what does that say about the chances of success for their forum when they obviously have no common sense, let alone enough sense to run a successful forum.

No one likes a rude smart alleck person. If you are part of another community you hope to get members from, and are just plain rude, then people will stay as far away from you as possible. I mean, would you want to join a forum where the admin likes to insult others, spam, make fun of you, makes rude comments about other people and other things? Highly unlikely.

How you present yourself on other forums, other communities, is how people will form opinions of you, and form initial opinions of your forum. You can have the best forum in the world, but if you go around acting like person B, then no one will ever give you a chance. No one wants to be around anyone like that, unless they, themselves are immature, smart alleck, rude spammers.

The admin of a site is the most important member to a forum's success. He/She is the one who sets all of the examples that others will try to follow. He/She is the one who ultimately stands before the judge and jury every time there are out in other communities hoping to get some members.

When I became a regular here at ProBoards Support, I tried my hardest to be an upstanding, productive member, because i KNEW my actions, and attitude here would reflect back on how people viewed my forum.

What you want to do while visiting other communities (and while visiting your own forum) is to be nice, caring, productive, entertaining, mature, sensitive to others, ect. Be silly if you want, that's fine, we are all a little bit silly, but do it in an acceptable way. Follow all of the rules, don't get branded as a constant rule breaker. Again, what does that say about your forum if you can't follow simple rules on other communities? Would you elect a mayor who was a rapist?

Just use some common sense, and do the right thing, and treat people right. By doing that, you will only gain. By acting like a fool, like person B, you will always loose.

Thoughts, comments, questions?

Geez, you basically said it all right there. I don't know how anyone couldn't agree with you. If the forum leader is like Hitler, no one is going to stay, unless they're little Stalins. You can't force your members to stay by fear, since the worse you can do is keep them away by banning them, lol.

As you were saying, the administrator needs to be enjoyable. If you can't have a discussion with them without them looking down upon you because you're simply a member, then you're not going to have a successful forum - being that a forum is basically many discussions. Of course, we all know that the administrators have to be fun, well-likable, and well, just all-around good people. What gets many administrators (even the best of us) is when the time arouses for disciplining a member. We have to have rules if we are going to run a successful forum, the challenge comes on what rules to formulate, how you enforce those rules, and how professional you are when you do enforce those rules, when the time comes. You can't be perceived by your members as a merciless nazi, but you also can't be perceived by your members as a person who they can walk over. A successful forum takes multiple components, but good leadership is probably very high on the rank of components. Without leadership the forum will eventually cave in on itself.

[mrsyukisohma]

I'm surprised I haven't mentioned this yet because I learned this a long time ago by observing other staff members. Just because you're an admin and it gives you certain powers over another doesn't mean you're always right in your decision making. Staff members have warned and banned people over the wrong circumstances in the past. How can this be? It's pretty simple. Don't be so closed minded. An example would be I met a girl who got banned for making the same smiley her friend did. The admin said that her friend made up the smile (but the smiley was pretty common), and banned the member for it. You need to be mature in decisions like this. Look back and realize, "Hey, maybe I was wrong." Of course this doesn't make all of your decisions wrong, but admins aren't perfect either. You learn as you go. When you have kids you won't always be perfect or make the right decisions with them. It's a similar circumstance as running a forum (although, this doesn't mean you should look at your members as your own children, and some admins do).

[pollywollydoodle]

Hi

Oooops, reading this thread has made me think I've made a big mistake!

When I set up my board I saw the Admin side as just a way to set up, modify the board, add code etc. so once it was ready to go I then registered myself as a general member thinking that I'd rather be 'one of the girls' than the big know-it-all 'Administrator'

I posts and reply as myself but whenever updates or deletions are necessary I just log in as the Admin do what's necessary and leave.

The site is fairly new so I suppose I've time to change but does anyone have any suggestions on how I could do it? How could I go from being a member to being Admin without it seeming strange as I would end up with two lots of posts all by me but with different names.

Wish I'd seen this thread before!

Thanks for any help or ideas

[myke]

pollywollydoodle said:

Hi

Oooops, reading this thread has made me think I've made a big mistake!

When I set up my board I saw the Admin side as just a way to set up, modify the board, add code etc. so once it was ready to go I then registered myself as a general member thinking that I'd rather be 'one of the girls' than the big know-it-all 'Administrator'

I posts and reply as myself but whenever updates or deletions are necessary I just log in as the Admin do what's necessary and leave.

The site is fairly new so I suppose I've time to change but does anyone have any suggestions on how I could do it? How could I go from being a member to being Admin without it seeming strange as I would end up with two lots of posts all by me but with different names.

Wish I'd seen this thread before!

Thanks for any help or ideas

In my opinion, if you want to have a regular account to post with, and an admin account for admin duties, I see nothing wrong with that. In fact, quite a few people do it that way. But if you're still wanting to change, w/out deleting and or reposting posts, you could always make your regular member posting account an administrator.

[R Ø G U € »]

it is true that admin etiqutte can affect your boards activity.
I found that when you don't be a jerk on other forums people think
(This guys nice, may'be i can hang with him more on the net, if i join his site)
And it's true

[midiman]

For me the admin is like the landlord of a pub, if people don't like him they'll move to another pub. If they think he's OK and not too serious, takes care of things in a responsible, mature manner - interacting with the clientele, etc, they'll stay.

[MARYA]

I agree on the statement that the behavior of the admin is important.
But sometimes, admins are not directly rude, but thend to shoo away mebers by their behavior not on purpose.
For example, I joined on this forum and then I introduced myself, and here's what the admin replied:
Admin: Hello. I hope you'll have tons of fun here!
Me: I will.
Admin: Advertise EVERYWHERE!!!

....And that ticked me off. I mean, I'm sure the admin had good intentions, but that is certainly not a way to greet new members in my opinion. I didn't post anymore on that forum because of the admin.

[Kelley Killer Tomato]

A good admin is without a doubt the backbone to a forum and the key to it's success. Speaking from my own personal experience, I've come across admins that join in on berating members and that is completely uncalled for. Not to mention highly unprofessional. IMO an admin needs to be the one that sets examples for the members. This particular admins argument (when called on her attitude) was "Just b/c I'm staff doesn't mean a thing." Well, to me it does. The staff and especially the admin should be the ones to put a stop to that sort of thing. Not join in.

Another example is an admin that people walk on egg shells around for fear of setting them off. And when I say set them off, I don't mean blowing up. I mean just the opposite. Instead they're more subtle. Taking nasty little subtle jabs or purposely bringing up a subject that they know will cause an argument just to stir the pot, so to speak.

Like I said both of these examples are from my own personal experiences and in both cases the overall atmosphere of the forums were strained. I would not call either of them successful forums.

Kel

[#~CrAzY~ByOnD~ReCoGnItIoN~#]

lray2 said:

This is a topic I can easily relate to. I've seen forums that ban people just for disagreeing with the admin.

The forum's activity and attitude revolves almost completely around that of the admin. For the board to be active and get along well, the members need someone they can look to as a good, well respected admin; not a spammer who doesn't do well as a regular member, much less an admin.

Personally, I look at the admin before anyone else before joining a board. I look to see what they are like, how they run the place (the rules they set) and most of all, how they treat and interact with their own members. I would only consider joining a forum if the admin was someone I could find myself respecting.

This goes to the other topic as well; some people are better as admins, some as members. Those who try and fail to be an admin won't find themselves going very far with their forum, because they don't know how to run it very well, and quickly lose members because of their attitude.

agreed i try not to get on peoples nerves but some people you just have to get on there nerves