[Debate] Why do you want to be an admin?

[Former Member]

I became an admin back in 2007 without intending to.

I had experience of being a member of Proboards back then because I was already a member of one RP site and a fan/hang out site for another show.

I had joined a new RP site and there were (at the time) only three members there - I had agreed to help set up the site and invited another friend over (This friend I had made through a Yahoo RP community - cause thats how it was back then).

The admin of this new site grew jelous that myself and the friend were having fun RPing so she deleted the site and set up a new one. I joined that one with the friend and she (the admin) deleted it again.

So I got fed up and created my own site and invited my friend over, since then I have been an Admin... I am terrible with graphics but good at other stuff...

I simply like to be able to help people and have fun... I don't want to see people have bad experiences on RP sites (I've had loads) So I try to welcome everyone and I didn't want anyone to be the victim of a site being deleted.

[Nefa]

My friend introduced roleplay and forums to me around the time that everyone started making forums. (I don't know if anyone here experienced a period like that?) I made one out of curiosity and enjoyed it for the most part. After that, I created a lot of forums, trying to find something original that I enjoyed doing. I started joining other forums but all were run poorly and I witnessed and experienced a lot of cyberbullying. I never actually liked roleplaying and just made forums to make friends. This is why so many of them failed. I learned to be a better staff member and roleplayer. Now I actually enjoy it and get really excited and involved in roleplay. I have run my forum for almost three years now, opening and closing it and redoing it but never finding what I liked. ProBoards has gotten me back into running a forum and has made adding features much easier for me. I am socially anxious in real life, so I have trouble standing up to others and making myself heard. Running a forum gave me a sense of responsibility that I loved. Being an active part of other forums has always been a challenge for me because of the poor treatment I've received on other forums. It was nice to feel respected for a change and good to be in charge of something. I guess I sort of became addicted to it. My love for running forums is not the most healthy but it has made me a much better and more confident person. Being an admin makes me feel good about myself, basically.

[Former Member]

Bump

I created a Benedict Cumberbatch forum (link in siggy)simply because I am technically the first message board for him (that I know of - I Google searched and only Wordpress blogs and a few tumblrs showed up).

I've always wanted to have my own forum and I kind of got lucky since there aren't other Ben forums. But that doesn't mean I'm not having a tricky time getting members. About 3 or 4 members are actually me on different accounts trying to boost the forum.

[Mid]

Back 3 years ago, when I was in middle school, I made a new friend. I saw her reading these books with cats on them, and as I've always been an avid cat person, I took interest, asking her questions about them and things of the like. She let me borrow one of these books, one of the manga books, actually, and I instantly fell in love with the Warriors series.

Not long after I started reading them, this same friend told me about roleplaying and gave me a website to start on. It was a chat roleplay and I couldn't get into it, so I branched out and searched for Warriors roleplays on the Internet. I found .webs, wetpaint (they go by a different name now, if I recall correctly, but I have no idea what it is), forumotion, etc., but the layouts of each confused me, so I continued my search.

Eventually, I found a large Warriors roleplay on ProBoards. I joined and, for the first time since my little journey began, I found something that was easy for me to get into. However, being on something so large really intimidated me, and I was often too scared to post, thinking I'd be breaking a rule and I would get in trouble or something. Somewhat irrational fears, yes, but they were mine nevertheless. Also, for some reason, I felt very ignored.

With those negative feelings in mind, I decided to create my own Warriors roleplay - one where I would be in control. I wanted it to get popular so I could make friends and I wanted a place to call my own where the rules, plot, etc. were written by me (along with members' help). I wanted something big.

While my reasons were definitely pretty selfish, it somehow worked out. I was a terrible admin at first - what I said was constantly later contradicted, there were many situations I had not considered, I made a rule based on a selfish feeling (I wouldn't allow characters to have mates because I thought roleplaying that was "Gross"), etc. Luckily, I had the aforementioned friend help me out with building it. She helped me make the boards and taught me to advertise and let other forums advertise back. She eventually left because she was no longer interested in the Warriors series, but by that point, I had a hold on what was up with running a forum, even if I wasn't all that good at it. Considering I'd only been roleplaying on forums for about a month at the time I created my own, I had absolutely no staff experience and my writing skills weren't all that wonderful. I still consider myself lucky that my forum got anywhere.

3 years later, that very forum is still running and is pretty large in comparison to most ProBoards Warriors roleplays.

Unfortunately, I'm unable to find my "Success formula", and so every other forum I've made has died at some point. I'm mostly thinking its due to my own determination on keeping it going, but I'm not completely sure. I'm just glad my original's still going.

[bellsprout]

Despite my site not being very well-known, it's nice to be an admin. Not only you're leading a bunch of people, but you're also helping them. I know some say that their writing skill increases on forums. If you're an admin, you feel a giant rush of pride and satisfaction with the work you've done to your website. If you were a member you would only be amazed for, like, two seconds.

Also, if you're admin, you help people gain more muse by creating more boards, or Clans in my case. I made a Warriors RP site back in June- link in siggy- and on the first day 4-5 of my friends on a different forum joined. It's hard to believe that two months later you have a site full of 100 Warriors fans. I know it isn't much, but it's cool to think you're leading a site like this, and people enjoy your work.

Creating forums may help shape someone's life, and it's nice to know if you helped someone in school, etc.. That's why I liked being an admin.

[Jaguar]

I became an Admin because I wanted to be a better Moderator. It's important to know what your getting yourself into.

So here now I'm both an Admin and a Moderator.

[Sonikku1011]

I became an admin because I wanted to create and manage my own forum. The thought of creating a forum and making new friends is fun, especially when you can make up the rules. Plus I've learned quite a few new things while being an admin on a forum. It takes hard work and dedication to help maintain a forum, active or not. Plus I've ventured into teaching myself a bit more about HTML, CSS, and a tiny bit of PHP since being an admin.

[Cuethelaugh]

I wanted to be an admin to help people on roleplay sites. I love plotting and getting awesome stories happening. I take pride when people religiously read threads that they aren't in and even make comments that they wish my characters (and of course others) were actually on the shows that the site is based around.

I also am extremely protective keeping my members out of the reach of online bullying (which we only have one source of) and OOC drama that is pretty much just highschool antics from people who are way too old to be doing it.

I'm more no nonsense than some of the other mods/admins and they know that about me so that works out too. Someone has to be bad cop and I certainly don't mind doing it to keep a wonderful site going!

[Himms]

Aug 28, 2014 13:18:26 GMT -8 Cuethelaugh said:

I wanted to be an admin to help people on roleplay sites. I love plotting and getting awesome stories happening. I take pride when people religiously read threads that they aren't in and even make comments that they wish my characters (and of course others) were actually on the shows that the site is based around.

I also am extremely protective keeping my members out of the reach of online bullying (which we only have one source of) and OOC drama that is pretty much just highschool antics from people who are way too old to be doing it.

I'm more no nonsense than some of the other mods/admins and they know that about me so that works out too. Someone has to be bad cop and I certainly don't mind doing it to keep a wonderful site going!

High School? Wasn't that over some time back for most of us? o.O

Sorry but that made me laugh....High School Antics.

[Cuethelaugh]

Oct 9, 2014 0:11:28 GMT -8 Himms said:

Aug 28, 2014 13:18:26 GMT -8 Cuethelaugh said:

High School? Wasn't that over some time back for most of us? o.O

Sorry but that made me laugh....High School Antics.

Ha! Glad you liked my terminology.

It most definitely was but some people insist on living in their past or drudging up drama because they are not happy with their own life or are just bored which is just... sad. I wish I had a nicer way to put it but that's really what it is!

We had one member who was guilty of just that so we banned her. It's like the Shadowlands in 'Lion King'. You just don't go there with us!

[Former Member]

Oct 9, 2014 7:15:51 GMT -8 Cuethelaugh said:

Oct 9, 2014 0:11:28 GMT -8 Himms said:

High School? Wasn't that over some time back for most of us? o.O

Sorry but that made me laugh....High School Antics.

Ha! Glad you liked my terminology.

It most definitely was but some people insist on living in their past or drudging up drama because they are not happy with their own life or are just bored which is just... sad. I wish I had a nicer way to put it but that's really what it is!

We had one member who was guilty of just that so we banned her. It's like the Shadowlands in 'Lion King'. You just don't go there with us!

I believe from my experience that people do the drama "thing" for attention.  I liked your post btw.

I have had many offers to be admin on several boards but I don't feel it would be fair to spread myself so thin as I won't be able to give 100% attention to a board that isn't mine. Does that sound bad?

[Cuethelaugh]

Oct 9, 2014 9:04:56 GMT -8 @apple1 said:

I have had many offers to be admin on several boards but I don't feel it would be fair to spread myself so thin as I won't be able to give 100% attention to a board that isn't mine. Does that sound bad?

Not at all! Makes perfect sense (on both accounts). I think someone should only admin one board and then mod another. The rest of the time I'd suggest they just be a member. Members deserve undivided attention when you're on and I don't think one can do that to the best of their ability when juggling 10 sites.

What sounds bad is when an admin has you join a site and then join yours and ADVERTISES their site to steal members then leaves.. THAT WOULD BE BAD #TotalTangentButImGrumpy

Moving on I feel like the best admins are the nice ones who don't trash other sites or try to create drama because they're insecure about their own site. Unfortunately I feel like there are very few of those nowadays which is why I cling to the contact I have with those admins who have genuine, positive reasons for holding a position of 'power' and assistance.

[Former Member]

I originally became an admin because I wanted to create a successful anime forum that I had total control over, and randomly made a forum at 2am.

I'm not going to lie, the power aspect sounded pretty good at the time. Over time though, I just started enjoying chatting with members that shared a common interest, and I became friends with a bunch of people. My initial definition of 'successful' was having so many members that the forum was packed to the rafters, but that has now changed to just 'having people to talk to about anime' and in that case the forum has been successful and the people I know now have made every second totally worth it.

Now I kind of just see myself as a normal member with the ability to break the forum on a regular basis.

[Tix Mascot]

I decided to create a forum because a lot of people pretended to be interested. In hindsight, however, it turned out that they were all mouth and no action, so unless a miracle happens, I have wasted a great amount of time and effort for nothing. Well, not quite, though. I have taught myself from scratch how to administer a forum, but it's doubtful if I will ever bother to practice my skills if this project collapses.

Best regards
Heretix

[Former Member]

Oct 30, 2014 7:12:33 GMT -8 Tix Mascot said:

I decided to create a forum because a lot of people pretended to be interested. In hindsight, however, it turned out that they were all mouth and no action, so unless a miracle happens, I have wasted a great amount of time and effort for nothing. Well, not quite, though. I have taught myself from scratch how to administer a forum, but it's doubtful if I will ever bother to practice my skills if this project collapses.

Best regards
Heretix

    The last time I looked at your forum. there were 17 members.