How should I staff my forum?

[trent]

On my forum I had a member help out with graphics and I was really impressed. He didn't have to do that and took time to make skins, so I made him a graphics mod. I also asked somebody that moded another forum and he was upset at the admin so I asked him to be a mod on my site.

[reese1603]

One thing you should be careful of is giving them too many powers. Esecially when you've just hired them. I hired someone who seemed like a good person and then it turned out that he broke more rules than any of the members!

But I realized also, even if you make a mistake, you can easily correct it. As soon as I realized what he was doing, I took away most of his powers and hired someone else to take his place. He is no longer a global moderator and he seems to be doing a good job with it.

I agree with the people who say that you shouldn't hire when your site first starts up - wait until you have too many members to keep up.

Also - I use an application system. I have about 8 questions that they fill out and send to me. I hold onto the application until we are ready to hire. When we do hire, I then go over the past 100 posts of each member that sent in an app and I choose members based on that. Applications are a good idea because: you can see who really wants to be a moderator (not all members do!), you can see what they are interested in moderating, how old they are (I wouldn't want young kids to be a mod), and they can give some past experience - I go to each and every site they list if they've been a mod before and check out all those posts as well.

[Michelangelo "Spike" Scarlatti]

I usually gie staff positions to my owen characters in roleplay boards and a few others that ive roleplayed with before and I know how they are and their active too
As for other boards I choose people I know only and the admin is the only one with all the powers on the board
and the global mod has a few powers here and there the one power I never give out to other staff it the categories or the boards .I wouldnt want anyone messing with that
other than that they get quite a bit of power and only if I know them
for mods they get a few things less than the global mods

But I get some members that join and think their gonna be staff
I never assign a person I dont know to be staff on my board.thats like giving them a gun and say dont shoot me

[reese1603]

Feb 13, 2008 14:21:36 GMT -8 Michelangelo "Spike" Scarlatti said:

I usually gie staff positions to my owen characters in roleplay boards and a few others that ive roleplayed with before and I know how they are and their active too
As for other boards I choose people I know only and the admin is the only one with all the powers on the board
and the global mod has a few powers here and there the one power I never give out to other staff it the categories or the boards .I wouldnt want anyone messing with that
other than that they get quite a bit of power and only if I know them
for mods they get a few things less than the global mods

But I get some members that join and think their gonna be staff
I never assign a person I dont know to be staff on my board.thats like giving them a gun and say dont shoot me

That is so true - I will never again give a position to someone who just joined! I have a hard time giving a position to someone who keeps asking for it, too, because its kind of weird that they want to be a moderator so bad.... lol

[Michelangelo "Spike" Scarlatti]

yeah it is cause if they want to be staff so bad go make your own board
I mean I wont risk mine going down the drain to a complete stranger
thats just asking for trouble

[HoudiniDerek]

I rarely give out staff positions. I find that I am rarely so busy that I cannot take an hour or so each day to go over the site and see if there are violations. If I am gone for an extended amount of time, I give a member test powers...which is usually restricted to the lock function. After all, I don't want them deleting something until I get back to make sure it is necessary.

I have been asked to be staff numerous times after just joining a site...it happened the other day. I told the admin that I would mod if she wanted me too, but that the site was pretty new and probably did not need it yet. I also told her that she might want to watch me more first to make sure my ideas and hers were compatible. I don't think it is wrong to offer someone staff off the bat, but healthy monitoring of them and some restrictions work out best if you absolutely feel you have to have staff other than yourself.

[Michelangelo "Spike" Scarlatti]

I only give out staff positions so if I cant be online for some reason or Im to stressed to deal with things on my board then my staff can deal with them for me
besides its actually nice to have staff to help you out when you really need it
and for my staff we usually talk about if a member would need to be deleted and out of the four of us we have to have at least 3 of us agreeing on something before we make a move or change

[HoudiniDerek]

To me, unless you have a large forum, there is little need for staff. If you have a large and active forum as some do, then staff is more essential. I was given one forum with 100 members. Only about 10 are active on any given day so it is easy to staff. I just need myself to do it because I can be around nearly every day. Since the rest don't post, I don't need help moderating the forum. I guess it depends on the individual and the forum they have set up, but to me, staff should be one of the last worries on a forum until needed.

[Michelangelo "Spike" Scarlatti]

Oh boy maybe I have to many staff members
I have 29 members
but I also make my adult characters on roleplay boards staff so if im not logged in as the admin I can deal with what a member would need without leaving as that certian character
And I have loads for boards on mine so I like the help cause we get members that dont do anything when they join or when they do they dont follow the rules right off so I ask staff to help keep and eye out for these members
and having staff at times is nice so if a member has a question and Im doing something else then one of the staff takes the time and helps the member out

[Former Member]

I have one co admin and 5 moderators who i call the mod squad I chose the 5 mod squadders after seeing how loyal they were to nciscsi and its growth. I normally make sure I can trust them and even give them a trial run and talk over with my co admin and head modsquadder (yes I have a mod squad leader...aka the one whos been there the longest)

My forum is the type that needs supervision...I was quite laid back in the beginning but after the attacks we decided to make our team bigger and have a night shift ((yes for the members that come on at night))

[tdlbloodhound]

how can i staff my forum

['rapture]

I got a new site and I only have me and another Admin cause I trust her completely. I wanna get the site Active like 22 members before I decide who gets the pressure push by members and loose temper. You should wait for a while till you decide. You never know, someone may be a really bad mod....No offense but you know, like breaking EVERY rule in history of the site. LOLS..

What do you mean TH?

[HoudiniDerek]

Jun 4, 2008 9:06:56 GMT -8 tdlbloodhound said:

how can i staff my forum

I am not sure what you mean, but I will try and answer.


The first thing to remember in my opinion: You don't have to staff your forum if you feel you are competent to do the job. If it is a new forum, I recommend not getting any other staff until you need them. There is no hard and fast rule as to what the magic number is of staff:members, but make sure it is something you can handle.

If you do decide you need staff, I think it is always best to have someone that is an active member of the forum. Make sure that they have behaved and obeyed the rules and that they seem to know what the forum is about.

After you have someone in mind, I would give them small moderating tasks, such as one board where they have limited powers. This allows them to prove they are ready for more responsibility, it allows you to see how they work in situations, and helps to alleviate pressure from you.

Just repeat those steps above when you feel you need a staff member. However, you have to make sure that you need staff and are not making people staff because you think it is expected.

[MISS']

On my forums, I normally put a few other admins except me, who are people I trust, and know for quite some time. Global Moderators are the really active, nice, members on my forum, and the moderators are just people who can lock, sticky, make announcements...etc. Not delete anything, or change it.

[wwrdevil]

Right now the only staff on my forum is myself and the Co-admin. We're starting a CAW wrestling league on YouTube this summer and we use the forum as a place to post backstory and for discussion about the storylines. Right now I am the only one who can delete posts or ban people as my Co-Admin is a little new to running a forum where as I've done it before, and am familiar with how a ProBoard works.