Choosing Staff For Your ProBoard

[HoudiniDerek]

tobi said:

My staff are chosen from those that assist with the building and planning stages of my forum . The people I choose have to be loyal and active and able to dedicate some of their time to help me keeping my forum running well .

I have loads ask for positions and make everyone do an application and decide from that ( along with my mods )

I have never had to make anyone a staff member as I have never owned a forum by myself, although one is in the works. I would choose reliable people who spent time making the site a success and fun without worrying about it being a success. I think those are the people that make great staff members. In fact, I have been told that is why I was asked to be staff on a few different forums.

And Tobi, you really came out of nowhere posting in all the threads.

[Lord of Fire]

If there's any example of someone choosing staff at random, it would be me.

Three years ago, when I first became co-admin on a forum, I figured I'd just hire whoever was interested, most were usually people I was befriended with at the time.

For most parts, that went quite well, but a year later, the first signs of trouble arose. One mod became a troll, another one started harassing forum members with request for cybersex, so I was forced to strip them of their powers. That only made things worse, as they then started flaming me and in less than a week's time, activity hit rock-bottom. One of them got a second chance by request of the main admin and even though I voted against it, I was outvoted 3 to 1 and she was back in, only to be banned a month later for acting like a troll.

That made me a bit more cautious about whom I hired, but I still didn't learn enough, as other mods I hired suddenly vanished without a trace, despite them being active, well-behaving members before. If I had learned about these unwritten rules sooner, things may have been completely different.

On my current forum, I only have one staff member and seeing as how I've known him for quite a long time now, I'm confident that I don't have to worry about him becoming something like my own worst enemy online.

[sudsy]

I think some in admin will make regular members a staff member of some sort in order to keep them loyal and coming back, a reward so to speak or maybe insurance. Lets face it a lot of people think being "on staff" is meaning well liked, power, an ego trip. Then there could be the problem of someone getting upset because so and so is a mod and they aren't. If the board is running well and people are behaving what is the point in a lot of staff.

[urcrazy]

I have found that the forums pretty much run themself. We do need a couple to take care of misc. things but for the most part no moderation is needed.

I used to belong to a group that was all on an ego trip, but left that one as it wasn't worth the drama. You still get your trolls but they are easily identified. Ignore them and they go away. It takes 2 the argue, well usually.

[Shezrie]

It is not easy choosing a moderator. I find that I now need a third moderator.

My two moderators agree that we are getting so busy we cannot keep up with the threads, so clearly a third mod is in order.

The choice is between two, one has a very easy going manner, very much liked and a very fair attitude, however has become less active recently. He is a good candidate for a moderator, however he has his own website and another forum to moderate, which leaves me wondering whether he would have the time to attend to my forum. *Sheesh, it is not easy*

The other is a good sort, but makes me a little uneasy as I recall him in our previous chatrooms with many of our younger members. They were talking about drugs and who had done what (the reason I removed the chatroom, call me a party pooper if you want. .), and they were looking up to this older member as 'cool'. He had done drugs etc. While he wasn't really talking too much about it, he still was not discouraging the talk. Call me strange, but I do NOT want 12 year olds getting a false idea about drugs being 'cool' from an older member. I tend to have a slightly motherly attitude on my forum towards the younger members. As Admin, I am responsible for what is said on this forum and I don't want our younger members mislead.

Other than that this member has been very active on the forum, very helpful and yet he has taken it on himself to act like a moderator recently, telling people off for this or that.

I never advertise a position, but rather go with my instincts and privately ask my chosen person whether they would be a moderator. Actually, writing this out has made it clearer in my head, even at the risk of this person taking offense and leaving, I DON'T think he would make a good moderator after all, I think he may get power happy. Shame really as he is a very helpful member towards others. But acting the moderator when you are not is a red flag, I think.

I am detailing my options here as I think it may help others making the decision of who to make a moderator.

Back to the drawing board I think. *shrug* Perhaps my chosen two are not the answer. So far my previous decision have worked out REALLY well, so I need to be extremely careful in choosing a third.

[Bret]

om my forum i have a mod from Rs well former mod some odd reason he was d-moded for getting angry =\
and my Best friends are admins

[JenF]

Actually I recently ran a application to become a moderator at my forum, and received quite a good response. My fellow mods decided putting a handful of the applications on a trial with limited power would be a great way to see who was the one for us.

I made notes about who was doing what using my security log (i.e. who was moving the dead threads and who was doing nothing!) and we have possibly chose our fave.

I think you have to be very careful about who you choose and even my senior moderators don't have extensive powers. Just enough to get by

[Harpsiccord]

I completely agree with all of that. Ugh, so true. In July, I began looking for a mod and I foolishly hired someone that I met here. He was very helpful at first, EXTREMELY helpful in fact, giving me codes to fix the cell width and informing me of a guest spamming the calendar. Two days ago, however, when I came onto my board, I found that this bastard had

-deleted the cBox and Affiliates box
-Replaced the Global head and footer with keyboard mash spam
-replaced the main header and footer with keyboard mash spam
-deleted himself so that I couldn't find him

With 78 members, I'm just glad I didn't give him critical admin powers or the power to delete members and/or posts. He could've really done a number on us. I still have his name for this board and I'm tempted to report him, but I'm not sure I have a case. I want to warn people, though, because what happened to me could happen to anyone.

[HoudiniDerek]

harpsiccord said:

I completely agree with all of that. Ugh, so true. In July, I began looking for a mod and I foolishly hired someone that I met here. He was very helpful at first, EXTREMELY helpful in fact, giving me codes to fix the cell width and informing me of a guest spamming the calendar. Two days ago, however, when I came onto my board, I found that this bastard had

-deleted the cBox and Affiliates box
-Replaced the Global head and footer with keyboard mash spam
-replaced the main header and footer with keyboard mash spam
-deleted himself so that I couldn't find him

With 78 members, I'm just glad I didn't give him critical admin powers or the power to delete members and/or posts. He could've really done a number on us. I still have his name for this board and I'm tempted to report him, but I'm not sure I have a case. I want to warn people, though, because what happened to me could happen to anyone.

You hired someone you met here rather than a trusted member from your forum? I think that is the number one lesson. Just because people here know how to code and give rates, etc. does not make them a perfect staff member for any forum. I rate a lot in GOAYB and after rates, I sometimes get PMs asking me to be staff. I have never taken a position because I do not know the community nor the mode of operation at the forum. I could do to them what happened to you if I got upset or hated something. That is why it is best to have people you can trust and you usually find them in solid members. Plus, give them small amounts of power over time and see how they respond to it rather than giving them a lot at first.

I hope your forum recovered.

[yourbookmarks]

I do agree totaly about the staff members should be chosen wisly

[The Packle]

I've been at forums where, if you ask, your a Mod. I only accept those who I think are the best. One of my Co-Admins dont give up no matter what and is a good pal, I appointed him and another to become Co-Admins. I also accepted one of my first members and an admin from another site as G-Mods. Mods, I put an application for if they had proof of skill.

[nintendo360]

I only tried running a Proboards once but there are some things I look for in possible mods.

1. Getting to know them, befriend them and see what they're like in personally.
2. See if they're active, and even if they can be helpful at certain times.
3. See if they can keep their cool even when their is a spammer or a stupid flamer on the site. (You never want to have a staff member that doesn't know how to keep their cool and just cusses at someone. That reflex poorly on your site.)

And even though you may trust friends to be mods, you have to know if they're able to be good mods before hand. Every staff I think should start out as mods. (Though you also want to consider how many you may need at the current time. If you have only a few members you don't need to be overstaffed. If you have a lot of members a few mods here and there would work.

They should start out as a mod, and mod a certain board you think they can handle and is an expert of. For example say you have a graphic board, and you have a person you made a mod that is good at graphics. It's obvious you would put two and two together. And say you have a "character creation" board for rps, and a staff member who you know is great at making bios, and how to help those improve their bad ones, you again put two and two together.

After a while, seeing how well that mod mods the site you can promote them for G-Mod. A mod shouldn't have that many powers. I think they should be able to sticky threads, lock threads, move threads, lock polls, and be able to reply to lock threads. You shouldn't give them posts to edit or delete posts, as you might want to see that post before hand.

Now G-Mods it all depends what you want them to have. Have powers outside the boards so they can handle a problem in any board in case you aren't around. Personally I would give G-mod powers to lock, delete, modify, remove topics and such. But I wouldn't give them powers to create or delete boards, maybe fix a board, recount members, send out mass PM's and E-Mail, edit profiles, ban members and no more. Co-Admins are obvious, but deep inside I still wouldn't give even a co-admin powers over the header/footer as I don't want anyone else messing with codes I may have.

So in the end your staff have to be able to handle the job, be trust worthy, isn't lazy and will actually be active and do things on your site. (I once mod on a site where another one was just lazy and never did anything. I tried to help the admin to get her to actually do something but she was one of those annoying, picky kinds. She got demoted I believe.). When they show they can greatly handle being staff and become friends and even more trust worthing then you may know you can trust them enough to promote them to G-Mod or even an admin.

[Furtive©]

i always start people out as mods that cannot delete posts or threads. This way if the are "EVIL" it will take them forever to get rid of the forum because they would have to modify every single post... so you let them modify posts so if someone comes in and is like cursing all about or something is inappropriate then they can modify it out.

[johnstar]

Dont make anyone staff. You have many problems.

[Enchant]

johnstar said:

Dont make anyone staff. You have many problems.

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