Choosing Staff For Your ProBoard

[gimel]

my staff depends can be split into two groups. one group consists of friends i talk into helping me. convenient since i often start recruiting amongst friends first,and i already trust them. the second group are members who have been on site for a long time,and have been active,and not caused any trouble. i usually set restrictions on who can be on staff, like having to have been a member for x amount of time, and such if im picking them from existing members.

[Shiku Usachi]

Well the original plan when me and my friend made our forum was that we were going to co-admin it, then a couple of other people came that were couple good buddies of mine too, but I mostly just do the Headers and Footers, most of the skins, boards and things like that, the other people delete unappropriate posts and things like that. I have a pretty good amount of staff for now, but I don't actually have that many members... - - Oh well, if a bunch of people randomly join then it's all good.

Oh, and for me, I usually make most people Mods or Admins, they're usually my good buddies, but if I don't feel they really need it cause they don't come on too often and stuff like that, I usually just downgrade them, or if there's a member that is really committed then I make them Admins.

[Gamoc]

Admins aren't always the best group for the members. I only co-admin with one other person on my forum, if I ever have any other staff, then it is rare that they would be admins. You should always let them start off as mods and let them work their way up. Also, you don't want to just let your good buddies in, they may seem cool in real life, but they could be complete and total n00bs on the web.

[•°o.O Charlotte O.o°•]

improvisator said:

myke said:

So, you have your Proboard and you want to add some moderators, global moderators, and maybe some administrators to help you staff your forum. How should you go about doing it?

It is extremely important that you only offer staff positions to people you know, and completely trust. To give staff positions to anyone else is nothing but foolish, and will do nothing but put your board into jeopardy.

To try and pick up members by offering them a position on the staff is nothing but foolish and will do nothing but put your board into jeopardy.

To have a problem, and make a complete stranger staff to fix your problem is nothing but complete foolishness and will do nothing but put your board into jeopardy. Proboards Support has an excellent support board with many wise volunteers and a set of administrators who can already access your board if need be - so you do not have to give staff powers to anyone to get a problem fixed.

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So where should you find your staff from?

If you are not making your already known friends staff, then your staff should come from your most active and contributing members who wish to be staff.

The best mods you will ever find is the from the members who have been a part of your board for a good length of time, caused no trouble, etc. Those members will genuinely care about your board.

If your board is not active enough to find members like that, or if your board isn't old enough to find members like that, then you do not really need any additional staff.

Be sure to give the correct amount of power to each mod depending on what they are modding. Remember, all it takes is a poor password for one of your moderator's accounts to be taken over so make sure the powers are distributed wisely and all of your moderators passwords a series of random letters and numbers.

For the powers, would a moderator who mods a fun and games board really need the power to modify the headers and footers? Would a moderator who mods a general board really need to have the power to delete boards?

The answer is no, but would a co-admin, or a global moderator? That choice is yours, depending on what you want them to do, but be very careful what powers you give out to people, and make sure they have hard to guess/crack/break passwords.

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Being an admin of a forum takes time and work if that admin wants their forum to be successful. It can be fun, yes, but it still takes time and work. All too often do I see a new admin trying to look for staff to delegate their responsibilities of admin ship off to others. Those boards never make it to see daylight.

So choose your staff members with great care and wisdom, and distribute their powers with great care and great wisdom.

And while you're at it, have some fun!

Hmmm...being a somewhat experienced Proboards member (and an admin of my own forum of course lol), I feel that there should be only one admin (i.e. the Main Admin) and that the rest of the staff should be mostly mods, but a couple of gmod-like staff....MAX

How do I choose my staff? A good question which requires a good answer lol, which is....

I choose them according to their long-term activity and contribution. I used to just choose staff on the spot and ever since I did that, most of them have been quite lazy so I demoded a few as punishment for that and now they're just normal members. I would NEVER appoint another member to be an admin like me UNLESS I would be VERY inactive myself and that the member has proven beyond all reason to be my very best friend that I talk to regularly in an IM or something similiar.

My current staff consists of myself (the main admin of course) and 1 gmod (who are the ONLY ones that can access the admin panel at will, but only I can access the headers and footers rightfully), the rest of the staff have limited powers, that way whatever action they do, ISN'T damaging the forum's outlook.

What I DO NOT do and have NEVER done, is send out mass e-mails or pms about a vacant staff position - frankly, that will ultimately cause members to either block where the mass e-mail/pm comes from, or just register a different e-mail rendering the forum-registered e-mail non-existant to them. I use a sticky locked thread for this sort of thing (just once by the way) which I got rid of when I got the vacant spot filled.

Frankly what I've noticed is that the majority of reports in PB support have been password-related. My advice is NEVER GIVE AWAY YOUR PASSWORD TO ANY MEMBER OR GUEST/S THAT GO TO YOUR FORUM. If this is done behind the admin's back, it will put the usefulness of the board in the large risk of hackers/crackers moving stuff around that they shouldn't and that practically is annoying (believe me....IT IS!!). I stupidly gave a member that position sometime last year and nearly costed my forum it's position on the proboards server, I taught that member a lesson by simply banning him for messing up the forum structure without my permission, this also explains why the rules on my forum appear to be somewhat very tough

Anyway, that's all from me on this

I've giving my password away but to some one who wanted my old forum

[Enchant]

charlottethegreat said:

improvisator said:

Hmmm...being a somewhat experienced Proboards member (and an admin of my own forum of course lol), I feel that there should be only one admin (i.e. the Main Admin) and that the rest of the staff should be mostly mods, but a couple of gmod-like staff....MAX

How do I choose my staff? A good question which requires a good answer lol, which is....

I choose them according to their long-term activity and contribution. I used to just choose staff on the spot and ever since I did that, most of them have been quite lazy so I demoded a few as punishment for that and now they're just normal members. I would NEVER appoint another member to be an admin like me UNLESS I would be VERY inactive myself and that the member has proven beyond all reason to be my very best friend that I talk to regularly in an IM or something similiar.

My current staff consists of myself (the main admin of course) and 1 gmod (who are the ONLY ones that can access the admin panel at will, but only I can access the headers and footers rightfully), the rest of the staff have limited powers, that way whatever action they do, ISN'T damaging the forum's outlook.

What I DO NOT do and have NEVER done, is send out mass e-mails or pms about a vacant staff position - frankly, that will ultimately cause members to either block where the mass e-mail/pm comes from, or just register a different e-mail rendering the forum-registered e-mail non-existant to them. I use a sticky locked thread for this sort of thing (just once by the way) which I got rid of when I got the vacant spot filled.

Frankly what I've noticed is that the majority of reports in PB support have been password-related. My advice is NEVER GIVE AWAY YOUR PASSWORD TO ANY MEMBER OR GUEST/S THAT GO TO YOUR FORUM. If this is done behind the admin's back, it will put the usefulness of the board in the large risk of hackers/crackers moving stuff around that they shouldn't and that practically is annoying (believe me....IT IS!!). I stupidly gave a member that position sometime last year and nearly costed my forum it's position on the proboards server, I taught that member a lesson by simply banning him for messing up the forum structure without my permission, this also explains why the rules on my forum appear to be somewhat very tough

Anyway, that's all from me on this

I've giving my password away but to some one who wanted my old forum

PLease make your post a bit more thought provoking. You are to post at least four sentences. This board is for discussion not singular comments...If you feel the need to comment, please back it up with your personal experience, why you did what you did and so on....Give the next person something to respond to..;)Thank you

[Former Member]

pikablu said:

Admins aren't always the best group for the members. I only co-admin with one other person on my forum, if I ever have any other staff, then it is rare that they would be admins. You should always let them start off as mods and let them work their way up. Also, you don't want to just let your good buddies in, they may seem cool in real life, but they could be complete and total n00bs on the web.

I totally second this from experience, moderators that you do not know should have minimum powers, don't even let them delete in my opinion - they should move all unacceptable content to a hidden board for a gmod / admin eye to look at. Only after a decent amount of time and clear proof that that user has provided something positive to your forum should you even consider a promotion up the ranks. About the offline mates comment, I totally agree - but it is not just the newbie concern that I find most common - I find it is activity. Course when you know them offline you see them a lot but you may not see them online so much moderating your forum. See what use is a moderator that barely ever checks up on the site? Of course this is not the same in all cases

[Gamoc]

higgerz1990 said:

pikablu said:

Admins aren't always the best group for the members. I only co-admin with one other person on my forum, if I ever have any other staff, then it is rare that they would be admins. You should always let them start off as mods and let them work their way up. Also, you don't want to just let your good buddies in, they may seem cool in real life, but they could be complete and total n00bs on the web.

I totally second this from experience, moderators that you do not know should have minimum powers, don't even let them delete in my opinion - they should move all unacceptable content to a hidden board for a gmod / admin eye to look at. Only after a decent amount of time and clear proof that that user has provided something positive to your forum should you even consider a promotion up the ranks. About the offline mates comment, I totally agree - but it is not just the newbie concern that I find most common - I find it is activity. Course when you know them offline you see them a lot but you may not see them online so much moderating your forum. See what use is a moderator that barely ever checks up on the site? Of course this is not the same in all cases

Well, yeah true. Mods that never post are useless unless they are moderators that make skins and codes for your forum when you ask them to. Otherwords they have no use being a mod at all. I have joined forums that immediately made me a mod, I left for three months, then came back to check in on them to find that I was of an even higher rank than when I left, which was very bad in my opinion. They also had like ten more mods.

[<-ߣñá†111->©]

so how exactly would i know if i can trust them?

[Enchant]

Oct 7, 2007 12:32:32 GMT -8 <-ߣñá†111->© said:

so how exactly would i know if i can trust them?

Good Question, but please make sure that you follow the rules and post a minimum of 4 sentences...as to your question...it just depends on you and how much you are willing to...The good thing is you have control over the amount of access they have...There are alot of good tips in this thread, perhaps reading over them and taking some ideas into account and trying ot out for yourself and seeing how far you are willing to trust them... I personally trust all my staff...and I do give them a bit of access to the forum, such as emails and banning...but they do not have access to the headers and footers, only my coder...but that isn't because I don't trust them...it is because if there is an accident and they get messed up, I have no one to blame but myself....

[The Packle]

Back when I was about to make a Proboards site, I needed a staff member who I knew that can make skins. I turned to Articuno, an admin of the first forum I joined, she happily accepted and I made her admin, even though it took forever.

Since then, I have kept an eye at for those will potential and I have some 'harsh' rules for them to follow or it will result in a ban or a loss of power.

I made a HUGE mistake by making a Staff Application thing, but I got lucky I guess

You should always be on the look out for those you trust a whoooole lot and you can see as a good edition to the team, or simmilar to how ProBoards does it

[Gamoc]

Yes, but if you just add them immediately when you believe that they could make a good addition to the staff team, then that, to, is a bad idea. Doing that could not only get you overstaffed, but could cause fights among members who want to be staff, but just aren't doing a good enough job for it. Yeah, it was a bad idea to make a staff application thing, we have all done it, and, most of the time, it does not turn out well when you choose the person.

So what about those board mods. Why do people just put people on the boards and not give them a staff position altogether. They could give them a position that has no powers, which will cancel in the boards that they are not staff in. I mean, I've gone to many forums in which every time they make a new board they add three or four random members that aren't actually staff in the moderators box after the word "admin," in there. I used to do that and my board was a mess after that. That's one way to never choose staff.

(Sorry, wasn't sure if that had already been said)

[thevendra]

hi everbody

[Enchant]

Oct 8, 2007 18:47:02 GMT -8 thevendra said:

hi everbody

Please stop spamming the Discussion Boards. You were already asked not to in a previous post. Please read the rules and follow them or do not post here. Thank you.

[~Luna]

Well, I have this thing called Staff In Training. Once a member joins, I PM them and ask if they are interested. Then I move them to the Staff In Training group, which only gives them the power to lock, sticky, and bump threads. If they do good and don't abuse and can handle those powers, I give them a few more. If they abuse and/or can't handle those simple powers, I demod them. Then, if they can handle each set of new powers I give them, I will give them the full mod position.

I also only give staff status right away to friends whom I can trust or a person who I know online for a few months and I can absolutely trust, even with a simple moderator position. If they abuse the powers, I demod them and they don't get a second chance. If they can't handle it, I demod them and after a few months, if they think they can handle it, I start with the Staff In Traning thing again.

[Gamoc]

Oct 11, 2007 14:42:43 GMT -8 ~Luna said:

Well, I have this thing called Staff In Training. Once a member joins, I PM them and ask if they are interested. Then I move them to the Staff In Training group, which only gives them the power to lock, sticky, and bump threads. If they do good and don't abuse and can handle those powers, I give them a few more. If they abuse and/or can't handle those simple powers, I demod them. Then, if they can handle each set of new powers I give them, I will give them the full mod position.

Although that sounds like a good idea. You should probably modify it. You should probably only offer it to people who have like a thousand posts. It seems more logical, because a regular member who just joined could only be telling you lies. Then, when they get the staff position, go and lock every thread, sticky them all, etc...So that's a very unsafe way of going about that sort of thing.