What do you expect of your moderators?

[tonyc]

If moderating means helping to organize, and thats not being done after the job's been explained, why have them on as moderators? If you have friends come to help you move, and some decide its better to sit around and drink some brew and BS instead of help, what will you do? You'd get on their case, in a friendly way, but you would let them know that you are under time constraints and they really need to help or simply leave.

The job at hand on a forum is important to you, and if the help you are supposed to get is not there, you might have made the wrong choices of people to help you.

Depersonalization of this issue and thinking about the tasks needed to be done is first in your ultimate decision as a forum administrator.

Otherwise, if you allow slack, you will be the one doing all the work in the end, and then you'll have to ask yourself, "why do I even have moderators?".

[grieves and squick]

If I were in your situation {topic starter} I would post up about a general issue you are seeing on the board, such as this, in your private staffroom:

"Lately I've been having issues running this forum because I am not getting the assistance I need from moderators. When moderators do help out, the help is great quality and wonderful, but I'm just not getting help often enough to keep things going. I understand people have lives outside the boards and I am not expecting you to be on 24/7, but the reason I hired all of you is to fil a volunteer job basically. Yes, it's a job, and it's work. I will be instituting new rules for staff activity, because I need active staff or this game isn't going to last. Demotions due to inactivity will be nothing personal, just due to the fact that those people are not doing their job. Nobody is getting demoted right now, but I will be looking over the next few weeks to see who is active and who isn't, and those who are not will be replaced with a few new staff."

It might also help to place up a notice of staff rules about activity that'd make it easier to stick to and to point to when you need to demote a snoozer.

[Descent Into Darkness]

Well, I don't really "expect" my moderators to do anything. The only staff that I expect to help out is the co-Admin since they were partially responsible for helping to create the site. But because they weren't that familiar with coding and such, they asked to be demoted to Global Mod status.

Yes, most agree that you should only "hire" friends to help you wih a site and those that know you on a personal basis and not just as an online persona, but that too can cause problems say, if you and that friend get into an argument offline and they decide to take issue into the room itself instead of on the phone or via IMs or email, whichever way that they are able to get in touch with you best. So you really do have to be careful even when choosing friends to help you moderate a site.

What I do expect from my mods is for them to log in at least twice a week, unless I know that they are only able to log in maybe 3-4 times a month because of work, school, etc. And those are the ones that are standard moderators and just keep an eye on the boards to make sure that none of the members are breaking the rules (mine or Proboards.)

We also have an understanding that if there are questions, or things that need to be discussed, it can be done in the staff area or via phone or IMs, and I make myself available to them at all hours (well, unless I'm asleep that is and even then, the message is waiting for me when I get up and I can answer the questions or help them to resolve an issue on the forum. My mods also understand that they are to make themselves available for accepting PMs and IMs from members to help them with any questions or site issues that they are haviing.

All in all, in your case thread starter, I think that you need to PM them and hold a staff meeting and see if they actually understand what duties you are expecting them to perform (be it help with character approvals, adding boards, etc.), and if they do understand what their duties are, then ask them why they have not been performing them. If they have a legitimate answer (such as been busy with school, etc.), then perhaps let them know that you expect them to perform their duties when they are able to be on.

If you get an apathetic answer from them, then perhaps it's time to find new moderators who truly want to help you with your site. Another problem however that I have notices, is even when the moderators are there and doing their jobs, members still come to the Admin and seem to ignore the moderators all together, as if they have no say so on the site and can't help with anything. Now if that's the problem, and the reason that they aren't helping with the site, then perhaps in the welcome section of your board, you should have a list of who your staff members are and give a brief description of what their duties entail. And make sure that they too make themselves available to the members.

[Zesha]

I usually ask friends to be my mods, but otherwise, I look for sensible members that are on frequently. If they seem to slack off or "don't know what to do" I politely explain to them what it is I expect of them. If they continue to say they don't understand, I tell them that I sadly have to take them off the team and find someone else, because I just can't deal with it all by myself and since they aren't understanding, I need to find someone who does. It's hard to tell that to people, but it really is for the best, for both the forum and you.

[aaronm]

I've only been in one Proboards role-playing forum which I'd classify as 'major' considering it's very well done, plenty of members, the theme is what I'm used to [animation and cartoons] and the ability to let imagination run wild is very enticing and a favorite on my part. I think of the admins very highly, although I certainly haven't talked to them too much on my own since they're pretty busy, but I think they're very good and run a very great forum; the rules are simple and easy, and they're quite friendly.

Now, on another forum years back, I had several moderators and admins who take their position overall very highly. Perhaps a little too high, in the sense that because they've got the power to do things it also gives them control to abuse - and I wasn't too fond of that. Things like editing a storyline or being in control of one while not taking into precaution other people's ideas without discussing it at first had become a problem. They had this Kingdom Hearts thing going and me and some friends were invited, to which we also brought in a side storyline which we thought would be great. There was a heated debate over the complications of that, resulting in arguments and confusing.

It never really recovered. They were pretty brutal rather than working out some kind of agreement.

Overall, I see the ideal moderator or admin being a care-free, laid back person willing to sort out problems like a mentor. I can't expect this on any major big forum, unless it's something light and casual; but something along those lines would make me feel welcome and less prone to having or being in accidents like the above.

[manifan]

Recently one of the threads started running amok, with people posting pictures and videos on a discussion thread instead of in their proper places. Instead of correcting the problem, the other mods joined in and did the same thing! When I posted on the admin board about it, asking them to help me keep things separated, they all jumped on my case and basically told me I was wrong because I would be breaking up a discussion. I tried to explain to them how to redirect the posts to the proper places, but they all groused about it. One even quit over it.

The problem is, I don't have many choices for good moderators. The people who come to the board only want to come, read, post, and leave. They don't want to do any "work." I'm afraid that with no helpers the forum might fold.

[aaronm]

Ouch. That's pretty harsh of them to quit over something like that. In something like that I'd perhaps have to enforce a rule over it kindly or perhaps let it slip, if the member output isn't too heavy. Most my forums generate no less than 5 members, with the bulk of our list being our second or third RP characters.

I have the same issue with my forum at the moment. =/ While my daily turn-out is going pretty well, it's right now just me and another member doing most of the conversations. The other two browse, read, maybe post a sentence or two and don't do a whole lot to strike up a chat with the others. I hope mine doesn't fold. Advertising here has been a bit of a strain and keeping up with it aside from my other tasks.

[amaranthine]

All I ask is that they help out and are on once a week or so. They have to be able to be nice to the members and help out. Lock threads, give warnings when needed, etc. Once a week or so to be on, no less then four times a month basically.

[manifan]

If my mods were on only once a week the forum would be in shambles. We have about 100 new posts a day. Isn't that typical of most forums?

[Patrick [ASE]]

Please check the rules about creating longer sentences, thanks

[grieves and squick]

Not typical of mine We get more and our site needs several staff members on daily, preferably someone round the clock to handle disputes and just rulebreaks in general as well as aid new players or any players having a tough spot. The more posts your board gets the more frequently and numerously you and your staff need to be on and the more staff you need...kind of intuitive. I've had times where I turned my back for less than an hour and came back to a full blown panic, by some troll or whatever. Drama can spread so fast.

[Kami]

I expect my moderators to do the jobs they volunteered for. At a site I co-admin on, we had a list of jobs that needed to be taken. People applied, and we chose who we thought were best suited. Their job is to take care of the board or boards they volunteered for -- that means moderating in terms of RP when necessary, creating new threads, and ridding the board/s of the occasional spambot post.

I also expect the moderators to lead our members by example. Yes, they are held to a higher standard in terms of following the rules than other "regular" members because they are staff. As staff, they are expected to uphold the rules, and if we do not hold them to the strictest standards on this, how can we allow them to chastise members for breaking those same rules they have broken?

[ELLA LIGHTS !]

I completely agree with Kami about it. The moderators were the ones to offer their service - they should be able to keep up with it if they felt the need to be a part of it, it's only common sense. And to agree with grieves and squick, letting them know in a personal way allows them the knowledge that they haven't been doing everything right and need to change that. it's hard to do some times if you've grown on your staff, but it needs to be done some days, and will be a huge stress reliever.

[Elyon]

Jan 13, 2010 10:50:00 GMT -8 manifan said:

I think my moderators don't understand what they are supposed to be doing on the board. I've had real problems with them just taking off on "vacations" and leaving me with the bulk of board clean up and guest chats. They are always making excuses for not doing the work, saying they don't understand what I want them to do, even though my expectations -- which really aren't much -- are outlined in a sticky post on the mod board. I hesitate to "fire" them because they're really nice people. But they are not giving me much help with the work on my forum. And because it's a small group -- a little over 200 -- it's hard for me to find moderators. Any suggestions?

You're calling over 200 members--small? I hate to hear what size group you consider large.

I suggest you hire more mods.

[Luke]

I expect my moderators to be friendly to the members. I find that sometimes my staff members on my forum act quite stupid and posting un needed posts on the forum which can get extreamly frustrating but they help out with the fourm alot.

I expect my staff members to be at least on once every two days and to post alot but also help out with the site. Quite a few mods on my site at the start help out loads and then just slack off abit.