Making Mistakes as admin

[vank]

How do you handle them and what do you do? I get embarrassed.

[bigballofyarn]

Admit you made the mistake and admit what you did wrong. That's the best way for someone to help you. We all have "woops moments." I was testing out the TikTok plugin yesterday, wondering why it wasn't automatically embedding, and completely forgot that I told my forum not to automatically embed video links. Whether or not it was a completely obvious mistake, I left my questions and thought process right in the support thread. Maybe it'll help someone in the future.

[vank]

I checked it out. Thanks for the advice. I struggle w saying I messed up.

[Kami]

Feb 4, 2022 3:19:50 GMT -8 vank said:

How do you handle them and what do you do? I get embarrassed.

Humility and transparency go a long way. I prefer to think of my mistakes as "opportunities for growth" -- failure should be celebrated, because if we never failed, we would never learn.

You don't have to beat yourself up, because quite frankly no one on your forum is as hard on you as you are. Just say "Hey everyone! Looks like I made a mistake, it should be X not Y" or if you made a mistake in how you dealt with a member just apologise and tell them what you're going to do better, like: "Hey [Name], I totally made a mistake when we last spoke and I apologise. I'll make sure to [how you'll change in the future], and in the mean time I hope you'll accept my apology. Thanks for your time!"

If you reframe your thinking from: "I made a mistake" to "I have an opportunity to learn and grow", it really helps.

[bigballofyarn]

vank ,

I genuinely love how Kami and I each thought of something different to reply. I answered regarding ProBoards Support because of something I still had in the back of my head. I think you'll find that even those who have been with ProBoards for years still make mistakes, or better yet, we all have a continual opportunity to help one another and grow.

[vank]

Hey thanks to both of you. It makes sense.

[Dazzal]

In addition, there is always someone that likes to point out the mistakes of a forum owner/members. In my guidelines, I have to message the owner or member, if you have something to point out. If owners/admins have a game section a to z, and someone is out of line or makes a mistake, I ask them to skip it, and go on to the next letter; no pointing out is necessary. It works for me.