Forum Moderators: rogerd
Basically, how do you manage tons of conflicting personalities, spot out trolls, and keep a neutral stance on anything that happens... all while trying to run the site around it?
Obviously getting quality admins is key, but what do you tell them to look for? How can you tell a quality admin? How many should I get. Should I get admins with similar personalities, or conflicting (but not argumentative) to keep some sort of balance?
I know i'll never be able to run a forum where everyone is happy, but what crowd should I try and please? There are usually two different types, the conservative types who avoid any and all conflicts and try to get along with everyone, then there are more aggressive types who love to stir the pot and walk the line without crossing it. Is there possibly a way those two can co-exist without it destroying the site?
Thanks for any and all tips and help! I love my site, but I don't want managing the forums to be a full time job.
I would make sure to stomp on any name-calling and spam in posts, and be lenient about everything else. As for how many admins you need, well, obviously that's going to depend on how busy your forum is. Why are you trying to solve that problem now when it doesn't even sound like you're up and running yet? I'd suggest getting everything going, and then solve problems *as they come up*. Good luck!
It's a mess at times, really.
It's often easier, by my observation, to handle a few good moderators who ARE good at forum management. Some people enjoy it, are good at it, and have the respect of the community. Generally speaking these people also TAKE direction well.
If you don't think you can handle the people management side, find some good mods as soon as your forum starts growing. The thing to watch for is who the board royalty turns out to be -- and then approach whoever seems to be the most reasonable, most knowledgeable, and most active of the bunch to mod for you.
Plus getting some of the forum royalty involved in running the site increases their stake in the site -- which means you'll probably get some priceless promotion from the users. And it reduces your work load, leaving you free to work on things other than babysitting, uh, moderating the forums.
Oh, for really hostile discussions? Great tactic I've seen on some boards ... make a forum called "flame wars" or whatever you want to call it and if the discussion gets too hostile, move it there. The flamees can continue their BBQ there and the flame war is taken out of the main forum. If a particular topic is too hot to handle for the main board, decree it can ONLY be discussed in the flame wars forum, not in any main forums.
Leva
If you have a mod team, get input from them on the more difficult problems. They may have some good insights, or know more about the members involved in the issue.
From what i've read in the past, and I believe it's true, your mod team sets the standards for your site. If you have a "care bear" team that deletes any and all slightly negative posts, you're going to attract those type of members. If you have a loose team, you'll attract the aggressive members who will scare away the "care bear" type of crowd.
Should I look for a mix between the two so they can hopefully split the difference between too conservative, and too passive?
