Floris
13th April 2004, 06:16 PM
[Article] The process of selecting staff members
We bring you an indepth article shared by Kathy from The Admin Zone, expanded by Rn_Evil and Floris from vBulletin.nl for Administrators who use vBulletin and have the hard task to pick staff members.
As you spend your time, energy and money building your forums, adding content, contacting search engines and working on building your traffic, at some point you will need to consider hiring help with your community. In most cases, unless your site is a commercial site funded from within an existing corporation, your staff will be volunteers/unpaid moderators.
Enjoy!
Author(s): Kathy (First Part) / Rn_Evil and Floris (Second Part)
Website: http://www.theadminzone.com/
Considering the time, energy, money you have spent on your forum project, its important to understand that the moderators/staff that you select will represent you and your website to visitors and ultimately your members. Selecting your staff without consideration could lead your site down the wrong path instead of enhancing what you have taken the time and passion to build.
When do you need moderators?
When building a website around a forum, its important to hesitate slightly and not "hire" right away. Unless you are so busy with traffic from the very moment you open up your forums that you can't moderate it yourself, you should sit back and nuture your community.
For most forum software you can set up your forum to notify you when new members join and post new messages. Use it to stay on top of the activity of your community. Nip off-topic discussions and keep your newly opened forums on-topic. Your forum is in its infancy and needs careful attention to the tone and the organization of the forums.
You should provide this for your forum as you keep a tight handle on the growing community. When you find that the membership is growing at a rate you can't monitor yourself and the members are posting at a rate that doesn't allow you to moderate consistency, its time to consider finding some help.
Where do you find moderators?
Watch as you monitor your forum's growth, paying attention to its regular members. Watch for passion on the topic. Watch for appropriate grammar and language usage. Watch for others who are helpful to your members. These are probably your future moderators. They aren't necessarily your favorite members with the cleverist remarks. They aren't the ones that stir up trouble. They aren't your best friends.
They visit the forums regularly and post messages that are worded well and friendly to the community. You view their participation as an asset to your community and their presence in your forums as a help to you and your members. In short, they are already doing the job of "moderating" without the software tools nor the title of moderator.
How do you select moderators?
Start slow. Select one. Find out as much about this member as you can from their posts, from their homepage and any other resources. Why? They will be representing you to your community in some form or fashion.
Don't invite them onto your staff if you can't live with their side hobby of webmastering porn sites if this doesn't represent what you want for your site's affiliations. If your site is slanted towards one political party or another, be aware of their background and views. Google them. If they have experience on other forums, how are they viewed in other communities?
How do you hire moderators?
Before you hire a moderator, have in place some documentation about your website. Have a philosophy/mission statement developed. Have a moderator manual with "how to" and "when to" moderate within the documentation.
Many forum administrators suggest adding new staff on a short-term basis of three months initially. There are good managing reasons for a probation period for your new staff. One reason is that the member might not be able to commit to a long term staff position but they can commit to helping out for three months or so. The other reason is simple. If the new moderator doesn't show up as often as you expected, doesn't represent the forum well, doesn't fit into the staff needs of your forum, you can easily thank them for the time they served the community and turn off their moderator tools.
Once you've established your forums moderator guidelines, send a short email to the selected member inviting them to join your staff. If you have chosen to hire new staff with an initial three month time frame, tell them in this email invitation.
If they say "yes", thank them, explain the forums they have been assigned, provide them with the moderator manual documentation and help them get settled into their new status.
Many administrators don't announce new staff in their public forums but rather choose to celebrate in the private forums of the staff. The reasoning can be simple: Moderators are to facilitate the existing discussions of the community and keep posts on topic. They aren't the discussions themselves.
Other admins announce the staff hirings within announcements. Either way works as you keep in mind your particular forum community. If you want your staff to faciliate your discussions with helpfulness and not be the moderating police, this is where the admin can set the tone.
How do you pay moderators?
Large communities might be able to pay their staff but most can't. There are other ways to reward your staff without money. Words of thankfulness and kindess go a long way. Encourage your staff in public and private. Correct them when needed in private. Moderators are people with limitations and will make mistakes on occasion. Be forgiving. Demonstrate value to any input your staff members have for an idea about the community.
Some administrators send gifts to their staff for special occasions or snail mail birthday cards to help celebrate their day. A "thank you" note in an email or snail mail goes a long way of showing your gratefulness with your volunteer staff.
When do you fire moderators?
The staff for any company or any website should enhance and build up the company. If you have a moderator that is damaging your site, your company or your reputation its important to be objective. Make decisions based on what it best for your community as a whole. Its difficult to fire a moderator and handle the possible repercussions when taking this kind of action but it must be done. Be brave and remember the big picture.
The big picture is the status of your community's health and welfare. You have spent your time, money and passion creating a site. The long term effects of allowing a moderator to remain on your staff that is doing damage is more far reaching than you might imagine. Protect your property and real estate on the internet by managing personnel carefully and decisively. There are times to cut the relationship off, thanking the staffer for their previous help and tell them their services are no longer required.
Managing Community Needs
Addiing moderators to your community is more about management of traffic than power. Hiring staff when you need help is important if handled with caution, with specific steps in place to insure the best staff for your community's needs. Your investment of time, energy and money should grow with the addition of the most appropriate staff for your community.
Copyright (c) 2004 The Admin Zone. All Rights Reserved.
Selecting staff members is not an easy task especially if you need another administrator or super moderator for your board. This guide is going to make it easier for you, it will show you what to consider when choosing staff members.
For all the positions below, past experience is needed, especially for the administrators and super moderators - who need to know how to use the Moderator Control Panel and Admin Control Panel and admin/staff tools, if they have access.
In all staff positions I advice a month 'trial' and at least some basic guidelines on how to handle situations and what goes and doesn't go. As Kathy stated above, explain to them when you invite them what position they get, what is expected and what is not expected. It could save you quite some hassle.
Choosing Administrators can be a tough job. You need to know the user you're going go give administrator powers to, but sometimes this is not enough. That user needs to know how to work with vBulletin's Admin Control Panel. If he/she doesn't know much about how to use it and what tasks he has to do, you'll need to save some time to train that user in using the admin/moderator tools. In most cases people don't promote to Administrators users that don't know what vBulletin is, don't know their tasks, guidelines, etc.
Remember to give that user limited priveledges at first. Give him/her a trial period. (Usually one month)
If he/she behaves nicely and doesn't cause any problems you can make him permanent administrator and give him/her more priveledges, at least until the next staff evaluation.
Super Moderators should also be chosen carefully, not by the level of activity, but by the knowledge regarding staff policies, guidelines and vBulletin. Super Moderators are also a great alternative to giving moderators control panel access without upgrading their status from moderator to administrator. Keep in mind that super moderators have access to all the forums instead of just one, but that you can still limit their access through the permission system. On many forums super moderators are also assigned to keep an eye on the moderators and forums, rather then just the members and a specific forum. It comes with greater responsibility and more priveledges.
Moderators should be selected by the level of activity, as well as by his knowledge of the forum software. They should know the guidelings and rules, and either apply them themselves, or report back to the other staff members.
Even though a newly picked moderator is required to have some basic knowledge on how to operate a board and manage users, threads and posts - keep in mind that giving them a chance to learn is also a great value for both you and them.
A None Disclosure Agreement (NDA) is something you could request your future staff members to sign. Especially commercial or more 'serious' web sites might find it usefull, specificly those who will get access to files and other privacy related or personal information. Snail mail a contract and have it signed and mailed back; Return a signed copy.
In situations where you actually 'hire' a staff for a certain position, I strongly advice them to sign a contract which states what they are hired for and what pay will be returned, together with a none disclosure agreement. This could cover both them and you for any issues and could be used to settle disputes.
Show Forum Leaders. For members who want to know who represent a board, on vBulletin software you can always goto the showgroups.php file which will display each staff usergroup with contact details. The link is usually below the listed forums on the forumhome (index.php) page.
© Copyrights 2004 Kathy, RN_Evil, Floris & http://www.vBulletin.nl/ (http://www.vbulletin.nl/)
Original thread: http://www.theadminzone.com/forums/articles.php?do=viewarticle&aid=1401 (http://www.theadminzone.com/forums/articles.php?do=viewarticle&aid=1401)
vBulletin.nl thread: http://www.vBulletin-Fans.com/showthread.php?t=3145 (http://www.vBulletin-Fans.com/showthread.php?t=3145)
You can discuss this article here (http://www.vBulletin-Fans.com/showthread.php?t=3146)
Floris & Staff
We bring you an indepth article shared by Kathy from The Admin Zone, expanded by Rn_Evil and Floris from vBulletin.nl for Administrators who use vBulletin and have the hard task to pick staff members.
As you spend your time, energy and money building your forums, adding content, contacting search engines and working on building your traffic, at some point you will need to consider hiring help with your community. In most cases, unless your site is a commercial site funded from within an existing corporation, your staff will be volunteers/unpaid moderators.
Enjoy!
Author(s): Kathy (First Part) / Rn_Evil and Floris (Second Part)
Website: http://www.theadminzone.com/
Considering the time, energy, money you have spent on your forum project, its important to understand that the moderators/staff that you select will represent you and your website to visitors and ultimately your members. Selecting your staff without consideration could lead your site down the wrong path instead of enhancing what you have taken the time and passion to build.
When do you need moderators?
When building a website around a forum, its important to hesitate slightly and not "hire" right away. Unless you are so busy with traffic from the very moment you open up your forums that you can't moderate it yourself, you should sit back and nuture your community.
For most forum software you can set up your forum to notify you when new members join and post new messages. Use it to stay on top of the activity of your community. Nip off-topic discussions and keep your newly opened forums on-topic. Your forum is in its infancy and needs careful attention to the tone and the organization of the forums.
You should provide this for your forum as you keep a tight handle on the growing community. When you find that the membership is growing at a rate you can't monitor yourself and the members are posting at a rate that doesn't allow you to moderate consistency, its time to consider finding some help.
Where do you find moderators?
Watch as you monitor your forum's growth, paying attention to its regular members. Watch for passion on the topic. Watch for appropriate grammar and language usage. Watch for others who are helpful to your members. These are probably your future moderators. They aren't necessarily your favorite members with the cleverist remarks. They aren't the ones that stir up trouble. They aren't your best friends.
They visit the forums regularly and post messages that are worded well and friendly to the community. You view their participation as an asset to your community and their presence in your forums as a help to you and your members. In short, they are already doing the job of "moderating" without the software tools nor the title of moderator.
How do you select moderators?
Start slow. Select one. Find out as much about this member as you can from their posts, from their homepage and any other resources. Why? They will be representing you to your community in some form or fashion.
Don't invite them onto your staff if you can't live with their side hobby of webmastering porn sites if this doesn't represent what you want for your site's affiliations. If your site is slanted towards one political party or another, be aware of their background and views. Google them. If they have experience on other forums, how are they viewed in other communities?
How do you hire moderators?
Before you hire a moderator, have in place some documentation about your website. Have a philosophy/mission statement developed. Have a moderator manual with "how to" and "when to" moderate within the documentation.
Many forum administrators suggest adding new staff on a short-term basis of three months initially. There are good managing reasons for a probation period for your new staff. One reason is that the member might not be able to commit to a long term staff position but they can commit to helping out for three months or so. The other reason is simple. If the new moderator doesn't show up as often as you expected, doesn't represent the forum well, doesn't fit into the staff needs of your forum, you can easily thank them for the time they served the community and turn off their moderator tools.
Once you've established your forums moderator guidelines, send a short email to the selected member inviting them to join your staff. If you have chosen to hire new staff with an initial three month time frame, tell them in this email invitation.
If they say "yes", thank them, explain the forums they have been assigned, provide them with the moderator manual documentation and help them get settled into their new status.
Many administrators don't announce new staff in their public forums but rather choose to celebrate in the private forums of the staff. The reasoning can be simple: Moderators are to facilitate the existing discussions of the community and keep posts on topic. They aren't the discussions themselves.
Other admins announce the staff hirings within announcements. Either way works as you keep in mind your particular forum community. If you want your staff to faciliate your discussions with helpfulness and not be the moderating police, this is where the admin can set the tone.
How do you pay moderators?
Large communities might be able to pay their staff but most can't. There are other ways to reward your staff without money. Words of thankfulness and kindess go a long way. Encourage your staff in public and private. Correct them when needed in private. Moderators are people with limitations and will make mistakes on occasion. Be forgiving. Demonstrate value to any input your staff members have for an idea about the community.
Some administrators send gifts to their staff for special occasions or snail mail birthday cards to help celebrate their day. A "thank you" note in an email or snail mail goes a long way of showing your gratefulness with your volunteer staff.
When do you fire moderators?
The staff for any company or any website should enhance and build up the company. If you have a moderator that is damaging your site, your company or your reputation its important to be objective. Make decisions based on what it best for your community as a whole. Its difficult to fire a moderator and handle the possible repercussions when taking this kind of action but it must be done. Be brave and remember the big picture.
The big picture is the status of your community's health and welfare. You have spent your time, money and passion creating a site. The long term effects of allowing a moderator to remain on your staff that is doing damage is more far reaching than you might imagine. Protect your property and real estate on the internet by managing personnel carefully and decisively. There are times to cut the relationship off, thanking the staffer for their previous help and tell them their services are no longer required.
Managing Community Needs
Addiing moderators to your community is more about management of traffic than power. Hiring staff when you need help is important if handled with caution, with specific steps in place to insure the best staff for your community's needs. Your investment of time, energy and money should grow with the addition of the most appropriate staff for your community.
Copyright (c) 2004 The Admin Zone. All Rights Reserved.
Selecting staff members is not an easy task especially if you need another administrator or super moderator for your board. This guide is going to make it easier for you, it will show you what to consider when choosing staff members.
For all the positions below, past experience is needed, especially for the administrators and super moderators - who need to know how to use the Moderator Control Panel and Admin Control Panel and admin/staff tools, if they have access.
In all staff positions I advice a month 'trial' and at least some basic guidelines on how to handle situations and what goes and doesn't go. As Kathy stated above, explain to them when you invite them what position they get, what is expected and what is not expected. It could save you quite some hassle.
Choosing Administrators can be a tough job. You need to know the user you're going go give administrator powers to, but sometimes this is not enough. That user needs to know how to work with vBulletin's Admin Control Panel. If he/she doesn't know much about how to use it and what tasks he has to do, you'll need to save some time to train that user in using the admin/moderator tools. In most cases people don't promote to Administrators users that don't know what vBulletin is, don't know their tasks, guidelines, etc.
Remember to give that user limited priveledges at first. Give him/her a trial period. (Usually one month)
If he/she behaves nicely and doesn't cause any problems you can make him permanent administrator and give him/her more priveledges, at least until the next staff evaluation.
Super Moderators should also be chosen carefully, not by the level of activity, but by the knowledge regarding staff policies, guidelines and vBulletin. Super Moderators are also a great alternative to giving moderators control panel access without upgrading their status from moderator to administrator. Keep in mind that super moderators have access to all the forums instead of just one, but that you can still limit their access through the permission system. On many forums super moderators are also assigned to keep an eye on the moderators and forums, rather then just the members and a specific forum. It comes with greater responsibility and more priveledges.
Moderators should be selected by the level of activity, as well as by his knowledge of the forum software. They should know the guidelings and rules, and either apply them themselves, or report back to the other staff members.
Even though a newly picked moderator is required to have some basic knowledge on how to operate a board and manage users, threads and posts - keep in mind that giving them a chance to learn is also a great value for both you and them.
A None Disclosure Agreement (NDA) is something you could request your future staff members to sign. Especially commercial or more 'serious' web sites might find it usefull, specificly those who will get access to files and other privacy related or personal information. Snail mail a contract and have it signed and mailed back; Return a signed copy.
In situations where you actually 'hire' a staff for a certain position, I strongly advice them to sign a contract which states what they are hired for and what pay will be returned, together with a none disclosure agreement. This could cover both them and you for any issues and could be used to settle disputes.
Show Forum Leaders. For members who want to know who represent a board, on vBulletin software you can always goto the showgroups.php file which will display each staff usergroup with contact details. The link is usually below the listed forums on the forumhome (index.php) page.
© Copyrights 2004 Kathy, RN_Evil, Floris & http://www.vBulletin.nl/ (http://www.vbulletin.nl/)
Original thread: http://www.theadminzone.com/forums/articles.php?do=viewarticle&aid=1401 (http://www.theadminzone.com/forums/articles.php?do=viewarticle&aid=1401)
vBulletin.nl thread: http://www.vBulletin-Fans.com/showthread.php?t=3145 (http://www.vBulletin-Fans.com/showthread.php?t=3145)
You can discuss this article here (http://www.vBulletin-Fans.com/showthread.php?t=3146)
Floris & Staff