Staff

[Adam Howard]

Am I the only one who has this problem?

Anytime I make someone staff on my site, no matter how active they always have been; they suddenly become less active and in a few case disappear (without notice).

Does this happen to anyone else or have I been unlucky all this time?

 

[Sador]

Have you asked them about it?

 

[DRE]

Yeah this has happened to me too. Then when you demote them they either never come back or login way less than before. I am loathe to assign new moderators because of it. Some people don't want responsibility, basically.

 

[Adam Howard]

Have you asked them about it?

The typical reply....

"Oh I've been busy.... blah....blah...blah...."

 

[DRE]

The typical reply....

"Oh I've been busy.... blah....blah...blah...."

lol yup

 

[Adam Howard]

Yeah this has happened to me too. Then when you demote them they either never come back or login way less than before. I am loathe to assign new moderators because of it. Some people don't want responsibility, basically.

I'm glad I'm not the only one.


Although I do ask people before promoting them and they do accept. I've never promoted anyone who declined. Funny thing is I promoted 1 person who wanted it and even they walked away in time.

Being staff on Socially Uncensored has to be the easiest job in the world. We're an uncensored community, so staff members only need to moderate in the rare moments we get spam (hardly ever) or if someone does something illegal (has happen only 1x in 2 years).

So there isn't a lot of responsibility, simply because we're uncensored and trolling isn't something you can complain about in an uncensored community. Being a staff member on SU is as easy as walking in a park or smelling roses.

 

[Andy.N]

Easy for the site owner to say. What is in it for them to be an active staff? Do they gain anything financially or otherwise?
What is your unique selling point (USP) to make them stay active and being a while.

This is an open-ended question that I think many site admins are interested in the answer. Time is precious and what would make someone willing to help our site out.

 

[Adam Howard]

Easy for the site owner to say. What is in it for them to be an active staff? Do they gain anything financially or otherwise?
What is your unique selling point (USP) to make them stay active and being a while.

This is an open-ended question that I think many site admins are interested in the answer. Time is precious and what would make someone willing to help our site out.

I have a return question as a reply.....

What makes YOU want to be an active member of a community? Now take that answer and ask yourself this... Would YOU care to protect that?

Of course the staff passion is voluntary and requires no effort on my site. Unlike most sites; on my site there are no requirements or assigned duties. You continue to be a normal user with just a few extra options (edit others post, issue warning, bans). So there is zero effort.... Remember we're uncensored so all content is allowed (minus spam, illegal, or hard-core porn).... The last time anyone needed to use any mod tools was sometime last year.

 

[Slavik]

The problem is even if the job doesn't entail much you still have a lot of extra baggage. For example when asked if I wanted to mod here I knew that it would involve

extra random pms
dealing with abusive members
dealing with abuse aimed in my direction
people critising things I do

and those are just for starters.

Fortunately I am very thick skined, I can deal with keyboard warriors all day, and on my own site I have said to many people, I am at nearly every major paintball event in the UK. If you have something to say, say it to my face. You know only 2 of probably 100+ have ever taken my up on that offer and had the balls to say it in person and not from the safety of the keyboard?

Some people don't understand, once you gain a possition of power, a lot of things come with it... and many people can't deal with it.

 

[craigiri]

I've got some 5 year staff. Only ones the leave have terrible accidents or cancer (seriously)......some even stay with those....

Maybe it's the uncensored part? Is it hard to control an uncensored thingy??

I know my mods like control. I pretty much 100% hand everything over to them because I find people function better when they make their own decisions. That is, I never rule against them or tell them what to do (just give an opinion nicely, if asked).

 

[craigiri]

Oh, and a little stipend once in a while...that is, if the site makes money, is a nice thing.

My mods often refuse it or give it to a needy cause or member, but it's still a bit extra for them...probably works out to 20 cents an hour.

 

[craigiri]

Sorry for all the answers, but another trick is finding out the people who are there all the time anyway! I mean over a year or more.........you can also sense by the answers that folks give others whether they see themselves as a mod archetype.

 

[DRE]

This thread makes me want to demote some of my moderators for the hell of it.

 

[CTXMedia]

It could be quite simple - they have high expectations of what being "staff" is and are incredibly disappointed when they find out that it is not much at all. Hence the loss of interest.

 

[Andy.N]

I have no mod for the past 6 years. A new site I just open in another language which I don't speak/write, I ask 2 of my active members to be mods there to seed content.
The main site never has a need for mod. Everyone is willing to answer when and if then can.

 

[Adam Howard]

It could be quite simple - they have high expectations of what being "staff" is and are incredibly disappointed when they find out that it is not much at all. Hence the loss of interest.

Reading all these replies, I think this could be it. On most sites staff members seem to have a more active role and use more power of enforcement. So I think perhaps there is that expectation and when they learn that is not so......

Unlike most sites, being a staff member does not mean you can use all the power in the world. We're basically uncensored so unless the reported issue is spam, illegal content, or hard-core porn; everything else is allowed and everything else is ignore-able .... ie.... If X user reports that Y user called him a name, the staff member doesn't even have to reply (they can ignore the complaint). But on another site, that would require action (not on SU).

Another example is like here on XenForo, if X said Borgan sucked; he would most likely either ignore it or reply in a professional manner, because he was staff here. On my site, the staff are well within their rights to tell X user to STFU.

 

[Adam Howard]

This thread makes me want to demote some of my moderators for the hell of it.

I think I have 1 staff member I may demote. She's always complaining about how things don't work for her. I've confirmed a dozen times or so that it must be her computer, because X, Y, Z, is working for everyone except her. Even offered to remote fix things if she was game..... She's not.

And it gets really tiring to have someone on staff complaining that the site doesn't work, when you know it does.

 

[DRE]

lol

I looked at my list of mods and didn't feel motivated enough to demote any.

 

[SneakyDave]

I'm glad I'm not the only one.


Although I do ask people before promoting them and they do accept. I've never promoted anyone who declined. Funny thing is I promoted 1 person who wanted it and even they walked away in time.

Being staff on Socially Uncensored has to be the easiest job in the world. We're an uncensored community, so staff members only need to moderate in the rare moments we get spam (hardly ever) or if someone does something illegal (has happen only 1x in 2 years).

So there isn't a lot of responsibility, simply because we're uncensored and trolling isn't something you can complain about in an uncensored community. Being a staff member on SU is as easy as walking in a park or smelling roses.

Then can't you do that all yourself?

 

[Adam Howard]

Then can't you do that all yourself?

Time is not always on my side and no administrator can be online 24/7
So its good to have 2 more people to help (2 because of the same reason).