Have you wrongly added someone to a staff position?

[Xyphien]

Have you ever added someone to a staff position you then later regretted? What was the situation, and how did you end up managing it? Was there a huge negative impact on your site?


For me, I added someone to being a moderator as she was a 'celebrity' in the genre/niche I made my website for. In adding her she brought a lot of people to the site, however, she began to become power hungry, and tried changing the site to how she wanted and tried taking control of the site as a whole. When I confronted her, she then used her popularity to try to kill off the site and leave it bear. Luckily, myself and the rest of the staff that remained handled the situation professionally, and quite well as we're still up, and after a short time of struggle we're now back up to the top as the number one site for the niche.

 

[Maxxamillion]

I do that quite frequently, I get someone on board whom seems keem and dedicated and they are the complete opposite

 

[zappaDPJ]

I once saw the admin team on a site I was a member of invite two very prominent members onto the staff to moderate. The first day they locked all the inactive threads they had jurisdiction over. The second day they hard deleted all threads that had had no new replies in a month, some 650,000 posts.

As no one noticed for a few days they were unable to restore from backup. I was employed to try and restore the old content from backup at which point I gained access to the admin area of the board. I swear I could see the gritted teeth the board staff were posting through

 

[gog1970]

I had one in the early days delete a whole section,he is still part of the team we just had to teach him very quickly about delete,merge topics extra

The other was a very informed member,friendly made him a mod and he went crazy,starting fights belittle other members,put him back as a normal member and now helpful and friendly again

 

[Amaury]

Once. It was an administrator who later betrayed us and hacked our homepage back on vBulletin. Nothing was lost, though.

 

[.Rogue]

Oh yes. I have written up about this person in the thread 'biggest mistakes as a forum admin/owner'.

Secondly I have added some friends as staff in the past and have found that they don't do anything to help as a moderator or global mod but you feel compelled to keep them at that position as not to hurt their feelings.

One member joined my new forum when it opened and asked to be a mod to help out. I thought okay as long as I keep moderating actions to a minimal as I didn't know this person but they seemed friendly on my site and their own.

I made them a mod, they disappeared a few days after. Eight days later I put them back to member, they then came back with some excuse and wanted to be a mod again. I thought to give this person a second chance but wrote some moderator guidelines down and said if they were happy about them then I would put them back as moderator. They agreed. They were active for 4/5 days again and disappeared again. The funny thing was on both occasions it happened I saw them elsewhere online. Anyway I put this 'mod' back as member.

I guess some people just like the title and that's all they are interested in.

I do need help with the forum as I work as well but I will have to strive on my own a bit more or until there is somebody that is genuiningly interested. Hard to know sometimes I guess.

 

[Scarlet Cox]

I never make a mod out of anyone who asks to be a mod.

Those who are best suited to power never seek it. Those who seek it are usually the most ill-suited.

Not that running a forum truly constitutes "power", but a weird amount of people think it does.

 

[Shawn Gossman]

I have always had a problem at being a nice guy. I prefer to trust people give people a chance. I don't really see myself as naive or gullible because of it, I am just the type who'd give you the shirt off my back to make sure you are okay. Because of that, I often had to learn the hard way about not accepting just anyone as staff. A lot of people like power and like to abuse their power and try to manipulate how you present yourself as the forum owner, to change your style if you will. Nowadays, I am still the nice guy for the most part but I often only choose those I've watched for a while and I quickly let them know my style of running forums and how I require staff follow that style. I do this by maintaining a staff handbook.

 

[gog1970]

I made them a mod, they disappeared a few days after. Eight days later I put them back to member, they then came back with some excuse and wanted to be a mod again. I thought to give this person a second chance but wrote some moderator guidelines down and said if they were happy about them then I would put them back as moderator. They agreed. They were active for 4/5 days again and disappeared again. The funny thing was on both occasions it happened I saw them elsewhere online. Anyway I put this 'mod' back as member.

I guess some people just like the title and that's all they are interested in.

.

Had this happen to me as well

 

[Scarlet Cox]

Sounds like you both got hit by someone just being nosy. A few people always think that forum staff are having super secret dramas behind the staff curtain and there will be juicy gossip to go look at if only they could get their hands on a staff badge. Once your new moderator finds nothing of interest, they sod off again

 

[Shawn Gossman]

Lately though, I've been lucky enough to have great staff members. They are active and they actively want the forum to succeed. Plus, my forum has a particular advantage in the niche, it is the largest forum for it - so people want to be a part of that to be known within the niche community. I welcome that as long as they are serious about staffing the forum along with whatever else they are wanting to get out of it. I think the forum size and niche does play a role at times.

 

[.Rogue]

Sounds like you both got hit by someone just being nosy. A few people always think that forum staff are having super secret dramas behind the staff curtain and there will be juicy gossip to go look at if only they could get their hands on a staff badge. Once your new moderator finds nothing of interest, they sod off again

I think you're right.

Years ago when I ran another forum and hired a moderator I didn't give them access to the staff room until they had been there for a month. Other moderators were not happy about this decision though which did cause a bit of friction at the time.