On a forum I ran many many moons ago (we're talking years here) we had a great staff team. The site was extremely active and our staff team was set up so that there was always at least one person online no matter what the hour was. At this particular time I was pregnant and close to having the baby, so I promoted two of my most trusted moderators to admin positions - to keep the site running smoothly while I was off doing the baby thing. Now these two people I had absolutely no reason not to trust, they were excellent staff members, well liked in the community, knew their stuff both about the subject and about how I wanted the site run and were always superb with suggestions and implementation of various things. They'd been staff members for about 2 years, and had been extremely active members for about 18 months prior. So, secure in the knowledge I'd picked the best two people to look after my site while I was away, off I went on "maternity leave". About three days later, the first emails started coming in from members expressing concern over changes that were taking place on the site. Having not discussed making any changes, this was a fairly confusing bit of information so I dropped an email to my new administrators, one of whom replied saying everything was fine and the other with the response that we really needed to talk. Imagine my surprise when one of the two admins proceeded to tell me that the other had started implementing new harsher rules, banning long-standing members for disagreeing with her and numerous other things. She had reshuffled half the forums, deleted half the content and generally destroyed the site we'd built up to a respectable size over the years. When I signed back on and saw myself what had happened and contacted her, she threw a huge tantrum, told me that it was the members revolting because they were jealous she'd been giving the site ( - news to me since she was just looking after it.) It became clear that she had convinced herself that the community now belonged to her 100% and she was free to do whatever she pleased with it. Long story short, she learnt rather abruptly that wasn't the case - but it was the beginning of the end of that particular forum. Moral of the story - don't trust anyone So, how many of you have made a mistake with a staff member which almost (or even did) cost you your site/members/post/reputation *insert whatever word you like here*
I've seen that scenario occur so many times on other people's forums I've learned to adopt the roll of the benign dictator I have the absolute minimum number of staff, rarely give away any sort of power and when I do it's only to long standing members that for all intents and purposes have acted as forum moderators/arbitrators without having the tools to do so. Incidentally my number one rule is that no one, admin or moderator, ever deletes any content. Everything, even spam goes to the dump box. I'm sure I'm horrible to work for
I have 2 other staff members besides me whom I trust to run the site. I've made it very clear that nothing is to change, it is still my site, one of the staff is a mod and one is an admin. The admininstrator only has access to what he needs in the ACP, so no forums management, no styling, bare minimum settings access. Even if he got it into his head that the site is now his, he hasn't the controls to do anything about it. That, and I know that the moderator would talk sense and talk him down. Yin/Yang sometimes The sad story is really that: Don't trust anyone.
I couldnt agree more Mikey, I dont trust anyone other than myself, I do put trust in people with things I dont care so much about like most of us but the things I do care about I dont trust anyone with. I have made plenty everything from really immature people becoming moderators to complete psychos who would make trolls and ban them in order to look the hero. I wouldn't let anyone have admin access unless I really trusted them for example for support etc I would rather go on leave and come back to a mess than allow others to mess things up whilst I am gone thus ruining my reputation but then again, I dont think I would like going on holiday to come back to a pigsty of a house and have to clean up I aint too sure what I would do myself but I certainly wouldn't be dishing out admin privileges to anyone other than the ability to delete and ban members, I dont see why they would need any further access.
As everyone has said. I don't trust anyone to act as I expect them to, or how I would. I can only hope they do. I've seen too many times where members begin to influence staff; a staffer goes on an ego trip; or staff simple aren't strong enough for the role and become incapable of doing their job. I admit many people probably think all of the admins here are crazy. We sound paranoid and controlling. But I've seen to many a forum go down because someone wasn't a good fit. I think forum owners have to accept at the end of the day your going to be the dictator. You just have to do the best you can because the buck stops with you. All your staff can make excuses but everything comes back to the owner. And I know I would be damned to let someone wreck what I had made. For me I've only worked with 2 people I would trust to be admin. In other words to admin the way I would and care enough about the forum. I've sadly not talked to those 2 people in years. Sometimes I hate the idea that we have to be so controlling. But on the other end your forum falls apart. There isn't much choice.
Both of my website and forum networks have an acting Vice President. He will take charge if I am unable to or if I pass away (hopefully not that last part, even though I am deathly ill right now lol). I trust him though, me and him are a lot alike and we've known one and other for a while now.
Like I said I am sick Nothing is clear right now, haha. I saw someone say they couldn't trust someone to run the community so my mind got all mixed up To top off being sick with 104-F fever, I am working a double tonight because my guard is too hungover to work...
