Struggles of a Teen Admin: What would you do?(Long post)

I've seen some of you on other admin sites i frequent so you may wind up seeing this post elsewhere

Just curious on your ideas/thoughts & how you'd handle these situations.

Background info:
17 years old
Admin experience(6 months)
Software experience: Forumotion, Mybb, SMF 2.0.2, Xenforo and IPB
Current sites: 2(one with 233 members and 27,000 posts & the other is new)
demographic: Mainly age 11-19(generally 12-17)

First and foremost, I want to say that I do care and love all my members. I've been with these kids for 6 months and they are like a second family to me..and given the drama we've had. Our competitor shut our first site down and attacks on our current site(DDos) has made it apparent while part of me doesn't want to keep doing the admin thing, I do it for them. Not for me.


1. Moderator/Admin team

I am the owner of my main site. I am usually the oldest member regularly on and active though there are some people who are older than me.

My "Moderator & Admin" team(Notice the quote) consist of 13-16 year olds. I use the quotes because for all intents and purposes, they may as well be regular members with some special powers. For the most part they don't abuse their power but they also pretty much don't do anything else with them either.

There are threads that need to be locked, merged, split, moved, etc etc. and yet they don't get done. I have to essentially make sure i am EVERY on the site at all times.

We have RPGs(Roleplaying games) and there are set rules for the Rp but the Mod/Admins don't make sure the members follow them.

Not to mention whenever drama happens(more on this later), instead of warning and then kicking and banning...they just sit there and watch. Or they just leave the chatbox.

And don't let me criticize them or ask them to do anything because it is a problem and they act like you just spit on them. If you even say you are going to demote then, they'll threaten to quit.

Then you have the members who beg daily to be mods/admins yet they do nothing to deserve said title and get mad at you when you explain to them.

2. Drama, Drama, Drama...Did i mention Drama? Happens daily.....Oh yeah & Drama

Almost everyday there is some type of drama. It used to originally be my site vs our competitors which was fine...in a way it built team spirit lol but now it is member vs members

There is an ignore feature in chat but people refuse to use it.....and then they are mad when someone hurts their feelings. Why not just use the button and ignore them? Hello...how hard is that?

Then you have members who intentionally attack members just for entertainment value or those who seeks attention they resort to making up stories or exaggerations for sympathy.

Then I am accused of letting drama go on...even if i am not physically there because i will not ban someone just based on what people tell me. I need some type of proof.

3. Bandwagoning
This basically happens quite a bit. I'm gay and I had a member use a homophobic slur against me and I did react badly and result in a MAJOR argument that nearly killed the site. I originally just banned him for 2 days but the other members made me feel bad(even though he was wrong) and winded up unbanning him the same day. Then he came on chat acting as if it wasn't a big deal.

It became me vs that member and his "group". Originally people were on my side and didn't care for him at all.

Then out of nowhere, the very same people who claimed to understand why I had banned him from chat and why i disliked him just out of nowhere turned on me and were like it's not a big deal. It's just a word.

THis went on for another few weeks until they came up with this idea of quitting my site and then trying to create their own website. Nearly 50% of my site quit all in the same day and the site almost died....a couple of days later they came back and apologies were made and i've since forgiven the guy and all but bandwagoning is something that pisses me off.

Whatever the event is....they have a tendency to just jump behind whatever is popular and then switch sides. Even if sad drama had nothing to do with them.

4. Chatbox & Forum posting

I wish there was a way to have chat messages be counted in the overall post count, I'd have about 10 million posts. My chatbox is very active(especially for drama) yet my forum activity is slacking.

I don't mind the chatbox. It is easy to talk to people but when i try to encourage them to post at least 5 times a day, it's a big deal. I explained to them that if we don't post...we don't get new members.

There are members who have been with me since forumotion all the way to the latest site(that is 6 websites) who almost never post. But they log in chat daily, spend hours there and do not post.

What annoys me is when they come on the site to discuss posting on ANOTHER UNAFFILIATED website.

I do have members who never come in chat and just post in the forums which i love but the ones in chat are my most active/daily members.

I may as well just shut the forum down and just keep the chatbox up.

So what would you do in this situation? It now marks 6 months that i've been with these people and as much as I care for them, I don't know what ONE 17 year old can do. It has gotten to the point where I don't even want new members simply for the fact i dont want my site to have a bad reputation.

You must learn to manage your expectations. The behaviour you have described doesn't seem unusual for young teenagers, you can't expect them to act maturely nor can you expect teen moderators to manage their peers with any degree of success. Perhaps consider only having senior, as in age, members as moderators. Take on a co-admin, you should be able to step away from disciplinary matters where you are directly involved in the argument. Of course you should not get involved in arguments in the first place but the ability to do that will only come with experience. In the meantime create an account for yourself where you post anonymously as an ordinary member and only use the Admin account when you must post "Ex Cathedra". HTH.

What's the site URL and what is the focus/subject of your site?

I imagine the age group you are dealing with will much prefer the instant gratification of "chat" rather than the longer, more thought-out process of forum posting; so if you're offering both at your site, I would expect chat to be popular and forum posting much less so.

What you could possibly do (I did this on one of my sites) is restrict access to chat until people have a reasonably high forum post count, or have been members for say, a year or so. This means that people can't get their hands on "chat" straight away and instead have to use the forums and "earn" access to chat. Whether that would encourage more forum posting from the age group you are aiming your site at I don't know - it may mean they just stop coming altogether! Which begs the question, do you want a forum site or a chat room site? Would a "realtime chat" site better suit your needs or audience?

With regard to you being gay; your sexuality shouldn't really have anything to do with the site (unless it's a site about sex ... lol) and it shouldn't have any bearing on how you run the site. If anyone is brain-dead enough to come onto the site and post homophobic rubbish, then you need to warn them and if they don't stop, ban them - straight away - and without any reconsideration in the future (regardless of what anyone else says). Allowing such prejudice on your site means that anyone and anything is up for attack, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with having firm rules on just how far the piss taking goes.

Your moderator team sound like they need some leadership from you. Please don't be offended by that - it's easy to promote people to the team and assume they'll get the hang of it by watching you/other mods - or they'll instinctively know what to do. What I've found is that you need to give instructions and give feedback when people do take action - even a simple "Good call" or "Thanks for sorting that out" can really encourage your mods and also lets them know they're doing the right things.

Do you have any forum rules or moderator guidelines? These might help you to define the conduct you don't want from your members, and also give your moderator team a better idea of how to approach things, how to behave, and that they are there to set an example to everyone else.

Do you have a private moderators forum where you can chat to each other about the site and how you want things to run?

Bandwagoning - I think you're going to be stuck with this, just because of the age group you are dealing with. Young people often go with the crowd and very easily switch allegiance if everyone else is following someone/something else. The only thing you can do to try and counter it is to maintain a steady and consistant operation; stick to your forum rules and continue to apply them as firmly and fairly as possible; don't get drawn into public arguments - no matter how much people goad you (this is a really big no-no) - and I know, at your young age this can be incredibly hard to resist, but believe me when I say that you and your site will benefit from not arguing with members in public (try to avoid doing it via PM/email too as people often share these with people without telling you!! Personally I never say anything in a PM/email that I would be embarrased about if it went "public").

You do sound like you love what you're doing and that you are committed to making it work better, so keep chatting to us here and we'll try to help you to sort things out and make them a little less stressful for you.

Cheers,
Shaun

Because everything is so new, you aren't going to have the luxury of being able to select members based on years of interaction. Therefore, you're going to have to take a different path until your site and staff matures.

The first thing you need to do is set down a set of rules for your staff and then enforce those rules. Staff members who refuse to adhere to them should be fired. Carefully watch your members and select staff members based on posting history and their ability to interact with the rest of the membership. Drag them kicking and screaming if you need to. NEVER bring a member into the staff who asks for the job. You'll quickly find that those are the worst staff members you could ever have. Ensure you have a private forum just for staff members. This is where you can discuss site issues and ensure your vision for the site is understood by all. Again, if you have site members that flat out refuse to stay within your rules and guidelines, fire them.

Finding help on the admin side can be a nightmare. Especially when your site caters to teenagers.The last thing I would do is give someone the keys to the kingdom when they're in the throes of hormonal rage.

It does look like you need help on the server side to help mitigate the damage being done by morons who have nothing better to do than be a script kiddie. Hopefully your hosting company is doing all they can in that regard. Unfortunately, you'll be limited to what you personally can do depending on the type of hosting arrangement you have and the server you're on. And if you can prove that a "competitor" is trying to take your site down via illegal means, make it plain that you have provided any and all information available to you to law enforcement. You don't have to put up with that crap, and there is nothing wrong with cooperating with law enforcement to bring an end to the bullshit your site is going through via remote attacks.

Thank you guys so much. It really is encouraging to hear this stuff from experienced Webmasters and such. I am typing fast(Prom is tonight lol) as I wanted to check out the forums i frequent so please forgive any typos

Update Since I wrote this post:

I've decided to start viewing my site the same way as I do high school because to be honest, this site is full of teenager and the same dumb stuff people in school discuss...."Annoying" parents, bf/gf drama, attention seekers, those who try to be popular, friends fightign day in and day out and it has helped me with a little patience.

I've been working on some rules. Nothing strict because I hate rules myself but I know that a site needs them(and a disciplinary action should they be broken) that i'll be announcing later today.

They ARE posting on the site more than they were before. Today, a guy who notoriously only logs into chat on the chatbox like it is skype or facebook actually did 30-40 posts and I made sure to post along with him to keep him engaged and that did make me happy and he legit seemed to enjoy doing it as well as other members are posting. Like I told some members, if you ask others to post with you then they probably will do so. Especially in the games section

The same member i mention above, actually suggested getting rid of a chatbox or getting a smaller one becaue he said he posted more when he ignored the chatbox. So I am guessing if the chatbox wasn't there, it be easier for them to post. However, I am not naieve or stupid enough to remove it. If these were adults maybe but they would only go to sites or instant messaging services to chat with each other and I'd kill my site very quickly. For now, I need to appreciate the fact that while they are NOT posting as much as i like, they are at least visiting daily.

The chatbox really isn't the problem. Again most of the kids on my site have been with me since day 1, 6 months ago when we first started and we've always had a chatbox. They posted TONS more in the beginning than they do now and i'm just copping up to laziness.

The most interesting thing is the kid who called me a word that rhymes with Wag it is now apart of my staff. I know some people may frown upon it but there is a method to my madness. It's more of a keep a friend close, enemies closer type of thing and it also makes me look more accepting. He is doing a decent job though. He actually made a comment that he sees the stuff I deal with daily as he has had to kick and ban a few members of the site numerous times as they love to insult him and what not. I intentionally don't intervene because if they always count on me to intervene then there is no staff and plus it is kind of teaching him and the rest of the admins/mods a lesson about what i have to deal with them.

While they are more respectful and appreciative of me, the drama has gotten worse and worse and the bandwagoning has reached a naseuatingly sickening level. Today this boy switched sides from his "friend's" side to his friend's enemies side and then back...all in the same argument.

and then i have an idiot boy who is 13 who feels the need to post pictures of people with their heads cut off or bashed in or other gross stuff. He was originally only doing it in Chat but he then started doing it in the forums which pissed me off.

SO this is an update
We are actually buying a license for premium software for the site this weekend(hopefully) so once that is purchased, I hope to get your visual feedback on the site as well my sad, sad rants

Good for you. Put up a link when you have your new software installed and I'm sure the guys here will give you some good feedback. They are very helpful, you just have to be prepared to listen.