What to Expect When You’re Expecting (to be a Forum Admin)

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What to Expect When You’re Expecting

(to be a Forum Admin)

Being an admin of a forum is a lot like getting a puppy. It seems like a good idea at first because it’s cute and you want something to cuddle with. But puppies need to be housebroken and they need to be trained and you’ve got to spend money on their food and take them on walks.  A lot of people go into it thinking it’ll be easy- and like with adopting their first puppy, most of these people are in for a rude awakening. You don’t have to be, though!

What Being an Admin Requires

A lot, I’ve come to learn. 

Leadership Skills
Unsurprisingly, being the admin of a forum does require that you have some leadership skills. You’ll find yourself struggling if you have a hard time communicating with others and enforcing rules. Shy individuals may also find it difficult to get the community excited about events and the RP in general. Personalities that are very particular about the way they like things to get done will have to be careful to not come off as too abrasive or controlling. Likewise, there’s no room for grudges and if you’ve a hard time letting things go, you might quickly find yourself frustrated and unhappy.

Time, Patience, & Diligence 
Even simple forums require a lot of time from the admin. The community needs looking after, advertising needs to be done, bugs will need to be fixed, scraps are inevitably going to need to be settled. These things happen on almost a daily basis, requiring patience and diligence. On top of all that, the admins should be some of the most active players on the forum- not just out of character, but in character as well. Of course, there are different paces for every forum, but the admin typically needs to be able to manage the pace they want their site to have.

Don’t Take Things Personally
During your time as an admin, it’s likely you’ll get called all the most terrible things under the sun. You’re going to meet screwballs that will attempt to mess up your site, mess up your plot, ruin your whatever. It can also happen that people you think are your friends turn out to not be your friend. Your members might try and start a “coup.” You just got to be able to shrug it off, let it go, and move on. These are all issues that tend to stem from the other person’s insecurities or them not getting what they want. In other words: it’s them, not you.

Admitting that Sometimes it is Actually You
Yeah, sometimes it is actually you. Being an admin requires that you’re freely capable of admitting when you’re wrong and when you’ve made a mistake. More importantly than that, it requires that you learn from them. 
 

You’re Two People & When You’re One of Those People, Others Come First

An admin’s got to be an admin, and an admin gets to be a player on their own forum also. Most of the time, you get to be the latter- which is good news! But sometimes things go south, and you need to put on your admin pants. And when that happens, you need to be able to act as someone without bias. With your admin pants on, you might have to make choices that you wouldn’t want to as a player. For example, you might be close friends with a player- but if they are spreading toxicity on your forum and that is not something you want, your admin self needs to show them to the door. It can hurt. But it’s got to be done for the betterment of your community. When you’re in your admin pants, you need to be able to put others before yourself.

Putting Your Foot Down
As an admin, you need to be able to put your foot down. Sometimes you need to kick people off your site, sometimes you need to have difficult discussions about a person’s behavior. You need to be able to say no to radical characters or ideas that break your site’s lore. When people beg and ask for pity, you need to be able to stick to your guns. Depending on the community you have, you might need to end up doing this a lot. Just like insults, it’s something you need to learn to take calmly and do your best to not let it bother you.

No Pity-Parties or Excuses
You’re a human. You’ve got feelings and needs. Sometimes, you need to take a break also. And that is one hundred percent okay! Go do it already! Don’t feel bad about it. But don’t expect pity, don’t make excuses, and do not drag it out. It looks bad when a normal player does it, and even worse when an admin does it.

Being an Admin is Hard

You might have noticed that by now! But wait- there’s more!

You Might Be None of the Above
If you’re incapable of all the above, it’s going to be tough for you to be an admin. That is nothing to be ashamed of, however, and it’s no reason to lose hope. Many of the things required of an admin are skills you can learn! That’s the hard part.

Because it takes time to learn these skills. As with school and classes, everyone learns differently and at a different paces. Some might catch onto adminning quicker than others, but just because you don’t get the hang of it right away that doesn’t mean you should give up.

Things Are Going to Suck While You Learn
Not all the time, of course. You’re going to make mistakes, though, and they might make you feel like crap, or they might really impact your forum and the community. Some of these mistakes might be so bad you can’t imagine how you’ll get through them. You will. And it will be easier if you don’t beat yourself up over a slip up, and see it for what it really is: an opportunity to improve.

Feelings Are Going to Get Hurt
No doubt about it. I’ve warned you that other people will probably be hurting your feelings. What I didn’t mention was that sometimes the person hurting your feelings might even be you. In becoming an admin, you sometimes learn that you aren’t the person you thought you were. It’s not a pleasant experience.

No Matter How Hard You Try, You’ll Never Be Perfect
Never ever! No matter how long you go at it, there will always be something to learn. No matter how much experience you gain, you will still make mistakes. You’ll still find yourself in situation where you aren’t absolutely certain on how to handle them. 

Know what, though? That’s okay.  It really is. If you are perfect, then there is nothing for you to improve upon. And when there’s nothing for you to improve upon, you get stale. There’s nothing to learn from. You go nowhere. So embrace being imperfect! It’s better that way.

Being an Admin is Rewarding

Hot diggity, it seemed like I wasn’t ever going to have anything good to say about it, huh? That’s not true, though. Adminning can be a very rewarding experience, and here’s why. . .

You Get to Watch Your Puppy Grow Up
Which is an absolutely awesome experience, in spite of all toughness. It’s a source of great pride and sense of accomplishment: and for good reason! Look at all the effort you put into that majestic beast, and how well it’s turned out!

You Meet New People
Meeting new people is a great way to gain experience and learn. Plus, it’s fun! New friends, new people to write with and all that!

You Gain Valuable Skills
At the least, you’ll get to work on your people, problem-solving, and conflict resolution skills. You might also pick up a few other tricks along the way, like an ability to make graphics, code web pages, make videos, etc., etc.

It Makes You a Better Person
Or it can, assuming you learn your lessons and actually make an effort to improve for the sake of your forum and community. You grow up a lot, too. Tends to give you reasons to be less selfish, more open. Work on your communication skills, learn more about people, the way they live, and why they do what they do. 

* Results may vary. Being an admin doesn’t make you a good person automatically and sometimes people get into it for the wrong reasons. This article is assuming the best of people rather than the worst and is also based on the idea that you are not a power-hungry dictator in the making.

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