Things I stress about as an admin...

[StormyWays13 91]

I stress a lot about a select few members who while making the site active may be off-putting others. The staff of my site is currently on a toss up about them.

 

I am also adjusting and adding new things to the site and I sometimes worry that the members may not like what I add and not tell us. But I think that is just a fear at I will eventually need to get over.

[Huskerdust 625]

This is related to both the ones above me. I just switched themes to something older (and edited with permisson) by my husband. I worry that it’s not what the members like and that the changes made to the overall layout aren’t to their liking. I tend to like cleaner and sleeker designs and this one feels a bit cluttered but what can ya do?

[clipsed 231]

On 11/20/2018 at 3:40 PM, Gothic said:

I worry they will see how long the site has been around and will just think they don't have a place, and can't get involved in the community. 

 

THIS.

[JD Hart 72]

15 hours ago, StormyWays13 said:

I stress a lot about a select few members who while making the site active may be off-putting others. The staff of my site is currently on a toss up about them.

 

I am also adjusting and adding new things to the site and I sometimes worry that the members may not like what I add and not tell us. But I think that is just a fear at I will eventually need to get over.

 

Have you tried speaking to them regarding this off-putting-ness? They might not realise their doing it 😄

 

I have stress when I want to make a change to the site and everyone immediately gets worried. It's nice that they love the site as it is but I like to keep improving things and it would be nice for people to trust that and not worry until they see the final results ❤️ 

[Robyn 54]

I get way too worried whether or not I'm doing my job right. That I'm not visible enough to members, not nice enough, welcoming enough, doing my task-list correctly. The list is really endless.

This is an issue with me in my RL management job as well, one I'll really need to get over cause eh, stress-levels sometimes go through the roof. (LIke, I make 10+ hour shifts at work and then still feel the need ot put in 4+ hours on the site).

[Pinkykins 13]

Putting my foot down on something and not because I want to throw my weight around. I don't like saying no to people so I'm kinda constantly dreading situations where it's necessary. I know there's no such thing as a one-size-fits all forum but I really hate disappointing people. Like some other people have mentioned it's hard finding a tone which is kind rather then cold. I worry that when people receive a no once, they'll be put off completely or I'll come across micro-managey.

Another thing that I worry over is the health of my community. I want to make sure that everybody is having a good time, I want to keep things reasonably organised but at the same time I don't want to make my members feel pressured into posting when they can't or aren't in the mood, or that they have to take part in social things outside of their characters. I don't want people to feel left out or ignored but sometimes there's so much going on in co-ordinating things from an admin or staff's perspective that I worry I'll forget someone. It's hard to know what to prioritise sometimes.

 

It's also kind of comforting to know I'm not the only person who worries about people not liking me as a writer or person. Welcoming new people can be scary in itself because I want to make a good impression but I want it to be a sincere one. I worry that if they catch me in a good mood I'll be too enthusiastic or that if they catch me on one of my worse days (sometimes my mental health makes it really difficult to even talk to others) I'll seem completely dismissive by not posting in the chat or something. Like it's horrible that any of us have self-doubt around our hobby but it's reassuring to not be alone in that?

 

[Poe 18]

I used to stress constantly, about what happens when I am away.

 

I trust my staff team, I trust my current member base, but I also have anxiety about leaving the forum unattended. I am always on edge about "what if this happens" or "what if that happens" knowing fully that the rest of the staff can handle in my absence.

 

I have gotten better about it and even took a vacation to NC in December and completely unplugged from my forum that time. It was good recharge period for me and t also built more confidence that my board will be fine if I leave it for a few days. 💜

[jordan 23]

I worry about if the coding is to hard for members, if we are looking at apps with a critical eye that might scare people away. I worry about having to much information on everything so people stop reading, but also not having enough that they won't be interested in the setting at all. I also worry about people making characters to try and break the board but at the same time not wanting to play to save up points to make the higher powered characters. 

 

I worry about a good deal of many things, from how to get more members to do I have enough members to make the board fun. It's, quite hard.

[Deacon Frost 196]

I am autistic with mental health issues. I don't pick up social cues very easily. I have trouble reading the "tone" of a pure text based conversation and I suffer a great deal of anxiety. But I am also an Admin on a board. I worry about a lot of things. Like the public perception of how players see the Admins on a board. How well I straddle the line between being firm and accommodating. How well I handle player interactions to make sure people aren't hurting each other's feelings. For me one of the key things is learning the strengths and weaknesses of the other Admins and players. 

 

For instance I have a really fast reading speed and a high comprehension rate. So for the board I Admin on I am the main application review person. Not because I know the lore better than my fellow Admins. But because I read much faster than they do and keep a solid grasp of the character as I comb through the details. So my main job is to read the apps and summarize them for the other Admins so we can keep players approval times to a very small window of wait. 

One of my weak areas however comes in addressing players who are in a hostile mindset. I don't deal well with confrontation and I tend to seek compromise and try to get everyone to see each other's points of view. So when we have a player who is being unreasonable or just refusing to compromise I hand off the situation to one of the other Admins who have an easier time being the "tough love" person on the board. They try to defuse the problem or shut it down in a manner that I can't do myself. 

 

One of my largest concerns when dealing with the board is keeping the community aware that we as Admins are inclusive. I don't believe that everyone needs to RP with everyone. Some people just don't mesh. But I want to try and make sure the players know that the Admin team is NOT going to focus solely on playing with each other. As a result I tend to put up a lot of open threads with my characters so that players always have the option of jumping into a thread with me. Even if it's a short meaningless thread it has shown the players I have nothing against their characters. 

[StormWolfe 557]

On 11/29/2018 at 7:33 PM, CovertSphinx said:

I worry that my site isn't pretty enough for people to look at the actual content

 

@CovertSphinx - your site is amazing!

 

As far as my admin stresses - everything! Especially right now as health issues are impacting my online life.

 

My biggest worry - making everyone feel welcome and encouraged to join in and write! I worry about our apps being too involved. However, we do not use plotters, shippers, and all of that. This is why we like good character bios. On the flip side of that, we don't really do character approvals as such - just a read-over to make sure all bases are covered.

 

Afraid that our size and preference for writing JPs scares people off because they think there's no activity. Anyone have any idea what I'd give for a mod that highlights edited posts as new? LOL

 

Anyway - back to the top - I worry about everything. 

[Jones 177]

1 hour ago, StormWolfe said:

Afraid that our size and preference for writing JPs scares people off because they think there's no activity. Anyone have any idea what I'd give for a mod that highlights edited posts as new? LOL

 

Could you copy and past the edited post into a new one then delete the old one each time? That way it would always have the date of the most recent edit. 

 

My biggest fear is that I push too hard. I'm a major plotter that gets a real kick out of long story arcs. I don't plot out all the details, or give away every bit that I have plotted, but I have been known to answer excited member comments on recent developments with 'I've been so excited to write this out, I've been brainstorming it for weeks/months' so my members know I am usually planning things. It recently came to my attention that it has made at least one of them afraid to 'do their own thing' so to speak in case it effected plots in the works. I felt awful and now I worry that they might all feel put off by it. All I can do is tell them that my plans are always super flexible, but then I worry they'll feel like that means the roles their characters play in the situation are easily replaceable. How does an admin nicely put 'I don't mind you wrecking my ideas because I will get new ones!' without making anyone involved feel awkward? lol. 

[Deacon Frost 196]

2 minutes ago, Jones said:

 

Could you copy and past the edited post into a new one then delete the old one each time? That way it would always have the date of the most recent edit. 

 

My biggest fear is that I push too hard. I'm a major plotter that gets a real kick out of long story arcs. I don't plot out all the details, or give away every bit that I have plotted, but I have been known to answer excited member comments on recent developments with 'I've been so excited to write this out, I've been brainstorming it for weeks/months' so my members know I am usually planning things. It recently came to my attention that it has made at least one of them afraid to 'do their own thing' so to speak in case it effected plots in the works. I felt awful and now I worry that they might all feel put off by it. All I can do is tell them that my plans are always super flexible, but then I worry they'll feel like that means the roles their characters play in the situation are easily replaceable. How does an admin nicely put 'I don't mind you wrecking my ideas because I will get new ones!' without making anyone involved feel awkward? lol. 

No Plot Survives Contact with the RP. 

That's how I'd try to express it to my players. All of my plotting is done with the idea that anyone involved might cause the story to go in a different direction. Which includes my own characters. Goodness knows I have had moments where my characters suddenly made a hard left turn and completely changed a story I thought I was writing with some comrades. I'd never judge a player for their character making an independent decision and it sounds like you wouldn't either. So just be honest. "I love coming up with long term plots; but I know that characters love to do their own thing. Never worry that I'm going to be mad. After all I can always save the idea and use it later in another story. Good ideas never go bad and good RP is never wasted." 

[In Red 16]

As a new admin of a veeeeeeery old site (established 2002), I stress about our ancient forum software that's super outdated (it hasn't changed one bit since I joined in 2008, but I personally have no way of improving) and that the very old (but functional!) design of the site puts off new/younger members who are used to a much prettier internet and measure a forum's worth by its aesthetics.

[Guest Bekah]

My worry is that we provide too much information for members to look over, that it frightens a lot of people away. We try to be as informative as possible and we do research a lot of topics, but I'm concerned that because of that, people assume that they need to take everything in and know it all - which isn't the case. It's there to inform members, it's not there to be memorised.

[fruity20 19]

the sheer volume of stuff you can do as a admin. As someone coming as a mostly member sort of of person. i grew a newfound respect for people who keep these forums running.