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Mistakes you made as an admin


Morrigan
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We've all done it, especially as we're just getting our feet wet. What are some of the mistakes that you've made as an admin.

 

For me, its been not trusting my instincts about people. I've messed up something fierce by allowing the wrong people to join and make my sites unenjoyable.

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One on my mistakes was following the suggestions of the other co-admins to change the forum software. By doing so, we saw little no do activity after the switch. I attribute the death of that site to that mistake. But since then I've learned to let things grow and see how they go before a huge change like is made. I needed to trust my gut feeling, but I did it anyways.

“There's a scream permanently lodged in my throat now.”
― Michelle McNamara

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Hold on to your knickers kids:
 

  • Letting myself burn out being the admin that 'did it all' from plots to lore to dealing with players and solving drama. It was unfortunately a mistake I had to make a few times before I finally realized. It's okay to say "NO" It's even better to say:  "Hey, I'm struggling here could you help me with..." Instead of assuming my co-admin would see the struggle and just offer to do something. (It was cushy for them, no work all perk)
     
  • Not dealing with issues to avoid drama.  I mistakenly thought if I just kept my head down, ignored the building drama and wrote, it would all just fade away. HELL NO. It got worse, it got worse and there was backstabbing and lies and in the end, it was so bad I just left. (also bad idea) Bad blood all around, AND nothing was ever resolved. The problems persisted, and got worse and when I wasn't around they found someone else to target. Just... No. Never again.
     
  • Turning a blind eye to repeated behaviors. So... funny not funny story. I was a player on a site, and there was HUGE drama. I'm talking epic huge, but one of the admins asked me to step up and help out after one admin and a mod were 'fired' from the site. Granted, there were issues. Not little ones either. But it felt... wow. Shocking. And not even a day later there was backpedaling, and just weirdness. There were other things. So many other things. But I ignored it because I was working hard to build something I loved. Carry on, a year later, and a tiny (TINY) suggestion led to what I thought was a small disagreement and BOOM I am the admin (one of two) getting fired. (in my sleep, without actually doing anything except suggesting adding personality to the app, I might add.) So yeah. I figured it was fishy, the way things went down, I saw repetitive behaviors the whole year I was there that made me sour. SERIOUSLY SOUR. I should have known better. I will not ignore that in future.
     
  • Not putting my foot down when I hear "MY GAME". This my way or the highway mentality, I've watched it chase good staff, good players, and generally good people away. Time and time again. My desire to avoid drama kept me quiet more than once. Listening while staff berated players abilities, and mocked them. While those same staff said "not in MY game" while never actually lifting a finger to DO anything in "Their Game".  Avoiding drama, sometimes creates worse drama later. So .. NOT TODAY SATAN. Your game is a collaboration. No players? No staff? no game... so piss off!
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The past is a place of reference, not residence.

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man... trusting your gut is a big one here.

 

You can usually tell when little things seem off to you... about both members and co-staff. You can pick up on little inconsistencies. Fortunately, the drama I experienced wasn't really that huge, but it was a deep wound to the gut. A big betrayal. At the end of it all, I sat back and told myself that I wasn't surprised it happened... because there was all those little cues that I ignored. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

I have made similiar mistakes about not trusting my gut.  I am a nice person and people tend to take advantage of that.  I don't like banning people so they keep doing horrible things until it is too late.  This is one of my biggest faults.  One of my others is opening too early, before everything was super complete because I felt rushed by otehr people.  

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Sometimes when I choose someone to be staff, I trust that they would be active and helpful. I have been wrong more times than I care to admit.

I'm a mean administrator and people can tell you that if you asked them. That's not to say I would tell them no at everything they ask. I just make sure they follow the rules and that nothing is out of place with the subject that the forum is based on. For instance, if the forum is based on Charmed, I'm not going to include Aliens or anime characters. I made a mistake with the latter once on a Charmed RP I used to run. Couple of members came in and their characters were accepted because they looked alright. Nope, they were so overpowered we had to ask them to tone it down. They left.

That's probably my most common mistake, missing a thing or two in the application or in the person behind the character.

Courirnu // original small-town rp

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I've made a few, mostly around giving too many chances, and trying please everyone; but I'm older and more confident now. 

 

The one that really still gets to me though is letting one player change the tone of my game. She was active, friendly, maybe a little too helpful, but she was also consistently silly in a game that had a very dark tone. It didn't matter when it was only her, but she brought in friends from elsewhere and encouraged them to make similar characters that just bordered on not fitting the setting. She jumped on new players, turned off those with more serious ideas and consistently ignored or argued with my attempts to correct the drift into the comedic. I wish I had asked her to leave when I realised she wasn't a good fit, after our first conversation was ignored. 

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On 6/19/2019 at 5:17 PM, Morrigan said:

For me, its been not trusting my instincts about people. I've messed up something fierce by allowing the wrong people to join and make my sites unenjoyable.

This. This. This. This. I let people who were toxic and cruel stay on the site far too long. I should have banned them immediately instead of trying to play moderator and bring peace and harmony. Some people will take what you make and twist it to their own liking. It ended terribly, too. It got to the point where when I really wanted to ban them, I feared serious retaliation from 4chan and the like. I mean, that should just about say it all right there. Should have trusted my instincts.

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Not advertising enough because I hate it with a burning, fiery passion.

 

Giving members excuses for why they aren't around because I want them to come back, even though I'm not sure they will, and saving all their claims.

 

Trying to keep the discord bouncing so it looks like we're active in it. I have a friend who is currently running a site and people come and go in the Discord within minutes sometimes. It freaks me out and I never fully understand why people do that? 

 

Promoting staff members that ultimately don't do anything and I'm left to carry the full weight of the forum creation and maintenance on my own. 

 

Not wanting to ban or kick people from the game, even when they are causing chaos, because I don't want to be mean to anyone. Blah.

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

On my first game we were very obsessed with activity, considering that the hallmark of success, to the point that we neglected the members we had in order to pursue those we didn't. These days my sites aren't that "guest friendly"; we're a niche inside a niche, so I don't expect droves of applications and I don't stress about posting levels anymore. The best thing I've learned to do is to model the kind of community we are with the members we have, and allow that to draw likeminded people into the fold. 

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{  18+ star trek | sandbox | no wc/ac | lazy lit   } NOVA  }

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Well, here's one my husband (my co-admin) just made! xD

 

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For context, this member is one with 35,000 posts on our site. xD I fixed it, though! Oops.

Edited by Viscount Rhi-Rhi
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GDS>...

 

 

My mistake was allowing the owners of the forum and their personal agendas to run amok, run good people off, run me into the crazy train of DGAF and hop on joyfully.

 

I was managing a forum for two owners. We had all wrote together for a decade ( dirt was invented ) and there was never a reason to think that as owners that they would be different. I WAS WRONG. SO WRONG.  so...so ...wrong

 

They suddenly became tyrants, and I tried to run the gamut and buffer between them and the players ( the ones their weird agendas had not run off ) and them. In two years ( I must have had a masochistic moment that lasted ) I thought I was succeeding. Only to realize not only had I not wrote anything worth crap and that the idea of even looking at the forum made me vomit a lil.

 

It was horrible and I should never had tried to balance it. Lesson learned...now I am just a B*tch 🙂 But I write great, and am back to enjoying writing. I also now work with friends on a forum that does not have those issues. Mostly because all of us have made those mistakes in the beginning

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I've been waaaaay too nice a couple of times as an admin, letting former players have things or play roles that they soooo should not have. 

 

I've also accidentally deleted wrong accounts before, so I definitely feel that. 🤣

 

 I've also posted wrong codes on other site's affiliates. Like, I legit posted another site's banner instead of ours the other day and had to go back and fix it. Anyone want me to advertise for you? Just affiliate with my site and catch me on a morning I haven't had any coffee and I'm just in autopilot. 😅

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