Mistakes you made as an admin

[Aztrophel 2]

I have definitely made the mistake of trusting people and letting them do things that my instincts told me I shouldn't let them do.

 

I ran a site a few years ago that I had started with a friend, and she immediately began to change rules and give leniency to people she was close to. For example, she was allowing members to get started writing before their characters had been approved and allowing others to set up accounts and start writing without providing a character profile, even though it was clearly in our rules that all characters needed an approved profile before they could start writing on the forum. Unfortunately, I was too anxious a person to speak up very much — I'd mentioned a few times that I would prefer if they could follow the rules, and she always brushed it off and said that she would tell them, but never did. Eventually, she invited some of those people onto the site as staff and they began flouting the rules even more. This upset me, and I ended up calling them out for their behaviour one day and saying that they needed to follow the rules just like everybody else did because it was important for the overall site organisation and to make sure that no characters were made that blatantly broke the rules (as it turned out, they were making characters that did break the rules and hiding them by not filling in profiles and simply approving themselves). This resulted in a huge blowout between myself and the other three admins, and I decided to leave the site because I wasn't happy with the way they were acting.

 

I learned a few things from that experience. Firstly, that I should trust my instincts when I thought people were doing things they shouldn't, and that I should call them out on their behaviour earlier on and not be afraid to assert the rules clearly, especially with my fellow staff. I also learned the importance of making sure that members that get put into leadership positions are ones that have the site's best interests at heart, rather than those who simply want to abuse their power to adjust the rules to their liking. 

[Cheeco 7]

Oh man, there have been some many over the last fifteen years! I mean, I am 35 years old and still make Admin mistakes but I hope my members can give me grace.
 

• Allowing bad people back onto my sites
• Allowing manipulators manipulate me into letting them do something I'm uncomfortable with
• Not allowing my site time to thrieve because other staff have said we need to do xyz to be active
• Catering to certain people who didn't deserve it
• Putting guests above my members... nobody is supposed to be above anyone!!!

These are just a few!

Edited March 24 by Cheeco

[divabeq 1]

I think the biggest thing I've learned in running a site is that it's better to protect the players you have than to cater to newcomers.  It's nice to have new players, but if people have stuck with you, that's the better bet, also, they've already shown they can respect the setting.