Staff to member ratios

[blindxsecrets 15]

I've honestly never considered staff to member ratios. I generally promote people if I need the help, and if there is a lot of traffic. I like to have at least one or two others staffing with me, so it's not just me -- even if the forum is small. That way it's not always on me to do literally everything all the time. Makes it easier to share the burden with someone else. 

[Libby 100]

To be perfectly frank. After dealing with some REALLY shitty people in my time adminning games, I don't think I will ever add another admin to our staffs. Fox and I work well together, we understand division of labour and compromise, and we can disagree with each other without it being a catastrophic event. We have things set up more or less that there isn't too much work for either of us, and even if we got an influx of 30+ more players, we're rather sure we can handle it. 

If anything, we'd add community helpers, people who know the lore backward and forward and got additional points to assist new people in finding things etc. Already our group of players is eager to help out, start threads, and generally be open to new players. So for us? The ratio is 2: ~ infinity. 😛

[Xander756 5]

I feel like 10:1 is a pretty decent ratio. 100 members to 10 staff members seems to keep things running smoothly while also having enough members to ensure staff doesn't step on each others toes.

[Cineri 7]

Honestly the main reason I have ever had other staff members is to take care of basic necessities like applications on the rare occasion that I'm gone for days at a time. Generally speaking, running a site by myself hasn't been difficult and the majority of my member base has been with me long enough that they all willingly help out if a new person comes around. Right now my site has two staff members including me and that has sufficed from 10-20 members. If I ever met someone who actually wanted to advertise for me on the regular, I might add another staff slot 😂

[Yona Carlin 44]

The only real staff duties on my site are technical, and in that regard I'm the sole real "staff" member. I have a co-admin that I run out of character ideas past, but considering we accept pretty much all applications other than trolls, and there's no archiving or forums to moderate-so as long as you're active, consistent and friendly you'll become a power user which has all the same abilities as the administrators except you can't delete stuff. 

[RaWolfe 43]

I have not checked all comments, but I think the same sound is given a few times. The idea of doing a ratio thing in regards of staff is not really the right approach for managing a forum. Yes in some cases it might work, in regards of lets say a large RPG website where bios required to be checked regularly or certain story areas need to be kept in check of the board rules. But then you are talking about 500 to 700 'active' members. 

In the concept of managing a board that reflects the needs of the upkeep, the administration (in my humble opinion) requires to look at what is needed, rather on how many members they have. If a mod is assigned to a board that is not even that active its useless in the said position that got assigned. 

[Nevermind 64]

Currently we have four staff members, though one is on leave so we're running the site with three. As we are a brand new site with only about 40 members so far, this is more than enough and probably will be for a long while. What makes the team effective is we all have different skill sets. I'm the head admin and the owner/server monkey. I fix coding/theme/add on issues with the site, wrangle the server until it cooperates and am mainly responsible for attending to back-end issues. My other admin is more creative and handles artsy and aesthetic elements of the site. He is always a great contrast and is able to offer me alternative opinions when I get too into my head and become a little perfectionistic and crazy. He soothes me and helps me realize that hey, this is all just for fun. Relax. 

 

Our moderator is personable and does wonderfully with interacting with our member base, attracting new members, and letting us know what members would like to add to the site/how we can improve user experience. She also offers ideas we hadn't previously considered which is awesome. Different brains coming together to make one giant brain.

 

Unless a member of our team needs to depart sometime soon (which doesn't seem likely but you never know), I think we'll be set for a long while as the site continues to grow.

[The Rebel 44]

I don't think the ratios matter at all or rather it's not as cleanly cut as something like 1 staff per 10 members.  Something like that is nice in a classroom, but  I certainly wouldn't pin how well a board is run down to a ratio.  You could have 50 staff members and only one might be pulling the weight.  I've seen boards fail that were not lacking in staff, and seen some thrive where there was only one staff member.  One dedicated person could be much more effective than a bunch of staff members and by nature some sites are more labor intensive than others- more of an app process, etc.  I do think the more people added among the staff, the greater the chance for conflict not necessarily because of drama-mongering but different (and all legitimate) ideas for how things should run or lore and all that.  However, it IS also nice to have at least two staff members for checks and balances.   I ran my current board for quite a while alone after my co-admin left,  I think it's more important for compatibility in how they work together than actual numbers.  My new co-admin is the best ever and asking her if she wanted to co-admin was the best decision I made in regard to the board.  If the work is becoming too much to handle, then I think it's prudent to bring on more staff, and the involvement of the staff members you do have could certainly factor into when adding new staff becomes necessary.  

[jordan 23]

It really does depend on timing. My admin and I are on disability so we are both home all the time, doing random things and only have to deal with our own illnesses. So, that leaves just the two of us with our members and all their characters. It really does work out nicely for us. Though sometimes we entertain the idea of having one more.

[Deacon Frost 196]

I think what also helps in Jordan and I's case is that we divide our responsibilities up based on where our natural talents lie without resenting each other. For instance she hates reading applications. I love apps. So I read all the apps and approve them. Generally withing a few hours of them being posted (depending on if people TELL me they posted them, or I'm asleep.) She does all the coding and graphics and a lot of the organizational tasks because her mind works that way. 

 

We both do lore, species, rules etc. So for us we can manage our site with just the two of us. Neither of us enjoy approaching a player when there seems to be an issue so we have considered getting an extroverted person who has good mediation skills as a sort of Human Resources staff, but we're managing without. 

 

So I think the most important ratio regarding Staff to Members is really the numbers that mean nobody is feeling overloaded doing work that burns them out. 

[ArizonaRaspberry 35]

It's really strange since I work in the childcare industry, where ratios are one of the most important things we consider, but I've never actually thought about a member to moderator ratio. I suppose it really depends on the capability of your moderator--although I'd rather have me and one competent moderator than several incompetent ones.