Staffing Admin, Mods and Staff

[Rune 1,099]

How do you divy up jobs? Does each individual have their own responsibilities?

 

What is the difference between your admin and your moderators? Do the jobs vary depending on the 'rank' they hold in staff?

 

How do you go about inducting new staff?

 

(And, of course, any other details relevant to this topic are always welcome!)

[Deep Sea 326]

So my site is under construction (still), so my advice probably isn't the best advice ever, but I have three staff roles:

• Admin: That's me. Maybe one other person. But right now, it's only me, and it's for doing site-wide stuff like announcements and construction.
• Moderator: They deal with reports. Most of the reports, I imagine, will deal with misplaced content and spam bots. So, the moderators are basically janitors.
• Narrators: They deal with the story and run plots. You go to them for questions about lore and stats and setting. They have the authority to approve and deny characters, campaigns, and other story-related stuff.

And that's all. I wanted technical staff and story staff so that duties would be separated.

[Rune 1,099]

Cry Wolf has 4 members of staff. Myself, Ara, @Aerona and @Kittenmitten.

 

I handle discipline, lore, advertising and general maintenance.
Ara handles graphics, coding and making sure I don't destroy the board.
Aerona and Kit handle apps, awards and generally making sure the boards don't descent into hell.

 

We're all marked as "admin" just for simplicity's sake and because we've known one another for years.

[KARA BELLA 18]

Right now my site just has admins.  And we basically do all the same stuff.  In the past I once I had moderators on the site and their job was basically clean up.  I eventually want one moderator on Healing Hearts just to do advertising stuff, everything else will be done by the other two admins and me.

[Icewolf 258]

At the moment it is just myself, but my ideal would be to have:

 

Graphics/coder - A staff member who can focus on the coding and design aspects of the forum, and who can help members out with making signatures and avatars if they have trouble doing it themselves.

 

Social media manager/advertising manager - Someone who can run the twitter, tumblr, facebook, etc, accounts to help draw members in, and who can post ads on forums and tumblr rp directories.

 

Moderator(s) - Staff to approve apps, clean up spam, ensure rules are followed, help members who have questions, etc. They may help with writing lore and coming up with events.

 

(I would expect all staff members to ensure rules are followed, though, if they are online, the issue can't wait and the main moderator who deals with it aren't online at the moment it occurs.)

 

These tasks are time consuming and although a lone admin can do all of these jobs, you have to cut down on jobs that aren't as important as others (for instance, not advertising as much, or not working on new skins.) I do think that lone admins taking on too much or not being able to put as much work into certain tasks impacts the success of the forum. If you're doing the non-essential jobs you aren't putting time into writing rp posts so I've come to the conclusion that it's best to keep the number of tasks you need to do a minimum so you can concentrate on the role-play instead.

[Achera 22]

My site is a little odd in how we go about divvying up everything. A lot of it is based on what we each want to contribute and this tends to lead to the staff position they're affiliated with.

 

Admins - Run the site. It's only my friend and I at the moment (though our mod will probably be one soon). I actually run most of the site, handle the coding, theming, advertising, etc. because I know the code better, I'm a designer so graphics go to me, and I just tend to be around for advertising a lot more. She's busy with school so a lot of the work is done by me, but generally she helps polish off some of the lore we have and brainstorm ideas to add to the site.

 

Senior Mod - We call them Lords to go with the theme, but they basically help the admins with plots, accepting character profiles, moving threads, answering questions, etc. They're kinda like admins in training. Our current one is a doll and does all the character profiles (which I hate doing) and a lot of the board cleaning. She also adds a ton of lore and is just <3333

 

Maesters- These guys help write lore and answer questions about our lore. They're there to help people out to get integrated with the site if one of the higher ups aren't around. 

 

Trainees- They're basically being trained to be a staffer! We know ahead of time what they're looking to be, whether a lord or maester, so we know how involved they want to be. From there, they're tossed in to try to get adjusted to how we run things. They are respected as staffers, but they can and probably will mess up, so there's leniency. That's what the training time is for!

 

Everyone helps with lore and with doing either monthly release stuff or adding stuff in general. We just expect it more from the admins and Senior Mod than anything else. We all kind of find our place where we like to contribute so it's not a chore to do it. 

[Morrigan 1,826]

Since the Initiative is the only site I manage at the moment I'll use that as my example? The site in general is more massive than RPs but I figure I can explain it pretty well.

 

I've tried "general" jobs and it's really never been specific enough to keep people focused on it so I actually broke down the "general" jobs into "departments" and that still wasn't focused enough for most people. So I went to the point that everyone has individual jobs but you can "choose" to do additional jobs beyond a single job. This has actually worked better for me, personally, than "general" has in the past.

 

The way the hierarchy works is that "Morrigan does everything unless someone else is supposed to" and really? That works for me. @anthrxmilkshake legit took two of the most tedious and difficult jobs off my plate that took the most effort and time from me and that makes my life as an administrator SO much better. @Sage Took social media and I feel like I have ten million less places to be all the time at all times which makes my life so much easier (another tedious job that I loathed). The best part? They are both FUCKING AMAZING at their jobs.

 

On the initiative there is an application process where I both look at the application and history on the site as well as compatibility with me (as I know I can be volatile sometimes). I ask my other staff members how they feel about the application before I make any decisions. At that point I let the person/applicant know the verdict etc and staff them.

 

I've had staff that fit, I've had staff that didn't fit. Overall it's all trial and error but I have felt that if the positions have specific responsibilities it helps. Generalized responsibilities tend to leave room for lazy behavior.

[Roshanri 0]

Similar to @Deep Sea, my site is still under construction and the team and I have only discussed briefly on how future staffing will be set up. That said I have been on forums with large player bases, some in the hundred or more range, and I saw how difficult it is to be a staff member/storyteller and do everything for your city or domain without any help. So I will set up our staff as follows:

 

Admin level: This is me and my 5 team members who are currently working on the site. We will do a bit of everything at the beginning, but as we grow we will divide the tasks out among staff members we take on. 

 

Artists: Currently I only have 3 artists, but I am working with them to produce as much original art as possible for the site and for players. In the future I will be recruiting more. 

 

Storytellers: This level will be divided into 2 or three ranks, depending on the area they can oversee. One lead storyteller will direct the overall plot of a region or area, and the storytellers under her will run more specific plots that lend themselves to the bigger story. I have decided that storytellers will only tell stories, write posts and lead quests and all other tasks will go to other positions to reduce the stress on our primary plot movers.

 

Other Staff: These positions I have not yet defined, but they will handle more specific roles such as checking character sheets, grading and awarding experience, etc. The duties of these staff will be simple, and they will have a primary role they fulfill with the option to do more if they wish. 

 

There will be an application process for oncoming staff, and most likely I will be selecting the first few out of the crowd to join haha. The process will be as simple and straight forward as I can make it. A single form that is filled out and put in the support forum, listing the position applied for, and then a short interview via chat, or voice call, where I or someone on my admin team will get to know the person and see if they are a good fit for the team. After that I will put in place a training system so that all staff members are taught their responsibilities so that they can do them effectively without it becoming stressful or a burden as they try to fumble along and figure it out themselves. 

 

Staff members will be able to change positions if they wish as well, switching to a storyteller if that is how they want to volunteer their time or moving to a less time consuming role checking character sheets or something similar. I want the system to be as flexible as possible for everyone involved.

 

Like I said it is not all worked out just yet, but that is the bare bones of it all. We will put more careful thought and consideration into it come December when we draw close to opening day ^.^

[CovertSphinx 710]

An old site I staffed on had Admins who did everything, Character Mods who helped with profile approvals/feedback/overpowered issues/etc, and Member Mods who handled peer disputes (if any)/bullying complaints/etc and moderated debates about threads between members.  Some people did a lot of work, some people did virtually zip. 

 

On my panfandom site I have it set up that Admins(my myself and I) do pretty much anything. Then there's "Global Mods" who help fill in world lore for each of the fandom locations, create plots for everywhere, handle NPCs in the threads associated with their plots, and suggest to admins awards for the characters who completed missions. Then I have "world mods", who do the same thing as the global mods, but only for the specific fandoms that they choose/are assigned. I also made a position for advertising mod, but, nobody ever wants that lol

 

On my Modern Supernatural Fantasy xyz site, so far I have me as admin and that's it. I'll probably make a Social Media/Advertising moderator if the site takes off, but I haven't really given thought to staff other than that at the moment. 

[Uaithne 543]

Honestly, I'm just glad that I have people who want to be mods that I'm trying not to freak them out by assigning specific duties to each person. Maybe when I get more, I can start dividing up more tasks and whatnot, but for the time being, things are okay.

 

Though I have a question for @Rune and anyone else who has specific staff members who review applications: how clear are you about who is able to approve apps, and do other staff members step in to help out if they see an app but the app moderator isn't online?

[Rune 1,099]

@Uaithne Technically, all of my staff can approve apps. And we do so, when needed. For new members, whomever is on when they finish generally gets it so no one is left waiting. If its a particularly problematic one, they might leave it for me because I enjoy that sort of thing. Once a member is established, we tend to leave them to Aero and Kit to handle.

 

When we approached the idea, we all sat down and discussed who would want to do what. I'm notoriously full of hate for doing apps, so two others volunteered to take it because they didn't mind. Whereas they hate advertising and I like it, so I took that over.

 

We also established that we cannot approve our own apps or apps that are made for us. As an aside.

[Quell 249]

Mine is just Mosey and I. 

I do forum-based advertising and coding.

She does all other advertising.

 

We share everything else -- lore, app approval, etc. We also split the bill on literally all expenses. We're like the Romans. Co-consuls so that no man has all the power.

------

From my other experiences though, I think of Admin as doing everything that needs doing and anything above pay-grade/unassigned (kind of like the manager at a restaurant) and mods as doing specific jobs (kind of like waitress, hostess, cook, etc.). So you wouldn't ever ask your waitress to start making stakes without a title change or promotion; but if the waiting staff is overwhelmed, the manager is going to swing down and help out~

Edited November 3, 2017 by Thyme

[CovertSphinx 710]

9 hours ago, Uaithne said:

Though I have a question for @Rune and anyone else who has specific staff members who review applications: how clear are you about who is able to approve apps, and do other staff members step in to help out if they see an app but the app moderator isn't online?

 

If the appropriate staff wasn't online at the moment, generally the other members/staff would help out in advising the new person if they need any help getting their profile done/up to snuff (but couldn't put an official approval stamp). The other staff (and several members) would normally had private contact info for myself or the other admin so that they could reach us in an instant if needed. There's been a handful of occasions where I'd log on specifically to handle an app request because nobody was on and we wanted to get the new member "up and running" with as little downtime as possible.

[Phear Lap 6]

My dream team would have a coder, an advert manager, and a social media mod, for stuff like twitter and fb.

[Cyn 52]

So TNI is larger, and we have a decent sized staff base.

 

Admin: Myself and 2 others who have been members for a long time and proven themselves loyal and trustworthy. They help with lore, apps, site plot and we discuss any problems the site might be having. Each Admin has their own separate duties too. Lists and advertising, etc.

 

Co-Admin: 3 members who have been very active and proven themselves. They can also help approve apps and discuss lore and problems with us. They're the eyes and ears for the Core Admin. Also have their own lists they maintain.

 

Moderators: We have 8 of these lovely people. Members who help keep an eye in the cbox, help out newbies and also have sections of the site that they look after to make sure no-one is breaking any rules, etc. They bring problems to the admins so we can sort them out.