Staffing Staff Duties

[Bamf 11]

What are the little things we tend to forget about when it comes to staff duties? And what are some of the little things that you found were really important to members, staff and the site?

 

 I'm trying to make a comprehensive list and make sure we are hitting everything important, but I feel like I miss some of the little stuff sometimes and don't want to overlook anything.

 

Do you have a designated person for each duty? Or is staff expected to be proactive? And what has worked the best for you in the past/currently?


Any and all suggestions would be great!

Thanks!

<3

BAMF
 

Edited January 11, 2018 by Bamf

[Rune 1,099]

Cw has duties broken down by person.

 

We have two on apps, awards and claims. They approve apps within 24 hours and refund for awards about once a week. Claims are updated after every AC and after new apps are approved. 

 

One on advertising. This is me. I also double as "the final say" and handle the finalities of lore and set up most events. I try to have event write ups done at least a week before the scheduled launch date. I also try to schedule the events, even if it's vague and just a "sometime this month" kind of deal. I also run any lore changes or updates past the rest and require a majority to approve. 

 

One on graphics and coding. She kind of does her own thing because the rest of us are useless.

 

Discipline is handled by the majority, unless the situation is deemed an emergency. We have a separate staff account that pretty much only exists to send warnings to players so that they can't claim a single staff member is out to get them. 

 

Things that are easy to forget? Who posts the news? How are you handling that? How are you handling approval of staff apps? Who makes the call on skins? What about events? Who writes up the info on them? Do they need approval by the rest of the staff? Do you foresee needing more staff in the future? What will they do? 

 

Make sure your expectations of each job is made clear. If you expect apps to be reviewed within 24 hours, your app team should know that. But don't forget to talk to them and make sure your demands are reasonable. It's easy to forget the difficulty of something we don't do on the regular.

 

I'll probably venture back to this after thinking on it for a while.

 

 

[Quell 249]

Ark has co-admining staff members. We divide up duties to some extent.

Both: General Cbox Chatiness, Guest Questions, Lore Questions, Applications, Claims/Forms

 

Me: Advertising on forums/directories, coding

 

Her: Advertising on social media, graphics

 

-- We have our "babies" that we care more about in the lore, and we'll poke each other if someone asks a question we're not sure about. (Like I have a very clear image in my head of what the criminal organizations are, so I keep track of that.)

 

I have no idea if that helps! But hopefully. ^^

[Raven 18]

Some duties are just expected to be proactive about, some are assigned to people. Lists are assigned to a specific admin, moderators stalk specific forums for rule violations, staff help is everyone. There are also some things that while they aren't "officially" assigned to a person, one person reliably handles them all of the time. In my case, this includes tracking ooc threads and making sure that if they have issues or questions in them, i get them answered, or draw another staff member's attention to them. I also handle archiving of OOC threads such as absence notices and want ads (something that many people forgot about before I joined staff!)

 

Something that isn't an admin duty in an official capacity but is very important, imo, and often overlooked, is keeping an eye out for where improvements can be made and listening to members who say that something is confusing or hasn't been done in a while. Maybe every so often ask a regular member "hey, you notice anything that needs doing and hasn't been handled in a while?"

[Uaithne 543]

Pretty much I want my staff to be active, respectful, creative, and dedicated.  I don't really assign duties to people, though.  Because I tend to handle more of the major plot and site stuff, they do more of the list updating, general moderating, member engaging, and occasional advertising.  I found that "assigning" too many specific things kind of overwhelmed people, like this was a job.

[Sadrienne 242]

I never really set out to assign duties, I found that people kind of just... fall into what suits them best, and I go from there. Probably not the most comprehensive way of doing it, but it seems to be working!

 

My admin team is currently me and my RL bestie, so between us we handle reviewing and approving apps. We also both take lore/setting questions via PM and Discord, and general stuff that comes up like helping with applications, facilitating plotting, and ensuring that new members get into the game nice and easy.

 

She also manages our lists, because I'm rubbish at it. After I approve a character, it's still Lily who goes back and adds them to all the lists and ensures that our claims stay up to date. 

 

I do a lot of the building work, so---documentations, coding, adding features, that sort of thing. I also used to do the bulk of the off-site promo work (which can often get forgotten/made a low priority), which includes being an active and helpful member at places like here, seeking out topsites and advertising blogs, managing our social media channels, and basically making sure every soul knows our name. BUT my main and most important job, is "Be Mousie". 

 

Recently I hired a dedicated advertising mod, which was the BEST decision ever. She's amazing. She ensures that our tumblr advert submissions get done regularly (another thing I'm rubbish at), constructs wanted ads for our many adoptables, does some graphical work to go with said ads, and helps me cover the resource forums off-site. Finding someone with the motivation and drive to get a job like that done daily is hard, and I'm so glad we found her.

 

All of our members -- not just my staff -- contribute to the community by encouraging new members, helping them develop plots, characters, and basically making them part of the family. It's not something I ever asked or expected of them, just something they do which is wonderful. 

[Bamf 11]

You all are amazing! Gives me a lot to think about.

GAM staff is amazing and runs pretty smoothly, but I always think we can improve- and sometimes we are just human.

I just opened WWC and it's a different team. I'm trying to figure out how this one will work.

When I thought I need to lay out all the duties, I thought about all the small stuff I miss or forget about.

 

Thank you all! A lot to consider! Please keep it coming!

[KARA BELLA 18]

On my site all staff do everything except advertising.  We have only one staff in charge of that.  Apps get done by whoever gets to them first, same with claims.  Finished threads usually get archived by me.  Anything else is done by whoever gets to it.  So nothing is really specifically assigned to a certain staff member except advertising really.

[Raven 18]

The biggest thing to keep in mind if all staff is doing stuff like lists, is to make sure you have a method to avoid editing posts on top of each other