Computer Corner: Forum Building 101 - The Dangers of the Staff Only Forum

[Bob Hubbard]

Bob Hubbard submitted a new Article:

Computer Corner: Forum Building 101 - The Dangers of the Staff Only Forum

Computer Corner: Forum Building 101 - The Dangers of the Staff Only Forum

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- Bob Hubbard
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When setting up your forums, it is often recommended that you also setup a section that only your staff can access. The reasons for this are many. A staff-only area allows your staff to discuss important policy issues, problem users, and the board itself in private, without worry that the average member will stumble across something they shouldn’t.

The challenges with having a private staff area lie in your staff gradually “moving in” and reducing or outright stopping their public forum participation. Administrators must pay careful attention that they also do not fall into the “manage from the back” trap.

To protect against this danger, active administrators must pay careful attention to who is active in their staff forums. Spot check them to be certain they haven’t moved in full time. As most of us hire our staffs based on their prior performance in the areas they now moderate, we want to keep them active there, where their contributions can build content and draw in new members. Posts made in private may help guide things, but rarely translate into new content or new members.

Administrators in particular need to pay attention to their own posting patterns. A successful admin will guide and steer their board while avoiding the dictator role. This requires professional interaction with your board staff. It is up to you to set the tone and the pace. If they see you “hiding” in the back, they will often emulate you and also hide back. This runs the major risk of the board having previously active sections wither and die as the heavy posters had all been hired and resorted to lurking in the back. Lead by example. Additionally, when you as an admin aren’t publicly visible, you run the risk of being seen as the despot in the tower, only appearing to punish rule breakers. You run the risk of being seen as out of touch or worse by your members.

Encourage your staff to continue their past activity in their sections, and be certain to visit them regularly by posting yourself. Each post that staff makes in public both reminds the members that you are there, but also serves to further the conversation, build content and entice lurkers to register and post.

This also helps keep your staff as...

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[jappyx]

Nice read. Thanks. ^_^

 

[PalePhoenix]

You make me feel like I should never have put 'intermediate' as my admin experience. If I was 'coding' Basic on a PET computer in 1983, do I win? Tee hee.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

You win.

I've been reading through the extensive threads here, and it's really been an education for me. Alot of great info. I'm just happy to help.

 

[maddog39]

Interesting story, nice advice too. Thanks!

 

[kilcher]

Even though they don't pay attention I often remind my mods that they shouldn't say anything in a private forum that they wouldn't say in a public forum.

There was one time in the past when I accidentally made the mod forum visible. It didn't last too long but one person did read something (negative) that was said about them and was rather upset about it.

 

[maddog39]

Yeah, my mods very rarely even look inside the staff forum and alot of them make 98% of theres psts in public anyways.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

I wrote this shortly after joining TAZ. Last summer my flagship forum took a major dive in traffic, and no one could figure out what was going on. We finally (after a few months tinkering, and a few vb hacks) figured out that our busiest areas were the staff forums. Nice to have a staff involved in the 'operations', but it left them feeling too overworked to remain active in their designated spots. Add to that several folks we thought were doing things that weren't, and it explained a good chunk of our traffic die out. After putting in some 'minimum activity guides', and a few changes in staff, December was our best month so far. 900+ new topics, 16k+ posts. (Also pushed 150+GB traffic too. )

 

[calvin]

Never been a problem for me. I have a forum for my two super moderators and me. We where always very active members. Forum is rarely used.

 

[TheMaTrIx]

For the forums I administer, there are 8 admin forums for various topics, they are designed in a way they look mostly like a task management system.


For Mods there is only the staff conferences, where only admins can start threads and mods/staff can reply, the recycling forum where deleted threads end up and a discussion area where they can discuss certain members or events.

They aren't allowed to be in there except for any of those tasks and admins aren't allowed to use their admin accounts except when they need to do administration tasks.

This article is imho very correct, but I would've thought most webmaster knew they have to keep their staff on the public forums as much as possible.

Most forums I know started out with a few people talking among eachother, then being joined by more and more people.

If these originals stop participating the crowd will too.

 

[depaul]

Even though they don't pay attention I often remind my mods that they shouldn't say anything in a private forum that they wouldn't say in a public forum.

There was one time in the past when I accidentally made the mod forum visible. It didn't last too long but one person did read something (negative) that was said about them and was rather upset about it.

lol..that has happened once to us and even worse...a mod is logged on to the mod forum and someone else uses his computer and sees all the good stuff and even worse than that...a discussion was about the person that was using the mods pc..lol

so...as a SOP, we now only use instant messaging or landline communications for the really juicy stuff, and the mod forum is only used for basic day to day stuff.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

... but I would've thought most webmaster knew they have to keep their staff on the public forums as much as possible.

Most forums I know started out with a few people talking among eachother, then being joined by more and more people.

If these originals stop participating the crowd will too.

Heh. The article started out as a rant to one of my staff who I had been letting run 2 of my sites who didn't think he had to post much himself, and basically let the staff run things unsupervised. I decided to write it a bit less "ranty" and posted it to my staffs on all my forums. Things picked up in the public areas nicely, and 2 boards mod areas are ghost towns now, other than the odd report and question about how to do something moddy. (They were gabfests before hand, so it's a big improvement.)

 

[aomtealfox]

A very nice article - it's not something I think about often but maybe I should pay attention to see whether my staff members show the symptoms!

 

[Archangel]

I *do* see the inherent risks in setting up a lounge of sorts for the staff, though I haven't seen that problem of the "Staff Moving In" as yet.

In fact the opposite has been true - I've seen mods or even Admins not bother to check the goings on in the Staff forum.