Do admins always make good moderators?

harishankar · Posted: 9/11/2005, 1:46 am Post subject: Do admins always make good moderators?

I have an interesting question to raise. It's this. In your experience, do you think administrators always make good moderators or is moderating a separate thing altogether?

As an admin do you actively moderate on your own forum or do you allow your moderators to deal with issues as and when they arise?

Being a small community (so far) inevitably I tend to be more active in moderation, but I do prefer the moderators to moderate... comes across better.
_________________
Literary Forums
My Blog

dojo · Posted: 9/11/2005, 2:58 am Post subject:

I am a moderator with full rights, that's how I like to see my admin duties. I just have more options, by having access to the admin panel. I do the mod job with my mods and some more (install and test hacks, take care of the promotion and so on).
_________________
Webmaster articles, tutorials and topics

Truestar · Moderator

Well, my lack of members tends to draw me to Moderate, instead of the Moderators. But I usually give the problem a little while to see if they take care of it. If not, I do it myself, which is generally the case.

Apart from me, by observing other forums I belong to, I think it really depends on a variety of things. One community I belong to, the Administrators Moderate the more severe things, such as site bashing, and other similar extremities.

It's a mix, but overall, I'd have to say Administrators make excellent Moderators. They have more power, and generally, that makes them try harder for a better community. Smile

Patrick · Administrator

Admins have to be good moderators. Actually, they have to be the best moderator. As an administrator, you set the example. Truly, only you know exactly what you want from your moderators. You help to communicate this idea through your staff guidelines, your situations guide, your Problem Users forum, allowing your staff members to ask questions ... and actually allowing them to see you moderate.

As an administrator, if you come across a violation... you take care of it. You don't leave it (that damages your community) or tell another staff member to take care of it (that damages your relationship with your staff members). You don't want to make it appear that certain tasks are below you. You want them to know that you are in the trenches with them, side by side, accomplishing the goals for your community.
_________________
Patrick O'Keefe - CommunityAdmins.com Administrator
Author, Managing Online Forums (New Book)
Have a suggestion or a bit of feedback relating to CommunityAdmins.com? Please contact me!
User Guidelines

harishankar · Posted: 9/11/2005, 9:18 am Post subject:

Patrick, I entirely agree that the admins have to set the tone. However, I have noticed that on many larger communities, the admins don't moderate much or at least don't involve themselves in the forum activities on a day to day basis.

Somehow, I myself feel more comfortable with laid-back administrators who allow the forum to evolve on its own without too much interference on a daily basis. Also the moderators are allowed more freedom as a result and they become better moderators as a result without extreme reliance on the admin. They can evolve their own ways to deal with situations than feel forced to go strictly by the book.

Of course, I agree that in issues like serious member misbehaviour and so on, the admin(s) should step in and resolve the issue. But I think day to day moderation is better left to the moderators... that said, I always choose moderators who I feel personally comfortable with and share a good rapport and understanding where misunderstandings aren't really an issue.

I also find it a good thing to keep in touch with my moderators through e-mail or PM every once in a while just to develop a healthy personal relationship with them.
_________________
Literary Forums
My Blog

Patrick · Administrator

On larger communities, it may just seem like administrators sit back more. The more posts that there are, the less individual users stand out, usually and that includes the administrator. Nonetheless, administrators really should have to have a hand in the community on a day to day basis to monitor operations (behind the scenes), at the least (obviously this could change, especially if it's a personal community or some sort of closed group community - when I speak I mainly speak of professionally managed communities open to anyone but as goals vary, so do things like this). I visit each of my communities every day. Some days I don't make a public post on the community as nothing struck my fancy, but I read any and all activity in the staff forums, including Problem User threads and any posts removed and I take care of any violations that I see. And sometimes I'll make a bunch of public posts because I found that I had some things to say. Smile

Of course, how we do things will vary, but I believe that moderators should handle situations as the administrator outlines. Allowing them to each develop their own ways of dealing with situations leads to unneccessary inconsistency. Of course, they will all differ as people and because of that, there will be differences between them, but you need to have as much basic consistency as you can. For instance, you document violations like this, you send this basic PM (template out) and you try to outline the types of posts to remove as best as you can. From there, sure, there will be some differences. I believe that doing otherwise could lead to some easily avoided craziness. And from there, you monitor them through the Problem Users forum and elsewhere to ensure that they are doing so as they will certainly do things, from time to time, that you will have to correct. You cannot let them moderate completely unchecked.

Of course, such a thing could vary on the goals of a community. But, to see a violation on your community and simply decide to leave it for a moderator for the reason of allowing a moderator to handle it is both unproductive and harmful to your community as the longer a violation sits, the more damage it does.
_________________
Patrick O'Keefe - CommunityAdmins.com Administrator
Author, Managing Online Forums (New Book)
Have a suggestion or a bit of feedback relating to CommunityAdmins.com? Please contact me!
User Guidelines

harishankar · Posted: 9/11/2005, 10:18 am Post subject:

I guess you are right in a way. Sometimes administrators do need to clarify the situation and the rules as they apply to a particular situation and ask the moderators to follow that.

My philosophy is slightly different one. I am extremely careful in choosing moderators, but once I choose them, I would trust them to understand the spirit of the community and follow the guidelines as they see fit. When they take any decisions that might not fit in with that policy, I would probably take it up with them offline... that said, I do think that with even with independence, new moderators do tend to follow the trend of existing moderation and the spirit of moderation already existing on the community.

As I said, different communities think differently. I would definitely allow the moderators to be participative and also be a part of the decision making process or the process of how to manage a forum. I would treat them (to a large extent) as junior partners... that's my idea of a moderator anyway and I wouldn't choose a person to be a moderator if I didn't believe that the person wasn't in tune with my community goals and philosophy.
_________________
Literary Forums
My Blog

Patrick · Administrator

Administrators set the goals, set the vision. As such, they need to communicate that so that their staff members can execute it. Without that, everyone is working in a different direction instead of toward a common goal.

I am also extremely choosy. My largest site receives 6k visitors a day. I have 4 moderators. Smile

And I've had less with more traffic. I want as many good people as I can find. Unfortunately, there just aren't that many that fit that.

I invite members of staff to offer suggestions in regard to the community and how it is managed. Often times when I have to make a decision and input would be useful, I create a thread to ask for it. Whenever input is useful, I dial them up. Of course, they all know they can make any suggestion they'd like to me at any time, even though there are certainly core concepts at all communities that would be unchanging.
_________________
Patrick O'Keefe - CommunityAdmins.com Administrator
Author, Managing Online Forums (New Book)
Have a suggestion or a bit of feedback relating to CommunityAdmins.com? Please contact me!
User Guidelines

harishankar · Posted: 9/11/2005, 10:41 am Post subject:

And oh, I forgot to mention that I do have a "staff only" hidden forum where we can discuss policy and board related issues...

Ex0dus · Posted: 9/26/2005, 9:40 am Post subject:

I looked at this question a bit differently:

Since I am admin at several communities and a moderator at 2 others, i often find it hard to simply moderate at those. I dont want to over-moderate (go too far) and impose my own thoughts and rules in a community that i dont personally run. At the same time, i dont want to be weak and not enforce the rules of that community.

To me, moderating is harder than adminning but thats because i have more experience as an admin. As an admin, you not only enforce the rules, you set them and pretty much can change them at will. As a mod, youre stuck in that middle ground, with no clear view (if the admins dont happen to provide a clear one).

Im a very active admin, and am often the quickest to fix something. This not only sets the example for my other admins and mod when a aimilar situation comes up, but shows my community that im there for them. So far this policy has worked very well, since my admins often quickly take after my lead.

-Ex0dus