[bubbles]

I've been to several forums who don't know how to choose good staff, I've seen some where they have admins who use im speak, admins who just come and say "Hey can I be an admin at ur site lolz!11!" and they become an admin. So, as you can see, several members need this guide, so I have compiled it for them.

Choosing Administrators

Rule 1:
Don't hire admins who asked to be an admin.

Rule 2:
When you hire an admin, you need to know they have experience with your site, so generally you'll want to promote admins from global moderators, and not from members.

Rule 3:
They must be active. No one wants to go to a site where half the admins don't even post.

Rule 4:
They can't break rules. One of the admin's jobs is to enforce rules, so they must abide by them as well. This means don't hire people who would spam, take sides on a flame war, abuse their powers, etc.

Rule 5:
They must know what they are doing.
You don't want an admin who doesn't know how to do their duties.

Rule 5
They must be professional. It's annoying when you have admins that use bad spelling, grammar, and/or use IM speak (Hey wats ^ how r u doing?)

AND THE MOST IMPROTANT RULE OF ALL: You MUST trust them. Only hire people who you really trust, because some people are out to do harm, destroy your site, etc.

Hiring Mods

Hiring mods is quite a bit simpler than hiring admins, but you still must take care in selecting them.

Rule 1:
They must be active, i've seen forums where the members are more active in the staff, which results in not enough enforcing of rules.

Rule 2:
They must know what they are doing.
Like admins, you don't want a mod who doesn't know how to edit a post!

Rule 3:
They must follow the rules. It's never a good idea to hire people to delete spam posts when they spam themselves!

Since moderators don't have as much power as admins, you may think you don't need to trust them as much, but that is not true. Mods can do signifigent damage to your forum, so they must be trustworthy.

The last rule of all staff:

Don't have too many. Here's the table of how many staff you should have in a general scenario. Some forums require more or less, an example would be RP boards. These require staff to make sure members follow the rules of the board as well as the game. You may want to edit this to suit your board, but this is an average scenario.

1 member: 1 admin.
10 members: 1 admin, 1 mod.
20 members: 1 admin, 2 mods.
40 members: 2 admins, 3 mods.
100 members: 2 admins, 4 mods.
500 members: 2 admins, 5 mods.
1000 members: 3 admins, 5 mods.
2000 members: 3 admins, 7 mods.
5000 members: 3 admins, 8 mods.
10000 members: 4 admins, 10 mods.

Any more staff will result in overstaffing, which will result in making you look unprofessional.
I hope this helps you out

[Michael]

Thanks for this, moving to Forum Articles.

[Ohiosweetheart]

awesome information, bubbles, thank you!