[size=large]Do you/have you hired friends as staff members before? Here is a little information about my experience with hiring friends to help out on a forum. - Whether close and personal friends, or "aquaintances" who you have gotten to know over the internet, hopefully this can help you make some decisions.
I started a mybb forum in September with one of my closest friends helping out as Co-Admin.
The way we run is I do the technical administration and he does the user administration.
My two global moderators are also some of my closest friends who I have gotten to know over the past couple of years having originally met on Xbox Live.
Now, when I started the forum it wasn't very professional. I made a lot of rookie mistakes which included not laying down the rules for the staff.
A month or so into the forum my two moderators had a disagreement in the public forums and I have to be honest - I flipped out.
I wasn't sure what to do, because these guys are my good friends and I don't just want to turn around to them and say "Your off the team." - which is what I wanted to do back then.
Instead, I allowed them to keep their roles under strict knowledge that if anything similar happened again I'd remove their role without warning.
This inspired me to look further into managing my staff.
I drew up some staff guidelines (with help from the "Managing Online Forums" book by Patrick Okeefe, owner of iFroggy), and I made myself clear to all of my staff that they were to follow these rules and not even approach the boundaries.
This has encouraged all of my staff to become more active (even though the forum is going through an inactive phase at the moment).
Things have been great since then, and I just wanted to share with you the pros and cons of hiring your friends as staff for your forum.
The Advantages of hiring friends as forum staff.
-You know them. You may know how to get them wrapped around your little finger so that they behave, but more imporatntly you know your not hiring someone that is going to go rouge.
-You can encourage them moreso to stay active. Although your staff guidelines may have something about inactivity in them, it is natural to feel guilty if your inactive on a forum one of your friends is working so hard to run.
-"Bragging rights". Your friends will always feel great inside when they talk to other people and say "Yeah, I help my friend run an online forum. It's not a bad forum actually, you should check it out".
-Moreso, your friends usually live within distance of you which means you are likely to see them or at least talk to them outside of your forum community. In any conversation you can just point out to them something they may not have seen, or just let them know some behind the scenes work you may be doing. Even though my two moderators live overseas from me my co-admin is my parents Godson, and his dad was my dads best man! We respect the work we do and we try our best to have meetings where he will come over to my house for a couple of beers and to play some Xbox, but more importantly to sit down and have a serious talk about forum-related things.
If you cant do this, I would strongly suggest you download Skype, and get your staff to also. You can hold free calls on Skype, including conference calls, and rather than typing out things into a staff forum, or even via instant messenger, you can tell them direct.
The disadvantages of hiring friends as staff.
-If they mess up, you are going to feel bad if you have to revoke their role. It's natural. They're your friend, and you don't want to upset your friends. But at the end of the day, you need to keep your forum professional, and if you have to take action you have to take action, just like the decision I had to take.
-They might not stay as active as you think. You're likely to know them a lot more than any other user, and you might even know what they do on their tuesday evening for example. Things can get a bit awkward if you keep having to ask a friend who is constantly on their computer to sign into the forum and do some work. - You can't run it by yourself, especially if there is a steady flow of posts. You do need to make yourself clear to your staff that they have to stay active.
A good way to do this is include within the staff guidelines about activity, and their responsabilities. You may also want to include about if you make a post in the staff forum saying "Read Now!" (or alike), they stop whatever they are doing and they read and reply.
-"Inside Jokes" can be with anyone, but moreso your friends. Try not to let these kreep into your forum because any user who is trying to be a part of the community will feel left out, no matter what the "joke" is about.
My apologies if I have waffled a bit, but I thought I'd share my experience and my tips with others about hiring friends as staff. I care a lot about my friends, and hate to see friendships break because of silly little things. Please dont let this put you off from asking your buddies to help out, I would suggest that you do get them do help. But... Make sure you have your failsafe for if they are starting to act up you can either have a quiet word with them, or in extreme circumstances remove their role without effecting your friendship.
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I started a mybb forum in September with one of my closest friends helping out as Co-Admin.
The way we run is I do the technical administration and he does the user administration.
My two global moderators are also some of my closest friends who I have gotten to know over the past couple of years having originally met on Xbox Live.
Now, when I started the forum it wasn't very professional. I made a lot of rookie mistakes which included not laying down the rules for the staff.
A month or so into the forum my two moderators had a disagreement in the public forums and I have to be honest - I flipped out.
I wasn't sure what to do, because these guys are my good friends and I don't just want to turn around to them and say "Your off the team." - which is what I wanted to do back then.
Instead, I allowed them to keep their roles under strict knowledge that if anything similar happened again I'd remove their role without warning.
This inspired me to look further into managing my staff.
I drew up some staff guidelines (with help from the "Managing Online Forums" book by Patrick Okeefe, owner of iFroggy), and I made myself clear to all of my staff that they were to follow these rules and not even approach the boundaries.
This has encouraged all of my staff to become more active (even though the forum is going through an inactive phase at the moment).
Things have been great since then, and I just wanted to share with you the pros and cons of hiring your friends as staff for your forum.
The Advantages of hiring friends as forum staff.
-You know them. You may know how to get them wrapped around your little finger so that they behave, but more imporatntly you know your not hiring someone that is going to go rouge.
-You can encourage them moreso to stay active. Although your staff guidelines may have something about inactivity in them, it is natural to feel guilty if your inactive on a forum one of your friends is working so hard to run.
-"Bragging rights". Your friends will always feel great inside when they talk to other people and say "Yeah, I help my friend run an online forum. It's not a bad forum actually, you should check it out".
-Moreso, your friends usually live within distance of you which means you are likely to see them or at least talk to them outside of your forum community. In any conversation you can just point out to them something they may not have seen, or just let them know some behind the scenes work you may be doing. Even though my two moderators live overseas from me my co-admin is my parents Godson, and his dad was my dads best man! We respect the work we do and we try our best to have meetings where he will come over to my house for a couple of beers and to play some Xbox, but more importantly to sit down and have a serious talk about forum-related things.
If you cant do this, I would strongly suggest you download Skype, and get your staff to also. You can hold free calls on Skype, including conference calls, and rather than typing out things into a staff forum, or even via instant messenger, you can tell them direct.
The disadvantages of hiring friends as staff.
-If they mess up, you are going to feel bad if you have to revoke their role. It's natural. They're your friend, and you don't want to upset your friends. But at the end of the day, you need to keep your forum professional, and if you have to take action you have to take action, just like the decision I had to take.
-They might not stay as active as you think. You're likely to know them a lot more than any other user, and you might even know what they do on their tuesday evening for example. Things can get a bit awkward if you keep having to ask a friend who is constantly on their computer to sign into the forum and do some work. - You can't run it by yourself, especially if there is a steady flow of posts. You do need to make yourself clear to your staff that they have to stay active.
A good way to do this is include within the staff guidelines about activity, and their responsabilities. You may also want to include about if you make a post in the staff forum saying "Read Now!" (or alike), they stop whatever they are doing and they read and reply.
-"Inside Jokes" can be with anyone, but moreso your friends. Try not to let these kreep into your forum because any user who is trying to be a part of the community will feel left out, no matter what the "joke" is about.
My apologies if I have waffled a bit, but I thought I'd share my experience and my tips with others about hiring friends as staff. I care a lot about my friends, and hate to see friendships break because of silly little things. Please dont let this put you off from asking your buddies to help out, I would suggest that you do get them do help. But... Make sure you have your failsafe for if they are starting to act up you can either have a quiet word with them, or in extreme circumstances remove their role without effecting your friendship.
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