I can use some help.

So I am going to ask for some.

First, I work at the Rx, an online gambling site with mucho traffico.

I started part time in May, moved up to full time since July 1st. Lots more posts, posters, boss is happy.

Questions include (starter package)

1. What do you guys think of the site? Areas for improvement?

2. We had bad luck with paid moderators (agendas, playing detectives, bashing, you name it) so I went to a volunteer base (started with 25, down to around 16) called an "advisory board". They help me moderate, advise on how to handle situtations etc. Been going for two weeks, so far so good.

We meet ongoing in a private members only folder called "board room".

Any one else fooled with an "advisory board"? Results?

3. We have had complaints of late of too many threads in our college football forum, over 100 new threads a day on the weekend. At what point should we open new folders or?

4. Can I give my advisory board members edit/delete privileges without them seeing all the IP's and e-mail addresses?

Thanks for any experiences you can share, I am happy to have found this forum, I have read all kinds of old threads. It makes me feel less alone...

First of all - we're glad you found us!!

It looks like you've got a thriving community going! Congratulations!!

One off hand note: have you considered using your site colors on your forums? For instance, on your homepage, there's that great combination of blue and khaki (I'm going with "khaki" 'cause I'm not sure what else to call it!) - have you considered integrating that into your style settings? I think the blue would be great for the category strip colors and the khaki for each of the forum strip colors, and it might help to further cement the integration.

I'm glad you found an alternative solution when you had moderator problems. I think an advisory board is a great way to go - I would expect it helps to harness in the "power" per se, and keep things from getting out of hand. I haven't had any personal experience with this solution, but others might - keep us posted on how this works for you!

Also, it's good to hear that you're scaling down your number of moderators. More often than not (except when stepping over the line into "under-staffed") less is better, and easier to maintain.

A complaint about too much posting?? What a great problem to have! I would guess that if your users are complaining, now is a good time for a new forum. I may be demonstrating my complete lack of knowledge when it comes to football, but can you divide your college football forum into leagues, or some other more specific affiliation?

Regarding the privileges, unfortunately, you can't give advisory board members the privilege to edit/delete without them seeing all the IP/e-mail as they're all functions of the same security level.

Let me know what you think...

Kate Sloan
Customer Care/Account Management
Infopop Corporation
Moderator: Community Management Forum

"Barn's burnt down, now I can see the moon." - Masahide

Thanks Kate.

I am color blind, and they don't let me near any decision making in those areas LOL. I did pass the link on to our "techies" who decide such things, I am sure they will be interested, they are good.

I have been discussing number of posts a day being a "problem" with a few other volunteers today, and may not be. Turn out one of our competitors runs all his sports picks together, 150 or so threads everyday, he has inferior software, he has no choice.

The players use it almost like chat with a "recall feature". They like it.

So I am not sure now this is a bad thing.

I do have other stuff I want to chat about here, I hope to become an active member of your community. The concept of community online has for some reason become a total fascination for me. I find it VERY interesting....

hey, Peep:

Forgive me if you've already seen this stuff, but we DO have documentation on running communities that may help. The docs available are at the bottom of this page.

If your experience with the advisory board works out, we may want to add a section in our guide about that!

quote:

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2. We had bad luck with paid moderators (agendas, playing detectives, bashing, you name it) so I went to a volunteer base (started with 25, down to around 16) called an "advisory board". They help me moderate, advise on how to handle situtations etc. Been going for two weeks, so far so good.

We meet ongoing in a private members only folder called "board room".

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What you are doing here is I'd imagine what a number of communities (including my own) are doing. We dont have a budget to pay moderators, and even if we did I doubt very much it would be something we would do. By nature of the way we work, a moderator position would be full time, if the user was paid we in return would of course have to ensure they kept a reasonable attendance level and that they modded in the right manor.

Not saying that unpaid they dont have a certain responsibilty but once money is involved it is more complicated.

In our 'board room' we talk about nuisance users, we discuss events that are going on in the board. We occasionally vote in new moderators/forums and generally try to communicate with each other on a regular basis. If a mod is off on holidays or extended leave, they usually put a little post in so that the others know and can monitor their forum in their absense.

I do try to run things democratically, and allow each mod a voice and a vote. Things dont always go to plan, sometimes I am forced to implement something that the mods will have no input in - this is reasonably rare but it can happen

You seem to be steering the ship in the right way, good luck!

First time I saw that page Lori, thanks.

Thanks Marc, glad to know I am not alone in using an advisory board. We have a "confidentiality agreement" I have each person agree to, I hope it let's us keep our business (which is similiar to what you describe) inside the room only.

We have had "snippets" escape to a competitior's board, makes us look a little silly taken out of context, but we are neither confirming or denying anything....