More moderators and administrators???

[SteveColes]

I am thinking that we should add more moderators. Particularly dooubling up on the more active forums. What do you think. Also perhaps at least one more admin. I don't think we can be as responsive as we used to be becuase of the constanly increasing membership.

 

[clowman]

What is the ratio of moderator to active membership now? How many admins as well?

 

[SteveColes]

What is the ratio of moderator to active membership now? How many admins as well?

Define active:lol:

 

[DaveO]

I think an additional Admin would be helpful. A request for a picture album sat unattended for a while last weekend. It killed me 'cause I didn't have any clue of what to do. Steve you eventually took care of it. I don't know about the Moderation issue, most things get caught right away, and with the new Mod board, fewer things would slip by unnoticed. Have I been slackin':lol: :lol: :lol:

Dave

 

[clowman]

I think active would be members that either log in at least once a week. Or members that post at least once a week. but that's just me.

 

[SteveColes]

I think an additional Admin would be helpful. A request for a picture album sat unattended for a while last weekend. It killed me 'cause I didn't have any clue of what to do. Steve you eventually took care of it. I don't know about the Moderation issue, most things get caught right away, and with the new Mod board, fewer things would slip by unnoticed. Have I been slackin':lol: :lol: :lol:

Dave

No you are not slacking. No one is. We each have our own amount of time to spend on the site.As far as the administrator's are concerned, I'll address that in another thread.

The issue of of the photo albums request, I think I know how to also give moderators the ability to create member albums. I address that in another thread also.

Btw, I wasn't addressing this to your post. It just gave me place to explain my thinking

So back to moderators. In my ideal world, every post woulld be read by some moderator with in a few hours of it being posted. Why, not becuase people are posting things they shouldn't, that hasn't been a problem yet. But the reason why the most people who come and stay on this site is becuase fof how responsive we are.

Now look at the numbers.
new posts

Aug 320 11/day
Sep 981 38/day
Oct 1694 56/day
Nov 2665 88/day
Dec low numbers becuase of holiday
Jan predicted 111/day

Including myself and and all moderators and admins, we have 11 people monitoriting posts. I don't think we will enough.

 

[SteveColes]

I think active would be members that either log in at least once a week. Or members that post at least once a week. but that's just me.

That's a good defintion!. I just don't know if I can get to those easily. In the meantime, look at the numbers I just posted for post/day

 

[SteveColes]

Re: Oops

.As far as the administrator's are concerned, I'll address that in another thread.

That sentence may have come off in a way I didn't intend. I think Brandon and SteveD are doing a great job. The fact that over a weekend all three of us were unable to create a Photo Album is just one of those things that happen. And we'll lessen the likelyhood of that happening by making it possible for those moderators who are so inclined to also be able to create albums.

The mystrerious Administrator's thread I was refering to was how to deal with the three other layers of admin, that only I can do the way I have things currently set up. Since, It is sort of complicated to explain, I wanted address it in a seperate thread.

Sorry, if I unintentionally offended anyone.

 

[cskipper]

Adding more moderators will only solve the problem you addressed is if you specifically look for moderators who can monitor the site during specific time frames when posts seem to go over an hour without at least an acknowledgement response. For example, if posts made between 1 and 3 pm seem to be unacknowledged for over an hour, then the solution would be to have a couple of folks "assigned" these time ranges. It would take several because any of us could be tied up and not able to actually be watching the site during our routine time.

I think we all try to watch for new posts, and I know you aren't suggesting that we are slacking. Do they always appear on the home page? If not, can they - at least on our home page? Or, and probably easier, could a page be created for moderators that lists the first time a topic is posted and the number of responses so we'd know if one was missed. I've tried watching the forum listing for this, but seem to still have missed one here and there, especially if several things hit the same forum fairly close together.

 

[JohnsonMBrandon]

We were all in the shop Saturday making sawdust :lol:. I think it just happens that during the week we have more time in front of the computer. On the weekends everyone is so busy, and especially at this time of year. I think that everyone is doing a great job, and with a little more help I am sure we can be even better.

 

[SteveColes]

Adding more moderators will only solve the problem you addressed is if you specifically look for moderators who can monitor the site during specific time frames when posts seem to go over an hour without at least an acknowledgement response. For example, if posts made between 1 and 3 pm seem to be unacknowledged for over an hour, then the solution would be to have a couple of folks "assigned" these time ranges. It would take several because any of us could be tied up and not able to actually be watching the site during our routine time.

I think we all try to watch for new posts, and I know you aren't suggesting that we are slacking. Do they always appear on the home page? If not, can they - at least on our home page? Or, and probably easier, could a page be created for moderators that lists the first time a topic is posted and the number of responses so we'd know if one was missed. I've tried watching the forum listing for this, but seem to still have missed one here and there, especially if several things hit the same forum fairly close together.

As far as assigning certain hours, I don't think that it is the way to go. Being a member of this site is supposed to be fun. This group has people (moderators and administrators) have volunteered to help out. But the minute the tasks involved become more of a chore than fun, we are doing something wrong.

As far as gettin better notification methods, there is nothing I can do right now.

 

[Steve D]

Steve,


I applaud the effort to continually improve as we go along. Based on my experience with other sites, this site is extremely responsive. It's very rare that posts are answered as quickly as they are here and I think some members probably think the album request is automated by the speed with which they are created.

I know that I wouldn't want to have assigned hours but I'm happy to jump in whenever I can and help. Giving the moderators the ability to create albums is just a helpful way of having more hands available. I don't know if I'm supposed to do it or not but I have moved a couple of threads that were in the wrong area in an effort to keep things running smoothly. I would also plan to delete anything that I came across in a new post that was outside the guidelines of this site.

Don't worry about hurting feelings by trying to improve. We're all vounteering our time and have other things to do. Changing things around isn't an indictment of anyone's effort it just shows your dedication to making this site the best it can be. Open communications amongst ourselves without wearing our feelings on our sleeves is the best way to keep things going and growing.

 

[clowman]

I'm normally checking throughout the work day. ( I have a little laptop dialed in at work.. umm... don't tell the boss that ).

This site is more of a rapid response center as it stands from my point of view. (Someone else coined that phrase not me.) I posted a question about a plane, and had about 7-8 answers in under an hour. Awsome.

I'm happy to help more in anyway I can be of service.

 

[SteveColes]

Steve, thank you for expressing some of the things that I wanted to say, better than I did. :BangHead:

I should have started the thread by explaining what precipitated my thinking about more moderators and administrators.


1. I was out of town for about 5 days recently without access to the internet and am going on a cruise in March for about 12 days. What happens if the site goes down while I am unavailable to even notice? No one who is a member of the site knows who to contact and how. What are the procedures, etc? The site would stay down until one of the other customers who share my server noticed that they have a problem.


2. I noticed that I was having trouble keeping up with all the posts, but I used to see every one. So I ran some numbers, some of which I showed in a previous post. Those numbers explained why I wasn't keeping up like I used to. But I was relieved to see that we as a group were keeping up. But what happens if the growth keeps up? So I extrapolated the growth rate in posts and members and realized that around the middle of Feb, this wouldn't be true. Either our responsiveness would start to suffer or we needed more "Staff'' members. Also, because I want the staff to see the different tasks that have to be done, not as a job but something that they could do when and if they the time, and if they didn't there was no great problem, because there would be enough people who new how to do things, that someone would pick up the task.


3. This related to number 1. There are a whole host of things related to the day to day running of this site and some of the standard requests that currently, I am the only one with the permissions to do. I have, by trying not to burden anyone else, created a situation, where I am a potential "single point of failure" That really is not such a good idea , if we want this site to keep going.like it is.


I hope this better explains where I was coming from.

 

[cskipper]

I think we understand your point. I wasn't really suggesting assigning us designated times, really was just observing that the time of day posts are made might influence the speed of response. And no, my feelings weren't/aren't hurt.

I'm willing to help out however I can. I'm fairly "teachable". Just let me know if I can do more.

 

[DaveO]

Steve, that does sound like a more serious situation than I had thought. I thought that the other Admins had the permissions and access that you had and the computer knowledge to assist if the site had a crash. As far as the Moderators, yes there are an increasing number of posts but not as many new threads. The posts need to be looked at but it is the new threads, often created by a new member, that really need some one to reply, so they feel welcome. Many threads are just back and forth banter among members, that really only need a quick glance to check out. I have no problem with asking for more vol. Mods. but I wouldn't like to see too many and give the impression of a police state. I think that you need to find someone who can have the same site control and knowledge you have,and devotion to its growth, that can be on "duty" when you can't. I would volunteer, but all the things you have told me about the workings of the site are beyond my very limited computer knowledge. But I offer to help where ever I can.

Dave

 

[cskipper]

Steve, you do do an awesome job (in case I haven't said that in a while)!