Admins who ignore members

[Gio]

I mean like when you send them PM's, they ignore you, or they won't respond to you or anything.

What do you think about these types of Admins?

As an Admin, I will always try to respond to my members as ignoring them doesn't really look that good.

 

[Mikaya]

not really a good attribute to have. You're gonna get nowhere if you ignore the members. One member will tell another member and so forth. Eventually everyone will give up on you and leave.

 

[Teejay23]

As an admin or any staff member at that. Is that you are there for support and a representative of the forum you are with. On top of that you are a role model to other members.

You should not ignore messages, if by chance you are very busy and the message will take long, just send a quick im sorry ill get back to you soon reply.

At least you acknowledged the pm and the member has been notified knowing it will be looked at.

If by off chance you are getting 100s of PMs and cant reply all. Post a message on forum stating it will be abit to reply. Constant communication is key to success.

 

[Luigi1632]

Now what if you are unable to be active all the time? Members should understand that administrators can't be pulling all-nighters.

 

[Mikaya]

Now what if you are unable to be active all the time? Members should understand that administrators can't be pulling all-nighters.

well, that's when you hire at least one other admin to help out.

 

[jdab]

I respond to every message if possible!

 

[Teejay23]

Now what if you are unable to be active all the time? Members should understand that administrators can't be pulling all-nighters.

well, that's when you hire at least one other admin to help out.

Exactly. One person cannot keep a community active all the time. Having a small team is something that people should not be afraid of.

Having people in different timezones helps those "all-nighters". Also again, communicating to the members stating that you are only mainly active at so and so time. This will help ease the tension on the members that they expect to know when their PMs might be looked at and or answered.

 

[VirusZero]

Getting more staff is easy to say, hard to do. Loads of people want the "glory" of the title but don't want to do any work. Or they're flounce out at the slightest thing. So don't rely on getting more staff to be the perfect solution.

On topic though... Just to play counter point here.

There are a few times when it's ok to ignore PMs from members.

I mean if they've sent you a message 2-3 times asking about the same thing and you've already answered them? I'd call that fair game to ignore them.
(For example, if they've asked you 3 times how to set an avatar. And you have a document written up how to do that which you've already link them to on the first message? Further messages about that I'd call fair to ignore or delete.)

Furthermore, messages that try to advertise to you are fair game not to reply to. (Though you may opt instead to reply by disabling their PM capabilities...)

 

[Nebulous]

I mean like when you send them PM's, they ignore you, or they won't respond to you or anything.

What do you think about these types of Admins?

They must be busy so I'll make a feedback thread instead?

 

[Mikaya]

On topic though... Just to play counter point here.

There are a few times when it's ok to ignore PMs from members.

I mean if they've sent you a message 2-3 times asking about the same thing and you've already answered them? I'd call that fair game to ignore them.
(For example, if they've asked you 3 times how to set an avatar. And you have a document written up how to do that which you've already link them to on the first message? Further messages about that I'd call fair to ignore or delete.)

Furthermore, messages that try to advertise to you are fair game not to reply to. (Though you may opt instead to reply by disabling their PM capabilities...)

that's a different story altogether. I think that's pretty fair. tbh, the constant PMing should stop once it has been resolved. I would must likely to ignore them in this very situation.

ah, I hate those ad PM's. So annoying. Just ban the member if they advertise too much, since the sole purpose is to bother other members with ads. It's not like they'll contribute anything to the forum, anyway.

 

[jhony117]

Yes Sure i agree with you
If any admin ignore members. Members change their minds and may they leave forum or group.

 

[jacktheking]

Me too, I'll try my best to reply all my members email and PM. However, once I'm board with my own website.. I wont put much time into it.

 

[VirusZero]

See that's the thing, ignoring members isn't entirely a bad thing. There are times when it's justified.

Also, I think we need to consider how long qualifies before we count it as being ignored. Is someone saying they've been ignored if they send a message and wait 20 minutes without a response? Or has it been several days? Or a week?

I want to point out that just because an admin is online right then doesn't mean they have time to reply right then. They may not even really be online... I mean, depending on the settings, an admin might show as being online for up to an hour with no activity before the system treats them as having gone offline. So they very well could have signed on to check something, spent 2 minutes to do that, then closed the tab and it'd still show them as online for a full hour.

Furthermore, admins are humans and sometimes they do things like go away for a few days or take a break/vacation. (They may not tell people purely to prevent instances of troublemakers showing up to cause havoc when they know an admin isn't around.)

So in those cases it's not a case of being ignored purposefully, it's just that the admin isn't actually there (and possibly doesn't even know of the message waiting for them).

 

[Beverly]

Some admins and staffers are very AFK about their jobs, not really taking the whole thing too seriously. And, that's really unfortunate for both the forum owner and community as this cheats everyone out of the best forum experience possible.

 

[Ashley]

As an admin or any staff member at that. Is that you are there for support and a representative of the forum you are with. On top of that you are a role model to other members.

You should not ignore messages, if by chance you are very busy and the message will take long, just send a quick im sorry ill get back to you soon reply.

At least you acknowledged the pm and the member has been notified knowing it will be looked at.

If by off chance you are getting 100s of PMs and cant reply all. Post a message on forum stating it will be abit to reply. Constant communication is key to success.

The part I bolded is what I usually do. I'm usually pretty good about replying to a person's PM right away, but on the rare occasion that I can't for some reason, or if they're requesting something and I need some time to think about it before giving a definite answer, for the request, I might say something like, " I really like your idea, but I am really going to have to think it over first and see if it will work well for our forum." or something along those lines. Also, not sure if anyone's said this yet, but you should always be polite when you tell someone you are unable to get back to them right away.

 

[Beverly]

As an admin or any staff member at that. Is that you are there for support and a representative of the forum you are with. On top of that you are a role model to other members.

You should not ignore messages, if by chance you are very busy and the message will take long, just send a quick im sorry ill get back to you soon reply.

At least you acknowledged the pm and the member has been notified knowing it will be looked at.

If by off chance you are getting 100s of PMs and cant reply all. Post a message on forum stating it will be abit to reply. Constant communication is key to success.

The part I bolded is what I usually do. I'm usually pretty good about replying to a person's PM right away, but on the rare occasion that I can't for some reason, or if they're requesting something and I need some time to think about it before giving a definite answer, for the request, I might say something like, " I really like your idea, but I am really going to have to think it over first and see if it will work well for our forum." or something along those lines. Also, not sure if anyone's said this yet, but you should always be polite when you tell someone you are unable to get back to them right away.

If you're really busy, it's not always convenient to respond back instantly. However, letting the person know you got their message and will work on it, is a good idea too.

 

[Concepteur]

It seems to me as many administrators do this as their forum grows. I understand that a lot of them are busy but it's still a big part of their job to have a good relationship with their members.

A lot of you gave some good suggestions and I think more Administrators should think with that type of mindset.

 

[Soapbox]

They should be hands-on. That's why they are admin. Not a perfect job, either. As admin, part of the job is dealing with difficulties, which are, let's face it, often caused by difficult people.
Admins may not always reply to every message, and they may occasionally ignore people that are very trying, but they have to give everyone initially the benefit of the doubt at least.

 

[Claraviolet]

Admins are supposed to be active.If they are not,then it's best to contact a mod about it. Still,I wouldn't agree something like ignoring members as a fellow admin.