How important is it to you as a member of a forum for the owner of the forum to be active? Does your opinion change based on the activity of the group?
For example, let's say the forum has thousands of members and dozens of posts a day. It's very active. Do you think the owner should still be active?
How active is active? How active is too active? Where is the threshold.
Back when I first started AAF 1.0 (years ago), I posted like 50 times a day. I had more posts than anyone. I think that was too much when I think about it today. Wouldn't you agree?
I'd love to know what you all think about this topic?
It's essential that neither the members of a community or staff ever feel a forum has been abandoned by the owner which means the owner has to have a presence. I personally don't think that necessarily needs to be reflected in a high post count though.
Owner should be active, but as the forum grows, it may have enough core users, moderators, etc to the point where the owner is less important. I know of a few cases where the forum might even be better off if the owner didn't post LOL
There are lots of forum owners that just keep the forum functioning behind the scenes and never participate publicly. I've never personally understood that though. Why own a forum if you have no interest in interacting with your community?
The Owner I think should always maintain some activity and be wanting to drive conversation. Speaking from experience it is quite the task...and sometimes not even a rewarding one. However, I have seen firsthand, that activity is non-existent from members if new threads and posts aren't being made regularly by staff.
I have been on the side of being a member and not wanting to participate because what's the point? If the owner is super inactive the site could just be shut down at any point and my time wasted.
I do agree with that, but I think one thing to consider is the difference of a new forum & an older forum. If a site has been up for years, or even close to 2 decades, I feel like its more acceptable to see the owner not as active. They are paying the bills after all. However if the forum is basically dead, then the owner should find it in them to be more active again. My comment here is more about large communities that outgrow the original founders' smaller forum in the early days. At that point it really becomes less about ownership.
Take reddit for example - the moderators of a subreddit are much more important than the owners of the site itself, at least for daily activity and each community's vibe.
If the forum is large, then I wouldn't really mind if the owner didn't post that often. In fact, Sonic Retro's owner isn't online much these days, and he posts only a few times here and there. I see a few moderators who are more active than he is. As for smaller forums, I do expect the owner to be active.
How important is it to you as a member of a forum for the owner of the forum to be active? It is crucial that the forum owner and staff remain active on the forums. As the forum owner and staff you want to lead the way for your members. If you're not active and posting on a regular basis than you can't really expect your members to do so.
Does your opinion change based on the activity of the group? No, I think all staff should remain active no matter how active the forum is. However, if a staff wants to go on vacation or take some time off I completely agree and even encourage it, but for the most part staff and forum owners should be active on their forum regardless of how active their forum is.
For example, let's say the forum has thousands of members and dozens of posts a day. It's very active. Do you think the owner should still be active? Yes, it's important that members know and feel as though the forum owner still cares and wants to be a part of the discussion/forum.
How active is active? Active to me is having at least 10 regular members online & posting on a daily basis. How active is too active? Too active to me is when there is a lot of members online but you never see any staff. I feel that it is important to have staff on for the majority of the day/time. If there is any spam or bad members you want to nip it in the but ASAP and if you go a few days without any staff logging in there is potential that a member can really mess up the forums and make it unpleasant for others.
