How long should an admin log-into their forum per week?

...Per week? More like per day...Unless you have other staff who can handle everything in your absence. I try to make sure at least one administrator is on round the clock. During the busy 'prime time' hours that is usually me.
 
I log on every day and spend most of the day on mine, checking back and posting every few ours if not more.

Not only do I run the place but its my online "home" and I love being there 🙂
 
I log on almost every day. Or I try to. Sometimes I make new posts, or I reply to the ones that need replies made to them.
 
5 hours a week will do NOTHING, if that's all you're willing to put in then it's a waste of your time. You need to be on constantly, even if you have a full set of active staff.

The presence of an administrator can do wonders for a board. Not only does it deter spammers, who realize that their posts will be deleted immediately, but it can also make members feel more welcome to know that the administration cares.

I'd say you want to be on 12 hours a day, every day. You come as close to that as time allows, no exceptions.
 
Leo Ghost said:
5 hours a week will do NOTHING, if that's all you're willing to put in then it's a waste of your time. You need to be on constantly, even if you have a full set of active staff.

The presence of an administrator can do wonders for a board. Not only does it deter spammers, who realize that their posts will be deleted immediately, but it can also make members feel more welcome to know that the administration cares.

I'd say you want to be on 12 hours a day, every day. You come as close to that as time allows, no exceptions.

I agree there Leo mate. When I had OTD I was on that EVERY DAY for more than 5 hours, and sometimes over 10.
It took over my life a little, but I did get 5k posts in one month which I was proud of.
 
When my forum turned 1 year old, I was online for nearly a month. So about 2 hours a day, 14 hours a week.
 
Leo Ghost said:
5 hours a week will do NOTHING, if that's all you're willing to put in then it's a waste of your time. You need to be on constantly, even if you have a full set of active staff.

The presence of an administrator can do wonders for a board. Not only does it deter spammers, who realize that their posts will be deleted immediately, but it can also make members feel more welcome to know that the administration cares.

I'd say you want to be on 12 hours a day, every day. You come as close to that as time allows, no exceptions.
12 hours a day?! That's half the day, which is way too much time.
 
Kirisute Gomen said:
12 hours a day?! That's half the day, which is way too much time.
You should always shoot for more than you know you can actually do. I know I can easily do 10 or so hours, so I shoot for 12. Keep in mind that these hours may not be spent posting on your forum, but rather advertising and learning about how to keep it going. I guess my standards may seem high, but keep in mind that I consider the web my school, I feed on information I get from it. I spend 6 and a half hours in school which I don't care about at all. I would love to spend twice as much time with things I do care about.
 
Kirisute Gomen said:
Leo Ghost said:
5 hours a week will do NOTHING, if that's all you're willing to put in then it's a waste of your time. You need to be on constantly, even if you have a full set of active staff.

The presence of an administrator can do wonders for a board. Not only does it deter spammers, who realize that their posts will be deleted immediately, but it can also make members feel more welcome to know that the administration cares.

I'd say you want to be on 12 hours a day, every day. You come as close to that as time allows, no exceptions.
12 hours a day?! That's half the day, which is way too much time.
I have to agree. Some of us have lives.
 
12 hours is too much, but I think that an admin should be logged in almost as much as their schedule will allow. I think this is a question which can only be answered if you also know the administrator's free time.
 
It's great if you're dedicated to your site, but 12 hours is just too much. I'd say most your you freetime during the day should go towards your site if you're serious about it.
 
theezy said:
I have to agree. Some of us have lives.
Oh i'm sorry, some of us want to spend the rest of our lives doing things we love (in my case web development) rather than working at a low level job making next to nothing for our work. I'm preparing for my future, excuse me if you think spending the majority of my time learning is a negative thing 😕

For those of you who say it's "too much" time, it goes to show your complete lack of dedication and love for your sites. If you like something and enjoy doing it, shouldn't you spend the most time possible making sure you're best equipped to do it? Don't give me excuses like you have a life, because I have a girlfriend and a social life as well. If you are dedicated enough you can always make time to help yourself out. If you're not, then stop wondering why your forums never do as well as you hoped they would.

For those of you who missed my post, please let me bold out something you may not have seen;
Leo Ghost said:
I'd say you want to be on 12 hours a day, every day. You come as close to that as time allows, no exceptions.

Sorry, but personally I feel that if you can't care enough to prepare yourself as much as possible, then you shouldn't be in the game, period.
 
I agree with Leo, if you want a community to be successful, and lets face it, a good number Administrators believe that it is very easy and can be done with little input, then you need to put a good number of hours a day. Splitting up free time into something you enjoy, ie: web development, designing, coding, programming etc. can all allow you to spend more time on your forum.

Want to run a successful forum and take your skills to a possible profession on the web, then spend time learning your stuff. It's like the army (or any profession), should you spend months of hard training to actually carry out the job properly? Or should you only spend an hour or two a week as you have a life outside the barracks?
 
I agree with Ghost, and the point wasn't to be on 12 hours every day, but to try and reach as many as you can, 12 being Ghost's goal. While I don't own a forum right now, if I did I'd be sure to strive to be on at least 5-6 hours a day, but thats because I have track so I don't come home till after 5 PM.

@theezy

If I remember correctly you had over 28k posts on forum advertiser... how much of a life did you have at that time? :lol:
 
Leo Ghost said:
theezy said:
I have to agree. Some of us have lives.
Oh i'm sorry, some of us want to spend the rest of our lives doing things we love (in my case web development) rather than working at a low level job making next to nothing for our work. I'm preparing for my future, excuse me if you think spending the majority of my time learning is a negative thing 😕

For those of you who say it's "too much" time, it goes to show your complete lack of dedication and love for your sites. If you like something and enjoy doing it, shouldn't you spend the most time possible making sure you're best equipped to do it? Don't give me excuses like you have a life, because I have a girlfriend and a social life as well. If you are dedicated enough you can always make time to help yourself out. If you're not, then stop wondering why your forums never do as well as you hoped they would.

For those of you who missed my post, please let me bold out something you may not have seen;
Leo Ghost said:
I'd say you want to be on 12 hours a day, every day. You come as close to that as time allows, no exceptions.

Sorry, but personally I feel that if you can't care enough to prepare yourself as much as possible, then you shouldn't be in the game, period.


I agree with leo here 120%. If you do really care about something which is your forum then you should spend at LEAST 12 hours a day on it.
If you think you can cope with just a few hours a day/week then your forum isn't going to be active at all, you really need to put some effort into the site if you want it to become anything good. Being on the forun 12 hours a day doesn't mean on the forum posting, learning and advertising and just lurking on your forum is good enough.
The presance of an admin does infact do wonders for a site, showing your online and actually give a damn on the matter...

Like the old saying goes, if you can't do the time... get the hell out of admining. 😛

LOL. no I do infact you should try to do 12 hours a day or so... it really will help you out massivly.
 
You don't necessarily have to spend the whole day on the forum for it to be successful. Most people probably can't even stay in front of a screen that long without going outside for a bit.

I use to run a really big forum (I sold it) and I never spent more than 3-4 hours online on it a day and it was successful. It had well over 500,000 posts on it when I sold it and it was only about 1 year old.

As long as you're using your time well when you're online (Not going off to other sites) you shouldn't have to spend the whole day on it. It's not like there's hundreds of topics you need to respond to when you're starting out anyway.
 
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