Lazy moderators

[MrDawn]

Have you ever promoted someone to moderator status with the idea of them helping out and they don't do it?

When I owned my forum back in 2014 ; the first ever mod I promoted did nothing. He wouldn't move threads to the correct places and wouldn't ban the incoming spam bots. On top of that he was on and off all of the time. I ended up taking him off of staff and he got mad and left. I just pictured him as that useless employee who hangs around the lounge eating pizza all day lol

 

[Page]

I have experienced it and the worse part about it is that you have to see that they are only volunteers. It's a different ball game if they are getting paid to mod 😉

Who doesn't like eating Pizza 😛

 

[Kale]

Yes. I usually just demod them at the end of the day if they don't do anything after being talked to about it.

 

[Nebulous]

It’s a struggle to get anyone to volunteer their valuable time to help you and your forum. I am appreciative of anyone who steps up to the plate, if it turns out that cannot commit as much time as they thought they could, they can go back to being a regular member. No hard feelings coming from me. 🙂

 

[Kale]

It’s a struggle to get anyone to volunteer their valuable time to help you and your forum. I am appreciative of anyone who steps up to the plate, if it turns out that cannot commit as much time as they thought they could, they can go back to being a regular member. No hard feelings coming from me. 🙂

Very much true. It's even like that with people wanting to WORK and be PAID for it. I know it's a different topic/subject, but it's true even for volunteer roles too.

 

[Ravenfreak]

I never had this issue on any of my communities. That's gotta be super frustrating though, why even bother agreeing to be staff if you can't commit to it? I get life happens, but if you just got promoted and didn't do a thing to help out why even waste your time or the admin's time?

 

[Deleted member 49125]

I've only had temporary Staff on mine to help fix a few problems. I never had need for other Staff. But I can say this. I've seen several people who want the title but not the work. Even though I don't have need of Staff at this time, it is one of the reasons I would be extra hesitant & cautious when/ if the time does come.

 

[Nomad]

You cannot expect someone to become very active in your community if you are not giving any incentive. However, if you are giving incentive for moderation and the moderator is lazy, you need to replace him/her.

 

[Eclipse]

I have experienced this in the past, it's not a bad thing. Sometimes people agree to volunteer without thinking about their other commitments and their activity/effort dwindles down. I'll usually remind them that activity is important since it is a staff position

 

[Katrina]

I think that it's not too much to expect a moderator to do some work for at least 15 minutes a day and at the least 15 minutes a week. Everyone has things to do outside a forum, so unless you're in the hospital or without internet (rare!), then there isn't much of an excuse.

 

[Shortie_]

I had this experience in the past when I ran my general chat forum. Someone was eager to become a moderator to help out with the forums and at the time, I did need more moderators and decided to give them a chance to be part of the team and help the forum. They were super active prior to being promoted and I felt that they would be a really good fit for the job and was happy to have them on board. Once they got the promotion they started to slack and become lazy, sometimes wouldn't even log onto the forum and their contributions became less and less. Turns out they wanted the moderator status but not the work behind it.

 

[Joshua Farrell]

I've experienced it as both owner and as staff, and a few times inadvertently been that person.

When I end up being that person, it is generally because of unexpected things that happen in my life, and I just happen to forget to mention it to the person who put me on staff.

The times I do remember to say something, I've had responses between "why did you join staff in the first place, if you knew something was coming up", to "let me guess, you just wanted the position and didn't want to do the job".

I've never understood the people who respond with the first one I mentioned, because I legitimately didn't expect something to happen, and accordingly couldn't plan for it in advance. I can't tell you if I am going to disappear, if I didn't know I would in the first place.

The people who thought I wanted the position to do nothing, had apparent low expectations that I either ignored during conversation, or didn't see it initially. So it ended up being a natural response that would hit me like a brick. Basically the "No, I didn't join just for the position, I joined to help. Can't help it if you don't believe me, because of your past experiences. "

 

[Shawn Gossman]

I've had plenty of experiences with this enough to make me change my process of adding moderators.

I used to watch the most active members and then ask them aboard. Shortly after, they'd go inactive and just focus on staff activities.

My new process is simple.

I am the only staff member until the forum staff activities overwhelms my ability to keep the forum active. Then I'll add a moderator with the requirement of them helping me keep the forum active. Tell them its a 30 day trial or something like that.

Once they're established, then we can focus on keeping the forum active.

After it becomes to overwhelming for both of us, then we can add a third staff member.

And repeat.

Forum Admin Forum is growing fairly well but I still don't feel the need for a moderator at this time. It isn't overwhelming me so I'll remain the lone staff member until it does.

But there are members I am closely watching to be potential moderators in time.