In terms of forum management, have you ever sacked your staff for any wrongdoing?
For me, yes I have but it was back when I was new to forum management, where I sacked a moderator, whom I hired just because he wanted the job, for simply abusing the warn level system for another member. Plus he was an immature twit as well...
Thankfully, I didn't need to do this in recent times.
Not so much these days, I'm very, very lax, but I have been part of several staff setups that have/had high turnovers, and you have been ready to let people go. It's part of it, and you need to understand that when you get into the position. Do what's best to protect your community.
I've only had to sack two team members, one on two different forums. The first one was because I made the mistake of hiring the wrong person to be an Admin, and she deleted the themes we had and installed themes that didn't fit the niche of the forum. The other person was sacked for lack of activity.
I only ever really had to do it for lack of activity. It was always frustrating when people showed interest in being staff, but as soon as they got the position, their activity would drop dramatically to the point where the workload was just being put on me (or another person who was active that was able to help).
Did this before, but now I move them to the "Away Staff" group, even if they're gone from the forum without telling me so. But, if any show a lack of interest in being in the role, that's when I'll demote them.
I never advertise for staff or accept unsolicited offers from existing members. Instead I offer staff positions to long-standing, active members who are effectively already doing the job but without the tools. By that I mean members who step in and help out when other members join, have an issue or start to push boundaries.
Moderation and acp tools can easily be taught but finding someone who is helpful and takes a balanced approach to issues is the key and that's what I look for. I think that approach is why I've never had to remove a member of staff.
That's a fair point, but I also feel communication is important too. I never had an "away staff" group on my sites (never even thought of the concept, honestly), and I certainly wouldn't have had an issue moving people to such a group because your personal life is far more important, but I also feel like the communication would need to be there too. I feel like a lot of times, I never got the communication until months later that they needed a break (and/or needed to step down), and so it was just always being stuck in a weird limbo state of "are they committed or nah" kinda thing.
