Need Input from a Few ST Admins

[Bob Hartig]

I'm looking at a possible marketing venture that would involve a forum. Due to the reach of the potential client, the forum could conceivably become pretty big. Obviously, that creates administrative concerns which would likely influence the operating budget. I don't want the cost to become prohibitive.

While I belong to a number of forums, I have no idea what the demands are on the moderator end. Since Stormtrack is a large and successful forum, I wonder if a few of you site moderators would be willing to answer some questions for me. Please let me know whether this public thread is the way to handle my request. If not, I'm happy to correspond via PM.

Thanks!

 

[Tim Vasquez]

A public thread will suffice. If it gets into specifics that are private to the operation of the forum then it's probably something we couldn't discuss on PM either.

Tim

 

[Bob Hartig]

Thanks, Tim. Your own input will, of course, be invaluable should you choose to lean in. I don't anticipate that my questions will infringe on delicate or privileged information.

To all: Thanks in advance to those of you who respond. What I'm trying to get a feel for, bottom line, is the actual time involved and the number of moderators required--and by extrapolation, what it may cost--to maintain quality moderation for a large and active forum.

If you feel uncomfortable answering any question, let me know. I will either reword that question in a way which hopefully remedies the concern, or else simply skip the question altogether.

Here are some questions to begin with:

1. How many mods are required to keep the Stormtrack forum operating efficiently?
2. How many of you are on duty at a given time? Does that vary according to time of day?
3. How long are your shifts?
4. When on duty, are you constantly moderating, or do you simply check in periodically? If periodically, how often?
5. Is there a time of day when mods aren't needed (i.e. y'all go home and go to bed--it's after midnight, and any problem that pops up can wait till tomorrow)?
6. When are your peak hours?
7. What criteria do you use in selecting a mod?
8. How were mods initially recruited when Stormtrack online was getting started?

Here are a couple questions that may be touchier. If you're free to answer, great; if not, skip them. I'll understand.

1. Do mods operate on a strictly gratis, volunteer basis, or do some or all mods receive some kind of pay or stipend?
2. If pay is involved, how is it determined?

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Depending on the responses I get, I may have more questions, but the above should serve as a good start, and very possibly may be all I need to know. If you think of anything else I should know, by all means tell me.

THANKS TO ALL WHO CHOOSE TO RESPOND! Your answers and advice are most helpful and much appreciated.

 

[Tim Vasquez]

How many mods are required to keep the Stormtrack forum operating efficiently?

About four is optimal. I may expand this to 5 or 6 but increasing the moderator team size is a serious decision since once you go past 4 you start introducing the possibility of cliques and squabbling, plus the very slight probability of someone leaking internal issues and privileged information.

How many of you are on duty at a given time? Does that vary according to time of day?

In practice there are usually about 2 of us checking in any given hour.

How long are your shifts?

There are no shifts. One reason we chose Martin North for moderator, not counting his own qualifications and UK perspective, is because he's in a much different time zone and that gave us some oversight of the board during the night and during peak chase hours.

When on duty, are you constantly moderating, or do you simply check in periodically? If periodically, how often?

I can't speak for the moderators, but when I'm not on vacation I'm probably here once every few hours for about 20 minutes. There's no set schedule... I've been here at all hours of the day and night.

Is there a time of day when mods aren't needed (i.e. y'all go home and go to bed--it's after midnight, and any problem that pops up can wait till tomorrow)?

No, we always need moderators. Sometimes spam and troll posts appear in the middle of the night. However there's no obligation for a moderator to take time to deal with problems if they just want to have some R&R time on Stormtrack.

When are your peak hours?

This is usually about 8-9 pm Central when everyone is home and on the computer. There's also secondary peaks on major chase days around initiation time. The latter usually involves a lot of guests (unregistered visitors). Interestingly many of those hits are from universities as well as the NOAA domain... which tells us there's a lot of college students and NWS employees monitoring Target Area.

What criteria do you use in selecting a mod?

It really varies depending on our needs, but integrity and sound judgement are key considerations. This includes being able to mediate, knowing when to step back, a low predisposition for getting involved in controversy, and not being prone to using their position for a power trip. It's hard to predict this but we look back on a candidate's interaction with the community and whether they've handled disagreements and heated issues while remaining well within the envelope of our rules. We look for litmus tests like that. All this personality stuff is extremely important, vastly more so than a candidate's chase experience, since a bad moderator selection can eventually damage the integrity of the board. It's always been tempting to put a candidate up for popular vote but we'll never do that since we don't really want people running the board who've merely won a popularity contest.

How were mods initially recruited when Stormtrack online was getting started?

I can't remember that far back. We had operated on some mailing lists about 7 years ago but I think they were unmoderated. It's safe to say we probably brought mods on board around 2003 and there were about 3 or 4 of them. I don't recall the selection process. I think I evaluated basic knowledge, time spent on the board, and dedication, which I now see wasn't the optimal way to go about it because when you think about it, a troll can have all three qualifications. So we try to look beyond that.

Do mods operate on a strictly gratis, volunteer basis, or do some or all mods receive some kind of pay or stipend?

Nobody is receiving pay right now. We're finally starting to make more off ads than we are spending on the server/vBulletin licenses/etc, so we've backed off from donations lately and are giving some thought to either providing a stipend of some kind (unfortunately not much more than enough to pay a Burger King meal once a month) or maybe socking some away to upgrade the server if we see more traffic this season. I have given David a year or two of banners for drylinehosting.com (I probably need to reinsert that again) and am open to running a banner ad for any moderator gratis if it's for something important.

Tim

 

[Bob Hartig]

Tim, thank you for personally taking the time to answer my questions. Your input is gracious and extremely useful. I may have more questions once I've taken time to fully process your answers. Right now, I just want to take a moment to express my appreciation for your helpfulness.