Alright, so I really hate to bring them into this, but I was talking to Justin about it and he seemed to agree. Yeah, they have lives, but it seems like they go for weeks at a time without coming here. It's been almost a week for both of them. What if something important comes up? Justin made a point about having 8 admins. Yeah, it seems outrageous, but what if only 3 were active. Here's how he states it.



your opinions?

8 administrators? A bit too much i think...there is no need for 8. Too many chefs in the kitchen you know.
At the most i think 4 would be sufficient...
but 8? nah...
and the adminstrators do come here, they actually can be very active, but they are doing "backstage" work. they aren't posting in the forums or anything, but they are working the back of createblog to make sure things go smoothly up front, and i think they are the only ones that can resize signatures and accept members to official member status, and all that. So they can spend 1 hour doing all this stuff backstage, but you wouldn't know it.
lol basically, i think 3 or 4 is plenty of administrators...no need for 8

well, then demote inactive admin to headstaff.

Three to Four admins wouldnt be that bad, it would cover more bases -shrug-
8 admins is way too much though.

I just think we should choose people who are active to be in the top positions.

Doesn't that make more sense, and seems so much easier?

Sure, these people used to be very active and involved, but they're not now. If the head honchos aren't ever going to be there, why should they be the deciding factor in big decisions that affect the entire community? People who are more integrated should make those decisions.

I can be the admin for weekends because; I stay home for the whole day. (I’m available during noon, night, midnight, and late night). I’m an owl =]. We do need a few admin that actually stays up late to moderate the forums.


Anyways, 7-8 is good enough. I don’t think many moderators/admin are available at around 11:45pm-1:30am (midnight-ish). I mean, we need at least 1-2 moderators/admin that are available during late nights. That’s the time when most spamming occurs in the forum. I remember seeing 3 pages of spam in the feedback forum. Those spammers claim to “raid” CreateBlog (That’s what they say). The next morning, spam topics disappear.

edit.

I’m confused w/ the admin and moderator’s job.
Skip this post.

Ummmm.....you cant just become an admin. You to already be on staff




Like I said before 8 admins is silly. Yes, we do need more active admins but lets not get ridiculous with it. Considering that People staff do most of the moderating and Admins mostly supervise and work behind the scenes.

so 8 is just a number justin used to prove a point. he's not saying HEY CB WE NEED 8 ADMINS. hes saying that if 8 admins are needed, then so be it if only 3 are active. the 5 others wont be doing anything. hes not saying that jusun needs to go out and find 6 other admins.

if we up the current number of admins to 3, as was the case when i first got here, and they were all active, then we can just promote and demote between head staff and admin as necessary

i mean, there are current head staff who would be better sutied to th eadmin job than are people who are inactive for long periods, how ever valid the reasons

i mean, are either roxy or christina actually aware that by laws ar ebeing written?

How can he assume they wont all be active or if any would be active at all? Exactly...he cant. Even though I get what he is trying to say even though it doesnt really make much sense to promote people only to assume more than half wont be active.

well then appoint those that are active


edit://
this was me.

^
well, yeah



we can assume that if we appointed several really activ emembers of staff to admin status, they would continue to be active

but yeah, it doesnt make sense to assume whoever we appoint will suddenly drift away...

^
thats the point that justin was trying to prove.

i think an increase in admin would be a good idea...but only 4
the admin we have now do their jobs, though. they just aren't online as much any more. they know what has to be done on cb due to their experience as a member and as a forum mod, so its not easy to pick qualified people for that particular job

I think there should be some kind of procedure for admins to deal with inactivity then, such as 1) checking in with cB at least so-and-so many times a week, 2) appointing a temp admin if he/she goes away for a while... etc. Since admins' words are the last in adding new staff members, it is crucial that they know what goes on around cB, and that can only happen if he/she is actually around and participating in cB business.

I know admins probably come by cB whenever they have the chance, but maybe, just maybe, a quota needs to be placed on the number of visits and participation? Though this is a violation of sorts, it would lessen, if not eliminate the problem of inactivity.

A quota does need to be put in place.
I was told several of the admins/heads were not even aware we were hiring when we did and didn't participate in the decision-making. So why are they the biggest deciding factor if they're not even here to make the decision? Nothing against them but..it was going on for a week or so.

I think all we need is 4 and just..don't put inactive people in the spot.

Having a life is one thing, but not even stopping by for weeks at a time is another. Everyone has time to at least stop by for even 10 minutes a day. I know this. I can sneak on for hours at a time even though I'm grounded, it's not that hard to stop by once in a while..

Though I agree with everything, I do feel a tad uncomfortable if we were to require admins to stop by at least once a day. If once and a while means at least four times a week for 30 mins each time as a start, then that would work with me.

Well I don't think we need to make a time set..

Make it like an actual job. Put in a certain amount of hours of work per week. But it just seems so automated....Just say stop by an approximate amount of time, and it can fluxuate due to some weeks being busier than others...

They don't have to stop by once a day, I'm just saying it's not that hard to most of the time.

as far as by-laws go, i don't think we should set a time.

i think the by-laws should read " admin should be reasonablly active, as determined by the mods", or something like that.

Yea, me too. I don't like the set amount of time.....

We're not machines, we're people. Createblog is to have fun.

And though I agree with both of you, we're now back to the problem of arbitrariness, unless "reasonably active" can be defined. To me, it is reasonable to visit cB three times a week and be active, but that may or may not be the same definition as the next person, then what?

Well yes, but I think we all agree that not stopping by for weeks at a time is unreasonable. We can all judge when someone is too inactive.

i think twice a week is lenient enough...

Okay, so then when someone doesn't come to cB in weeks, should he/she be allowed to appoint a sub?

If they're going on vacation or something, sure, why not? It gives them a way to be on leave without hurting the community and it gives the sub a chance to prove themselves.

However, when someone is continuously missing due to just not having enough time for CB and whatnot, they should not be in a high position at all.

weeks is usually planned, and so they should appoint a sub...

i think subs should be appointed before an admin has to go away. if they don't, and are gone for two weeks (14 days), then a sub is appointed form them by _________.


something like that?

Haha. Does that describe krnxswat? <--resource





I was thinking of that too! I think they should be appointed by their owner because the owner should know better when to lend their powers. I mean, they can log onto cB for a couple of seconds, lend them the power, and then sign off.

I’m assuming it’s not very hard to do it.

If they don’t do it or forgot about it, at least there's someone who’s active. (It depends on the amount of administrations.)



Yep.

edit.

Not always..

and uh........krnxswat was removed from his position, was he not?

people have different opinions on what 'reasonably active' is... bylaws should be specific to avoid confusion and/or room for discussion

i think that would be even more tedious
its not like theres a magic "sub" button you can click to give admin powers to a sub for a certain period of time

besides not everyone can be a admin just because they're active...
a admins job isn't being super active in the forums, they need to do backend stuff among other things

We have not mentioned a need for admins to be "super active", we are just interested in admins being relatively active. When it comes to hiring new staff, admins must know how deserving each applicant is for the position since they have the last word on appointing new staff. To be able to know such things, they have to be relatively active to take notice.

well..an admin can give powers to the sub, its not that hard to do-if that were to happen. if an admin does go away for weeks at a time a sub would be completely appropriate (but only with the number of admin we have now...if we had 4 or more i dont think it would be necessary)

ok...if an admin is not active for two whole weeks without a leave of absence

Are you guys forgetting about my post?

I was a mod in another invision free forum.
i think it's possible to lend someone the power.

We're not discussing whether or not it's possible by technical standards, we're discussing if it's possible in a sensible way.

Do you guys really think it is necessary/good idea to be "lending" administrative powers to people. I mean, if the administrator is away for 3 weeks or something, then there are still the other administrator(s) there to help out. I don't think there is a need to "lend". I can understand by-laws for choosing staff members, but i think this whole administrative thing is kinda pushing it.
About being active, yes they need to be active; but remember they have lives outside of CB. i don't think there needs to be a number or a limit about how much time they spend, they are responsible enough to be promoted to that position, so i think they can manage their time wisely.

Well, lending admin powers to "people" don't sound quite as right as lending powers to a head staff who is active while the admin is away.

Not that I doesn't understand the whole "lives outside of cB" thing because it has been drilled in enough, but the point is that they need to be active to know who they're choosing to be on staff. If that's not an important factor, then I don't really have a side on this topic.

Still, i don't like the whole "lending" powers to even head staff. That def could get messy. And are all the administrators going to be away at the same time?

Yah the administrators do need to be active. i mean there is no arguement with that. But what i'm saying is, is that there is no need to make a law about it. You know?

Wouldn't be the first time. Meaning yes, it happened before.



So... if admins 'need' to be active and lets say that they're not and there's no law that requires them to be active? What is the point of 'needing' to be active when there's nothing to fault your inactivity?

^There doesn't have to be a "law". The administrators already know the guidelines of being active, and they obviously have the responisibility to do this. God forbid they are inactive, does that mean they will be kicked off because they were inactive for a while? What if there is a reason that they are inactive, are you giong to make laws on what is reasonable and not? because you might as well if we're try to bind everything with laws. I'm all for guidence and laws, but there comes a point where it is too much. If an admin is inactive for that long backstage i'm sure that something would be worked out. You say that the admins were all inactive in the past, and cb didn't fall apart and all hell didn't break loose.

at this current point at time...looking at the activeness of the admins, yes.
every one needs a bit of strictness. like i said..if they are going to be the administrators on a forum then they can be active at least once in a twoo weeks passing period from the last time they were on

Ok, I hate to bring this all into it, but you really don't think Christina and Roxy could have at least stopped by at least once for the modding process?

That's the point. If these people are the head honchos and make the decisions, then they need to be active enough to know what's going on and they have to be familiar with the members. I'm sorry, but I don't think just not being on for weeks at a time with no real explanation than "I have a life and I'm busy" is suitable. I understand having a life, but it is not hard to stop by once in a while.

do we define active to be posting in the actual community forums, or just backstage?

because like sammi said with the process of hiring, the shouldnt be the deciding factor if they dont actually interact with the members themselves. i mean, yes you can read the posts without posting yourself, but it would b enic eif the admins actually got to know them directly.

they should be active in any of the forums, but not JUST backstage when they are trying to be "active"

^

that's what i meant

thank you.

you make good summaries.

Ok, are talking about our current admins? If we are, then why dont we as mods bring this problem to them now. I'm mean its like we have ever told them we had a problem with their lack of activeness around the community. And I agree that admins need to be active in around and about the community, not just backstage. They should as be familiar with members as well and take part on such important things as hiring. I mean after all, that is what they have been entrusted to do.

well, i was talking about any admin in general, but yeah, it does apply to the current ones

actually, christina posted in the lounge recently, bu tbefore that i hadnt seen her or roxy for aaaaaaaaaaages.

do they even know we have new staff?

I know, I was online yesterday when Roxy was on. I mean do they know about this thread. What do they have to say about it? I'm pretty sure they know they aren't active enough.

well it wouldnt hurt for us all to discuss with them about it cause im sort of wondering why they were absent for so long

yah i've seen Christina posting around backstage, and Roxy has posted in Pictures from her birthday and stuff.
But i agree with Keira, it might be better if we just bring this up with them

Okay, you'd really going to wait for Hell to break loose before getting help from someone? Seriously, I was around for two major spam fests and it wasn't fun when mods didn't have any powers over it and we had to wait for an admin to do what was needed to be done. cB didn't fall apart, but moderators were definitely NOT okay with hanging around and feeling helpless. I know it is unfair of me to say that you have to experience it to know since you've just been hired, but I did experience it and I was rightly frustrated. I wasn't the only one who felt that way either and all you need to do is look through backstage to find out.

And please don't tell me that cB don't fall apart when admins aren't here. That's not the point, obviously. The point, since the begining of this thread is that admins should be active so they'd make the right choices in hiring and to help when help is needed not wait til cB falls apart to help. That's all.

Roxanne and Christina are great when they're here. When they're not though, I feel that someone else should have the power to lend a helping hands to mods.