Re: Recruiting for the staff team

by Adrian 24th January 2010, 9:45 pm

This

Badger wrote:Hello All

I wanted to lay out my vision for the future management of the forum.

First of all, moderators.

That will be one of the last times I use that word. Moderators have traditionally been forum police, there to control content and behaviour and as far as I am concerned that is an archaic way of viewing forum staffing. I want to get away from the word moderator and from the way that fora are run and managed. Suggestions for a new word are most welcome.

I intend for us to have one forum member with specific skills and experience to run each sub forum i.e someone with excellent foraging experience for the "Food for Free" sub forum, someone with Investments experience for that subforum etc. It maybe that some have multiple passions/skills/experience and will end up running more than one subfora if they so desire.

Now what I need is not only experience and skill in each subforum, but also a commitment of time, to be able to keep topics moving, to be the resident expert if you will. There will be, as time progresses, disagreements, so there will be an element of traditional moderation as well, but I hope that we can work as a community and keep disagreements friendly. But above all a drive to share knowledge and to bring new content and topics to this site, to disseminate new ideas and thoughts on how we can live our lives the way we want.

The current team of AngelinaJellybeana, Wilhelm Von Rhomboid, MrsNesbitt, and Akuma will act as Global Moderators, and be there to cover whole sections (as well as run certian subfora) and will be the people that the individual experts can rely on as arbiters etc. They each have extensive experience in moderating fora and will be there to guide as needed. I will continue as site admin and be the final arbiter on disagreements, (but lets try and keep things so that isn't necessary) and may keep the odd subfora as my pet subjects, unless we get a subject expert in those areas.

There is one last thing I want to stress. In other fora, becoming a "moderator" is seen as a kind of promotion, a rising above the "herd" of other members. That is not so here, anyone who takes on a resident expert position runs only their relevant forum and no other, there will be no lording over sections/users the way some mods behave in on other fora. (I am not referring to any one forum btw, it is just a general observation from the many fora that I have used in the past).

So, the question is, do any of you feel that you can offer time, experience and sufficient subject knowledge to run a subforum? If you do and are interested, then send me a pm detailing what you can offer and remember that I don't expect you to be logged on 24hrs a day, 7 days a week, I'm more interested in skills and experience and commitment to your field than spending all day online. Passion is the key.

ta [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

by Jaded Green 24th January 2010, 9:55 pm

So would you need the person to be looking at the forum every day?

by Adrian 24th January 2010, 10:05 pm

No, not really, we aren't big enough to need that yet

I'm more interested in content management and progressive of the subfora

by Adrian 9th February 2010, 9:36 pm

Well thank you all for the offers of help so far.

Finally, I have had the time and energy to sort out new roles today. Changes have been made.

I am still looking for volunteers to run the following sections:

Knitting, sewing and weaving
Wombling and Crafting
Cooking and Baking
We love wood
The Coop
The Stable and The Byre
and last but not least
Preparedness

Can I ask that volunteers for each of the above areas have a practical knowledge of the their chosen area and be prepared to add new content and contribute regularly. (not every day of course, even I can't find that much time).

ta muchly my lovelies [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

by polgara 9th February 2010, 10:15 pm

You snuck that in badger, will have to get an intelligent head on sometimes now. book

by Hairyloon 9th February 2010, 10:17 pm

Badger wrote:I am still looking for volunteers to run the following sections:

Knitting, sewing and weaving
Wombling and Crafting
Cooking and Baking
We love wood
The Coop
The Stable and The Byre
and last but not least
Preparedness

Sorry Chief. Don't know too much about any of them... except maybe wood I suppose.

by Adrian 9th February 2010, 10:18 pm

Well, between being super tired and super busy, I haven't been giving the forum much attention at all over the last couple of weeks. Today I was just shattered after shovelling snow and decided to sort it all out.

by Compostwoman 9th February 2010, 10:19 pm

The Hairy one knows his wood stuff, he does...

by Adrian 9th February 2010, 11:23 pm

Well thank you all for the offers of help so far.

Finally, I have had the time and energy to sort out new roles today. Changes have been made.

I am still looking for volunteers to run the following sections:

Knitting, sewing and weaving
Wombling and Crafting
Cooking and Baking
We love wood
The Coop
The Stable and The Byre
and last but not least
Preparedness

Can I ask that volunteers for each of the above areas have a practical knowledge of the their chosen area and be prepared to add new content and contribute regularly. (not every day of course, even I can't find that much time).

ta muchly my lovelies [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

by Compostwoman 10th February 2010, 12:22 am

Thank you Badger for the changes.... Smile

by Jaded Green 10th February 2010, 11:43 am

Thank you Badger.

I promise to do my very best.

by polgara 10th February 2010, 11:51 am

Can I be changed from Guy to Gal Please.

by Adrian 10th February 2010, 1:26 pm

There is a very good chance that I have received an offer of help via PM which has gone astray. If you sent me a message and I haven't changed your status, its probably because I lost your PM. Please, please send me another one. My inbox is no longer over flowing

by polgara 10th February 2010, 2:11 pm

Thanks Badger. loveflag

by Hairyloon 13th April 2010, 1:29 pm

Can somebody explain what is the big issue with a thread wandering off topic?

I can see that it is a problem on a busy forum, where you can be debating several separate issues in the same thread, but I don't believe it is a great deal of effort to split a thread, and the regular cry of "off topic" does rather ruin the flow of conversation, and also winds me up.

Which brings me to the reason I've posted this here... it's not to make the point, but to put my hand up for that job if it wants doing.

Or if folk prefer things as they are, then I'm happy to continue getting slightly annoyed by the "topic police" (no offence meant). It is not a big deal.

by Adrian 13th April 2010, 2:17 pm

I usually have not one problem with "off topic" wanderings, it is how we operate in real life conversations after all. I think you are referring to my request in the Bluebell thread in the Trading post.

I agree that the discussion was necessary to establish the legality of the removal and distribution of the plants. However, I would prefer that, when i=this happens in simple factual areas like the Trading Post and it detracts from the offer, then a separate thread discussing 'whatever" is created and linked to the originating. Splitting a topic is a pain and involves just too much work at this time of the year for me, it is also nearly always impossible to get right. So I would rather avoid having to do it.

There are no topic police here and I do not want any topic police either. We are a new small forum and it is not necessary for us to do that, But there are many many areas to chat and I would rather that places like the Trading post are just used for simple offers, requests and trades and discussion kept to a minimum.

Ta

by Hairyloon 13th April 2010, 3:05 pm

Badger wrote:I think you are referring to my request in the Bluebell thread in the Trading post.

Prompted by it certainly, but really not referring to that one particularly.

Splitting a topic is a pain and involves just too much work at this time of the year for me...

That was what occurred to me, and was why I volunteered for it.
Actually, "split" is probably not the best way.
What I would suggest is to make a copy then trim the surplus from both. Perhaps even make two copies and move the original to archive in case of a cock up in the trimming.

by Guest 13th April 2010, 7:59 pm

It’s a bit like whether we want each thread to be edited and "presentable" like a television discussion or whether it is more like a normal conversation where it is quite normal to wander. Having managed many a meeting, I know that to keep a discussion on topic (especially in a restricted time frame) you do need to be quite authoritative which may cause a little disquiet on this forum. The editor of the programmes or the news papers have to balance their respect of the writer’s contributions and their own judgement. As we know some are more authoritative then others!

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