Big or Small Staff team?

[Sam1]

Is is better to have a large or small staff team on a new forum and why?

 

[vortex]

Small team. Imagine a large percentage of your forum population being staff. Kinda threatening.

 

[Southern Comfort]

Small team. Imagine a large percentage of your forum population being staff. Kinda threatening.

Yeah, no one wants to run a dictatorship.

Keep it small and if more staff is needed, hire them.

 

[MrPanos]

On a new forum, I believe that it's good to have a small staff team because you are able to manage them more easily. But every staff member should be efficient and have much time to dedicate. Small forums need much free time in order to post content and to advertise them. Also, it is terrifying, in a forum which has 15 members, to see 10 staff members, isn't it! Visitors don't really like much color in usernames.

 

[AndroidOS]

I always try to keep my staff team as small as possible. It makes everything easier to manage, and make the forum look better at the same time (for example, if the majority of posts come from staff members it looks bad). Also, if you have a lot of staff members you run the risk of some of them being made redundant, as there is not enough jobs going around. This can lead to staff leaving not only the staff team but the forum as well because they feel as though they are not 'wanted' around there.

 

[Patrick]

It really depends on the genera of the forum. A general discussion forum would not need a lot of staff. The owner and maybe one moderator would be enough. However, on a promotion or service forum you would need more staff to cover the different services.

 

[lucky]

If you are a new forum, I think one admin and maybe one moderator should be good enough. Anything more than that is over kill and might warn off new members. Like what Patrick said, it all depends on the niche. I just hate when smaller boards hire all kinds of staff, because then wherever you looks, it's just staff and no actual members. That's a big turnoff for me.

 

[wasi90lk]

I think it really depends on your forum size. If your forum is big, having a big staff team makes more sense. If your forum is new, maybe 2-3 staffs should be enough.

 

[milksheikh]

Small staff as long as they are active. But a big staff is sometimes needed for a specific kind of forum ( example : promotion forums).

 

[wasi90lk]

@milksheikh

I completely agree that a promotion forum needs more staffs compared to other forums. You will need packagers, reviewers, moderators etc.

 

[iPhonefreak]

Small. Having a large staff when first open is very intimidating, and it will offset your moderator to member ratio.

 

[Roach]

I always prefer a small team so that communication is better throughout the ranks and I can make sure everyone is okay.

 

[Rick Ace]

Size does not matter. It's the experience, activity, and dedication that matters.

 

[Juice]

Size does not matter. It's the experience, activity, and dedication that matters.

A great little joke and I must fully agree with good old Rick.

 

[DylRicho]

Size does not matter. It's the experience, activity, and dedication that matters.

I can partially agree with this. However, a small staff team is essential when you're first starting out as you don't want to scare away potential users. As the userbase expands, let your staff team expand to compensate.

 

[Maxxamillion]

i think it depends, we need quite a big team as we provide news and more news staff more news more articles we dont have many forum staff

 

[Jordan]

i think it depends, we need quite a big team as we provide news and more news staff more news more articles we dont have many forum staff

In that since then yes.

The question does not really specify what kind of website. Example, blogs and the such can start out with a small staff team or big staff team with no harm either way. More staff means more articles etc.

 

[DylRicho]

The question does not really specify what kind of website

This is why I improvised.

 

[CMPuLs3]

I personally have a small staff team. This probably stems from being burned hard in the past with other websites that I used to run. The guys I have now are great, and do their job wonderfully.

I'll tell you how a big staff team is, if I ever need that many

 

[AndroidOS]

As has been said before, the size of a staff team really depends on the size and type of the website.

A forum that has just launched wants, in my opinion, no more than 3/4 staff members as otherwise it can come across as intimidating to new members. It also makes the forums look rather inactive, if it is mainly staff members who are posting.

A blog, on the other hand, can have a larger staff team however I still prefer smaller teams myself, as they are easier to manage. If you have a large staff team you are more likely to have "slackers" who do little work but still manage to get away with it, due to the sheer number of people you have to manage.