Do You Really Need Moderators?

[Nomad]

I am running multiple forums but I have a moderator only on one of the forums. There are two reasons why I don't have moderators, one, my forums are too small so there is nothing to work on for a moderator, and two, I do not have funds to pay for the moderator. Instead of hiring a moderator and paying moderator fees, I frequently buy posting package for my forums on various webmaster forums.

 

[Cory]

I think it depends on multiple factors, such as the purpose of your forum, how active it is, and how many duties need to be given to those in charge. You don't want an administrator to get overwhelmed with too many duties that it burns them out. Of course, user engagement is part of a forum and moderators can help engage with your members and keep them coming back. They have a purpose on most forums, but some forums do not necessarily need them, I think. I'm the only staff member on my board out of 1300+ members, but I don't have near as much activity or duties as some boards.

 

[Nomad]

I think having a few active members is far better than having thousands of members who are not active. If there is not much activity on your forum, I don't think moderators are actually needed.

 

[Shortie]

I will be honest that on both forums I own and co-own myself I don't have any moderators at the moment either and I just have two admins, myself and my other half who both moderate the forum and feel like we are managing to do that. If the forums were to get busier I would definitely consider bringing moderators on who could help with keeping the forum clean from spam and any problems and also help with activity as well.

 

[CharlesW]

I am a big proponent of moderators should focus more on engagement and “positive” moderation rather than “negative” moderation. As in: moderators can be professional cheerleaders for your community than your police force

 

[Kale]

In this day and age? Hardly. I've not needed to do much modding outside of banning spammers and issuing a warning to somebody for basically spamming the forum. I have 1 mod on my forum but that is about it. I am not foreseeing me needing to truly add anymore than just the one I have.

 

[Strawberry]

I guess it really depends on the demographic of the forum and the amount of activity on it. A busy forum aimed at a younger demographic, say in relation to a video game, may not require the same amount of moderation that a quieter forum about books and reading would.

 

[Xilia]

I'll be honest, I've been burned WAY too many times by people coming together saying "we'll help you make this board" and then I still ended up doing 90-95% of the work anyway. For this reason, outside of my real life partner, I almost never get outside help anymore.

 

[Ravenfreak]

I think certain forums still need moderators even in this day and age. Smaller forums don't really need moderators, the admin/owner should be able to handle things until the community starts picking up steam.

 

[Heatman]

I believe that if you have the time to run your forum successfully without needing anyone to assist you, you don't really need to have moderators to work and get paid unless they decide to do it voluntarily. Also if your community is too small for you to manage by yourself, I believe that you don't necessarily need an extra staff to run it.

 

[Reverie]

The biggest thing I've noticed a need for moderators is for someone to be online when you the admin aren't and can handle spam and etc in the moment. Now a days I know it's not as big of a deal - but I remember when it was like spam attacks happened... and it got graphic and etc. It was always good to have someone online.

I think it also depends on the type of forum possibly as well. Sometimes there isn't much point to staff at the beginning, however at the same point they could also be the ones to help advertise the forum to bring in more traffic. I think if you feel like you can manage on your own that should be okay.

 

[Arantor]

Fully agree on the sentiment of having moderators be your active engagement team - moderator as a term is so 2004!

But also, there is a side job you see from moderation teams that's not entirely moderation - if you have some kind of processes on the forum about topics (either support topics that need further information, or other topics that have some kind of workflow you want them to go through) where the things you're missing are not automated, if they're even automatable, you'll have people filling in those steps.

In RP terms it'll be things like assigning groups to people based on their character sheet/bio, just as an example. For these processes, whatever you can automate, great.

 

[Uncrowned]

Many sides to take and input to give here, but overall it really depends on the situation. Some admins line up well with the main activity of their forums and moderators are almost redundant, other admins find them in opposite time zones and miss all of the interaction. I agree with @CharlesW that mods should be more of a positive staff member than a negative moderator and that can be a huge influence if your site needs mods or not.

 

[Heatman]

Many sides to take and input to give here, but overall it really depends on the situation. Some admins line up well with the main activity of their forums and moderators are almost redundant, other admins find them in opposite time zones and miss all of the interaction. I agree with @CharlesW that mods should be more of a positive staff member than a negative moderator and that can be a huge influence if your site needs mods or not.

It's paramount that any staff member hired to work in any forum must contribute positively to the growth of the community. There's no point in having a staff that doesn't add value to the forum. It's best to get rid of such a staff member or members immediately. It's better not to have any staff than to have one's that would be of negative impact on your forum.

 

[Tracy]

Currently for my small site size... nope, I can do it all myself. BUT if I ever "grow up" to be big like some others in my niche, you can bet your bottom that I'll use moderators.
For small sites, there realistically is NO need for additional moderators if you are doing your due diligence as the site administrator. Heck, even up to the several hundred users you should actually be able to moderate your site yourself.

 

[~ True Legend ~]

I think certain forums still need moderators even in this day and age. Smaller forums don't really need moderators, the admin/owner should be able to handle things until the community starts picking up steam.

What you haven't considered is bias mitigation. If you ban anyone you don't like, the community will lose respect for you. Of course you can claim your house, your rules, sure. But fairness and consistency is best enforced when decisions are made in a group as opposed to one person.

 

[JennyorAlice]

I think it really depends on whether you think the community has grown to the point that you can't handle it buy yourself, first of all. The other side is if you have a couple of friends that you get along well with, you can hire them to work at moderators who can help you post a little more content around the forum as well to keep people engaged.

 

[kensonplays]

Normally, smaller sites don't need moderators for a while. BUT I keep my mods/admins in sync between all aspects of my community. Site, game servers, Discord, live stream chat.

 

[Nomad]

I think certain forums still need moderators even in this day and age. Smaller forums don't really need moderators, the admin/owner should be able to handle things until the community starts picking up steam.

I have small forums, and there is not much for work, therefore, I am able to handle everything in my community, including moderation. I am also a moderator on a couple of forums and some forums need a lot of moderators because the communities are really huge.