How much time do you think an admin needs to spend on his/her forum?

[xpl0iter]

I would say, an admin needs to be online almost all the time possible if its a start up forum! Also its not the matter of just time, you have to be active and keep on doing all possible things to make the community more interesting!

 

[dojo]

It depends. You need to be online on other forums not only yours. A big chunk of the admin work is creating content and promoting, so just sitting in your admin panel won't get most of the stuff done. Be present in the community daily, but you don't need to be logged in there for 24 hours. Instead, even if you can be there for 30 minutes, make them count. create new interesting articles and threads and then use up the time to promote the site

 

[Sam1]

It depends. You need to be online on other forums not only yours. A big chunk of the admin work is creating content and promoting, so just sitting in your admin panel won't get most of the stuff done. Be present in the community daily, but you don't need to be logged in there for 24 hours. Instead, even if you can be there for 30 minutes, make them count. create new interesting articles and threads and then use up the time to promote the site

Bolded the crucial bit in this

 

[Shole]

As an admin you have to be online a lot and work hard not just be online and staring at your site

 

[xpl0iter]

As an admin you have to be online a lot and work hard not just be online and staring at your site

Yeah thats for sure! I mean the promoting part is the main thing an admin needs to be careful about. Making the contents will be done by the staff and other members is the forum is good enough. But for the people to join your forum, first you have promote them!

 

[Hirvi]

As much as possible altho if you have good and popular forum going on with moderators then you can let them do the job.

 

[Sam1]

As much as possible altho if you have good and popular forum going on with moderators then you can let them do the job.

I'd get annoyed as a moderator if I saw the admin not doing too much

 

[Brentnauer]

It depends. You need to be online on other forums not only yours. A big chunk of the admin work is creating content and promoting, so just sitting in your admin panel won't get most of the stuff done. Be present in the community daily, but you don't need to be logged in there for 24 hours. Instead, even if you can be there for 30 minutes, make them count. create new interesting articles and threads and then use up the time to promote the site

dojo knows whats up. To echo what she (he?) said in a much less succinct way: YOU are your community, and you need to get yourself out there and get some exposure. Spend a little bit of time each day on your actual site, but spend MOST of it elsewhere creating a good impression that leads people to your community.

 

[flame]

I must admit I struggle with balance - I have my forum, forums I like for me, and forums I post on to promote or earn points to promote etc - I generally get to the end of each day and find I haven't spent time on forums I like for me because its I have been on promotion work etc . Mind you I guess this is no different to setting up a business in the real world - I visit forums as leisure because I enjoy it - if I start any type of business in the real world I would have to start off with next to no time for leisure so would stop visiting them as often. However because my "business" involves something very similar to my leisure it is difficult to see the difference.

I think as well as being available for large amounts of the day on a new forum you have to be very aware of what you are doing and why so you can keep focused.

 

[razelia]

For my established forums, I'm usually only online around 30 minutes a day to check on things. It really helps if you have trustworthy staff who can oversee things for you. Since my forums are under main websites, I have my staff allocated - some for the main site and others for the forums. And they do their job well.

 

[coolmatt47]

I think an admin should be on a starting forum for AT LEAST 4 hours a day. Really they should be on all they possibly can. Once it is well established I think they should still be on for 2 hours a day.