Manager roles on forums

[Strawberry]

I'm sure we are all familiar with the various user groups on forums - the most common simply just being Administrator and Moderator. However, some forums adopt other various roles, and one I particularly want to ask about is 'Manager' roles. An example could be Community Manager or Forum Manager.

Where do you stand with these roles, are they an integral part of your forum? What are your expectations from someone on your forum who is in a Manager role, do you have a certain job description for them? What sort of decisions do you feel you can leave for a Manager to make without your input?

 

[Cory]

I don't think I've ever really had manager roles and just had different staff teams. I can see it working out for the most dedicated staff member that is most actively involved with the community. I would expect them to help their fellow team members with whatever it is they could use assistance with. Sometimes if the administrator isn't around then I could expect that a manager could be next in line to contact, so having a vast knowledge of the forum can be a good thing. I wouldn't really let managers have staff controls beyond what is necessary to keep the community in check. Overall, if you have lots of staff members it sounds like it could be a logical move to make, but not 100% necessary.

 

[Cedric]

I don't think I've ever really had manager roles and just had different staff teams. I can see it working out for the most dedicated staff member that is most actively involved with the community. I would expect them to help their fellow team members with whatever it is they could use assistance with. Sometimes if the administrator isn't around then I could expect that a manager could be next in line to contact, so having a vast knowledge of the forum can be a good thing. I wouldn't really let managers have staff controls beyond what is necessary to keep the community in check. Overall, if you have lots of staff members it sounds like it could be a logical move to make, but not 100% necessary.

I agree. Our staff can do everything that’s needed in case of spam or breaking the rules here. They can ban, which is the most needed permission should this be required. There’s no need for ACP access. We use an add on Moderation Panel that gives a lot of permissions and liberty for staff, and not needing a second Admin or having a staff member with ACP access.

 

[Cory]

We use an add on Moderation Panel

It's vast and overwhelming compared to what I've used on forum software in the past. 😅

 

[Cedric]

It's vast and overwhelming compared to what I've used on forum software in the past. 😅

Yeah it can take some time because there’s loads of features. But it’s a great add on nonetheless. VERY functional.

 

[Strawberry]

I agree. Our staff can do everything that’s needed in case of spam or breaking the rules here. They can ban, which is the most needed permission should this be required. There’s no need for ACP access. We use an add on Moderation Panel that gives a lot of permissions and liberty for staff, and not needing a second Admin or having a staff member with ACP access.

So in terms of that, what do you think the main differences between a Community Manager and a Community Moderator/Community Team Member are? Is it more of a hierarchy and seniority thing, like Cory said, if the Administrator isn't available, then they would be the next point of contact?

I know on some forums, a manager role is part of the admin team, and the CM would be responsible for basically being a line manager for the moderators, hiring/firing etc... whereas on other forums the CM role is tailored more towards engagement and user activity.

 

[Mamberroi Jr]

Based on my experience of forums formerly I used a scale of User Groups where I will show you below how it looked.

1-: Administrator (Forum Manager)
2-: Co-Administrator (Responsible for Operation and Supervision)
3-: Global Moderator (Global Moderation Officer and Forum Moderators)
4-: Moderator (In charge of the Moderation of the assigned forums, edit/delete topics or responses outside the thread)
5-: User V.I.P (Contributing users and developers of the Community. Exemplary in behavior and debate on the various topics provided by the Site)
6-: Girls (Female Users)
7-: Boys (Male Users)
8-: Registered Users (Users newly registered in the Community)
9-: Trolls (A troll is a person who publishes sarcastic, incendiary, or controversial content aimed at an account or movement seeking to disrupt the communication of their environment. This can be done both by using your personal image and by creating a fictitious profile. The behavior of trolls, to fit the definition, must be constant; oscillating between the sarcastic, the controversial and the digitally violent.)

 

[Arantor]

Curious, why separate 6 and 7?

 

[Mamberroi Jr]

Curious, why separate 6 and 7?

Defines the sex of one sex and the other makes it easy to know if the person leading the group is a Man or a Woman

 

[Arantor]

Why though? Especially in a time when there is a non-trivial segment of society who for whatever reason choose not to identify as such.

If anything, this encourages sexism in all sorts of nasty ways - it shouldn't *matter* whether it's a man or a woman, as long as they're contributing meaningfully and doing whatever role they have correctly.

 

[Mamberroi Jr]

Why though? Especially in a time when there is a non-trivial segment of society who for whatever reason choose not to identify as such.

If anything, this encourages sexism in all sorts of nasty ways - it shouldn't *matter* whether it's a man or a woman, as long as they're contributing meaningfully and doing whatever role they have correctly.

For that we can leave it to the preferences of the Users if they wish to make their identification of the sex to which they belong visible or not.

 

[Strawberry]

Thanks for sharing your experience with user groups @Mamberroi Jr.

Lets leave the discussion with regards to Boys/Girls user groups there for now as it's quite a sensitive subject and I don't want things to become overly heated and take a turn away from the original discussion point of this thread. 🙂

 

[Mamberroi Jr]

Nothing to worry about @Strawberry I just added my experience and humble opinion. You don't have to leave the thread conversation

 

[ClicketyKat]

As far as managers for a staff designation, I'm all for it if it truly represents a lead role on the site. I used to be a on huge Christian forum, and at one point they had managers. They changed things a bit for a while and I believe those managers became Supervisors. The managers were in charge of select areas of the forum since it was so massive.

The Chain of Command went something like this:
Advisors
Administrators
Supervisors (or Managers)
Moderators
Moderator-in-training

The Advisors were the top dogs who solely dealt with the site owner. The site owner was on only a couple times a year from what I remember back then.

But back to managers, it can be good for huge sites to have them care for an area as well as any moderators that are placed under them. They mentor them, correct them and the community learns to trust those managers to care for that section and be fair in rulings (reports).

 

[Aaron]

I've got it like this on my forum as it's a media forum.

Producers - Moderators
Executive Producers - Admins
Director - Owner/Co Owner

 

[Reverie]

It depends on the type of forums I think as well...

General Discussion forum
- Admin/Co-owner
- moderator team

When the forum grows it may require a community manager who helps in specific tasks - like community contests.

Admin forum:
- Admin/co-owner
- Community Team (they are over the community discussions - a manager would be added to manage the community members)
- Package Team Same as above, just specific to the topic.)
- Advertising team (Same as above, just specific to the topic.)

Managers help the most in my opinion when the forum grows to the point where admins are overhwhelmed and the team may be overwhelmed as well. Specifying tasks helps and keeps things organized.