Paying for Moderators?

[iKnowThings]

I am considering investing myself in a larger forum to meet a need that isn't being met in my profession of choice. I can easily own/operate the forum and run things like contests, ads, events, etc, but my biggest hurdle in research right now is having a quality, 24/7 moderation staff.

What is the fair price for this type of thing? How do you even really establish it legally without getting into trouble?

 

[Tania]

Pay levels vary widely. I've seen a quote that AskCom moderators get $12 per hour, but on many forums, moderation is an unpaid position. If you have a lot of members, try approaching some of the more respected and responsible ones to see if they will do it free, presenting it as a chance to help out as the community grows. That also has the advantage that they already know the community and posters. Free perks can also be useful, such as custom titles, a moderator's only board etc.

If you don't have enough members, then you could try posting on a freelancer board, but whoever you get will need to build respect and rapport with the community, or it could harm the feel you've established. Apparently these are also offered as work-at-home positions, which are paid as contract and might be cheaper for you.

Finally there are companies that offer professional moderation services, but those can be expensive and again you have to be very careful that they have a feel for the group. If you search for forum moderation service you will find several. The boards I've seen that use them were large networks getting several million posts a day across hundreds of boards and had ridiculously high user numbers.

 

[iKnowThings]

Ideally, I'm going to have a blend of both paid and unpaid moderators. I was thinking more along the lines of paying people monthly because the type of forum that'll be creating is definitely subscription friendly. I am absolutely sure that I could build it to a large following fairly quickly, but that still implies about a year of development. I'd rather not go to any companies, as I'd like to pay people directly.

 

[Fueledbycaffeine]

I've run a forum of about a thousand users without a single paid moderator, but I must have been the exception and this was quite a while ago. If you go for the free route, notice the sections in which the users are most active in, then either make an announcement that you are looking for moderators and hope they volunteer, or ask them personally and make them moderators of that section. This used to work really well, instead of having every moderator be global and split between 10 to 20 sections, every moderator had its own "home turf" and really functioned more like a janitor to clean his or her portion of spam, and a frequent poster and thread opener of whatever section he moderated.

 

[pwarbi]

I've also never paid for any moderators across the forums that I've had in the past, and on the forums I myself have helped out on I haven't charged for that service either.

A lot depends on the size of the forum and just how strict it needs to be controlled. Personally though on a new start up you'll be able to handle the forum yourself, and then even for the first few months if your getting a lot of hits I'd offer the moderator and admin positions to your members first.

 

[iKnowThings]

Yeah, I'm planning on sourcing the community and looking for people that need work to be active and available and sort of answer any questions and things like that that pertain to forumy stuff. Because the financial element is intimately linked with the subject itself, this has the potential to have lots of cash flow coming in, and moderators would simply be necessary as profits increase because time required would naturally increase. Plus, I just wanna hire people to work cool jobs and consider me some renegade freelance web dev god that inspires them. The dreeeam[DOUBLEPOST=1458828814][/DOUBLEPOST]

I've run a forum of about a thousand users without a single paid moderator, but I must have been the exception and this was quite a while ago. If you go for the free route, notice the sections in which the users are most active in, then either make an announcement that you are looking for moderators and hope they volunteer, or ask them personally and make them moderators of that section. This used to work really well, instead of having every moderator be global and split between 10 to 20 sections, every moderator had its own "home turf" and really functioned more like a janitor to clean his or her portion of spam, and a frequent poster and thread opener of whatever section he moderated.

I am absolutely -not- going the free route, I should say. The forum requires too much robust activity, and the mods would also be active enough to warrant their place in the community - more of profit sharing for being a part of the process and contributing to the well-being while allowing them to spend as much time as they want in the community without needing their crappy job anymore

 

[PenguinManiac]

Well, on the one hand, paying them would give them more reasons to work harder and would decrease the chances of sudden departures; on the other hand, this means that you most likely won't get people who are passionate about your forum's main topics, but only do it for the money, which can make things ugly fairly quickly.
So, what I'd say is that you should go for paid mods just if you really need to. You can find plenty of people who will do it for free out of passion, and if you can't, chances are you are the only needed moderator.

 

[Deka]

Hi!

I tried searching for the salary that some forum owners set for their supposed moderators. One forum owner I found in Upwork and the pay he is offering is about $1/hour. The maximum hours of work per week is about 14 hours though. So it depends on the hours as well that you would need the moderator to work. For me, 14 hours a week is just little time. If you would need the moderator to work at least a few hours a day, then you would have to pay him higher even if it's just a dollar an hour.

Well, the good route to go is to look for freelancers if you want to go the legal route. Or you can have your friends or relatives do the job as well. If your forum has launched, you can also try getting a moderator from a member that is active and trust-worthy.

Good luck!

:allsmiles: