What do you expect from an admin?

[Martee]

What do you expect from an administrator of a site/forum/blog? Do you think they should be a coding genius who is able to whip up plug-ins at the click of a finger or should they be active within their community?

 

[Sam1]

Active within the community is way more valuable than a coding genius. The ultimate would be both, but those people tend to reside within huge forums or have forums of their own. But activity will help a site grow, just being clever at coding will not.

 

[Martee]

Activity is always a big part in any forum. Whats the point in having an admin that does nothing? Whilst coding skills are a plus, it wouldn't help you make a great site. Unless maybe it was a coding community..

 

[Sam1]

Well then your Admin would be stuffed. Coders would treat him like a dog and not respect him at all...

 

[Alex1]

They should be active and somewhat knowledgeable. As long as they can do simple tasks needed to be done, they're alright.

 

[hashif]

An admin must be active in his community by providing valuable informations, and this keeps the community moving..

 

[Sam1]

Providing valuable information is useful, so an admin should be experienced in the niche that they're posting in

 

[Martee]

Very true, there is no use in being an admin of a soccer forum if you hate the sport now is there?

 

[Brendan1]

Very true, there is no use in being an admin of a soccer forum if you hate the sport now is there?

But you would hope that, if they hated the topic, they wouldn't join said niche's forum, or manage to make their way into an admin spot!

 

[Martee]

Very much so, haha. I meant in the sense that I've seen 'admins' start forums in a particular niche just because they think it will make them money. They have no knowledge of the niche they are getting into!

 

[Brendan1]

Oh, I didn't catch that from what you said above lol, but I have seen it way too often too,
People should know that you can't start something with the sole intention of "making money"... you will always fail and most of the time, end up looking like an idiot in the long run too!

 

[Martee]

Very true, I'll admit that my first forum venture was just for that purpose. I thought I could turn into a big shot forum in very little time. (Obviously I was naive) and of course,things didn't work out that way. Now-a-days I make my money by doing articles for people online and it brings in enough for me to buy myself a treat every one in a while whilst ensuring that I don't look like a werido or gain bad rep due to the reason you mentioned above.

I totally agree with you!

 

[Sam1]

Oh, I didn't catch that from what you said above lol, but I have seen it way too often too,
People should know that you can't start something with the sole intention of "making money"... you will always fail and most of the time, end up looking like an idiot in the long run too!

Passion, persistence, intelligence and a little luck are needed to run a successful website, I've had to learn that the hard way over time

 

[bcousins]

I expect my admins to:

-Know a bit about the job they have been placed into
-Be respectful of all users, Not just me
-Know when to stop, I.E not get involved in Flamewars as a user, rather as an adminstrator.

 

[joelr]

I wanted to bump this topic, an oldie but a goodie, because small, hobbyist communities tend to reflect the personality of their webmaster and the webmaster has an outsized influence on the community.

There are 'hard' and 'soft' skills that a great webmaster can have. Hard skills would be technical in nature, such as coding. Soft skills would be empathy, friendly, team-oriented.

What do you think are expectations of a great admin? Have you worked with one, or do you think maybe you're a great one yourself?

 

[MrDawn]

What do you expect from an administrator of a site/forum/blog?

Mostly to just keep things interesting, be active, be fair, understanding, promote the site, and put in an effort to get organic members.

 

[Cory]

I think the administrator can be the pinnacle of a forum. Without them, you can set the forum up for failure. They are there to help the board succeed in as many ways as possible. This isn't to say a board will fail without the administrator on standby to keep the site in order, some forums just generate activity through their upbringing by the member base and probably other staff members, but of course, it's always good to have at least one active administrator to take care of the things that regular staff members cannot.

It's good to have at least a little knowledge in all areas of administration, particularly if you're the only administrator of the board. It can always be a good thing to have a backup admin in case the owner goes MIA or simply needs help with things they do not know.

 

[Ravenfreak]

I'd expect the admin to keep the community alive by logging in at least every other day if they can't log in every day. They should keep the forum up to date, come up with new ideas on how to expand the community and add fresh, new content for potential members to join.

 

[Dilip]

What do I expect? To be fair and just. An admin is the captain of the ship. His character will reflect on the entire forum, transactions, habits, procedures and everything.

 

[Old Nick]

What do you expect from an administrator of a site/forum/blog? Do you think they should be a coding genius who is able to whip up plug-ins at the click of a finger or should they be active within their community?

I personally think that an admin should be as visible on a forum as an English spy in a Russian embassy. The administrator is the shadow worker, the technician, the one without whom nothing works but who never harvests laurels...

The creator of a forum should have the label of founder, for example, even if in most cases he is also the admin.

In the 2000s the administrator was in red and the moderators in green, it was a kind of convention but frankly it's outdated as a concept... on the big forums do you see admins? Little in general. On XenForo for example there are developers and moderators but no admins.

If by chance I manage to start a new forum I would not wear the admin label, I think I would be a moderator because that's the essence of the work on the front-end, implicitly I would be the administrator but what's the point of indicating it? Anyway, as the community goes along, the community will know who is pulling the strings...