What title should a forum owner bear?

[Heatman]

Most of the forums that I have been on, the board owners usually have the title Administrator with some other titles like moderator and the rest. But I feel that such positions are held by other staff members hired to work on the forum.

I believe that forum's owners should have a distinct title "Owner" tagged to their account in order to quickly and easily differentiate them from ordinary staffs.

 

[Arantor]

I've generally kept it simple: administrator for anyone who is a full admin and has access to all the tools, 'moderator' or 'staff member' for anything else.

I did at one point experiment with more... flavoured titles, e.g. on a site called Floo Network, the admins were 'Floo Network Authority' but I think we ended up just becoming 'Administrators' in the end. Keep it simple.

 

[Cory]

If there were multiple administrators, I may tag myself as "Owner", but since I'm the only administrator of my board I think that title will suffice.

 

[Cedric]

Personally I have always felt that Owner is a strange title. No offence to anyone using it though. I just couldn't see myself using it. I always used Administration for titles. However, I found CEO being a funny title, but dunno if it would be usable on a forum.

 

[Shortie]

I know on the forum I co-own with Smokey he uses the title CEO as he is the owner and founder of the forum, I have the title administrator which I am happy with as I am a co-owner but I did not create the forum initially.

 

[Heatman]

Personally I have always felt that Owner is a strange title. No offence to anyone using it though. I just couldn't see myself using it. I always used Administration for titles. However, I found CEO being a funny title, but dunno if it would be usable on a forum.

Owner title is even more applicable than CEO in my opinion 😂. CEO definitely sounds weird.. Chief Executive Officer!! Are you kidding me 😂

I know on the forum I co-own with Smokey he uses the title CEO as he is the owner and founder of the forum, I have the title administrator which I am happy with as I am a co-owner but I did not create the forum initially.

Yeah, it's only on his forum that I have seen the CEP title used.

 

[Dilip]

I normally am satisfied with the admin tag. Never wanted a badge that says, Founder or Owner. Never my style of identity.

But in some niche, it matters. Showing off authority helps.

 

[Strawberry]

I can't say I've come across many forums that have used 'Owner' as a title, I'm used to just seeing Administrator. Personally, if I was to open a forum, I would most likely just use admin too. I don't see a reason anyone would need to know that I'm the 'owner', especially if I have other admins/mods that have similar permissions to me.

 

[Dilip]

The Owner badge is a new trend. Was not there in 2010s.

Owners were happy to wear the admin badge. Possible reasons are these days, admins are not the owners anymore. Forums are a business and non-technical people are taking the owner role.

 

[Anachiwo]

There's no point in using the owner badge just to let people know that you're the owner of the forum. It's something they should already once they have completed their registration and get the automated PM welcome message in their inbox.

 

[Cory]

get the automated PM welcome message in their inbox.

Not everyone does that though. But of course, you can always tell who the owner is (or atleast the original) because their ID will be #1.

 

[Arantor]

Was not there in 2010s.

It's much *older* than that.

It was a big thing years before to have some badge for Owner, often a little crown with an 'O' on it. But you see this concept in some platforms, e.g. phpBB that have the 'founder' group as a separate distinction to the 'admin' group.

because their ID will be #1.

I actually know multiple sites that have intentionally modified account #1 for this reason, and make it a generic 'staff' account of sorts, sometimes even going to the point of modifying the database to prevent it being logged into.

 

[Cory]

I actually know multiple sites that have intentionally modified account #1 for this reason, and make it a generic 'staff' account of sorts, sometimes even going to the point of modifying the database to prevent it being logged into.

That's true, I've seen that too. The name of the account is like "Staff" or something and account #2 is usually the owner.

 

[Kale]

It was a big thing years before to have some badge for Owner, often a little crown with an 'O' on it. But you see this concept in some platforms, e.g. phpBB that have the 'founder' group as a separate distinction to the 'admin' group.

I seem to recall that for some reason. Maybe it was a long time ago, but don't recall where.

 

[Dilip]

Before my time, I guess. Those days Admin badge was the most powerful one.

I see that not many flaunt it in 2020s. In certain forums, too many admins.

 

[Heatman]

Not everyone does that though. But of course, you can always tell who the owner is (or atleast the original) because their ID will be #1.

Yeah, you're right, it's not everyone that uses the welcome PM service but with their newsletter, you will know right away they were the owner of the forum.

 

[Anachiwo]

Not everyone does that though. But of course, you can always tell who the owner is (or atleast the original) because their ID will be #1.

It's only a few of the forums that I have registered on that doesn't use this welcome on board private message. I think it's a very good feature because it will even highlight steps for the new member to follow in order to catch up easily and also pointed on about where to read the forum's rules in order to stay out of trouble.

 

[Cory]

It's only a few of the forums that I have registered on that doesn't use this welcome on board private message. I think it's a very good feature because it will even highlight steps for the new member to follow in order to catch up easily and also pointed on about where to read the forum's rules in order to stay out of trouble.

Yeah, I know what you mean. I personally don't use it on my forum since I think it's fairly well-organized and navigatable.

 

[Anachiwo]

Yeah, I know what you mean. I personally don't use it on my forum since I think it's fairly well-organized and navigatable.

That's understandable. I have just created a new thread about the subject, so we can hear about other forum's owner's reasons for using or not using the feature.

 

[Heatman]

It's only a few of the forums that I have registered on that doesn't use this welcome on board private message. I think it's a very good feature because it will even highlight steps for the new member to follow in order to catch up easily and also pointed on about where to read the forum's rules in order to stay out of trouble.

Those that have been using forums for years must have seen everything there is to see in terms of forum's layout and the rest. For someone like me, I know how to find my way in any forum. It's only the newbie forum users that need those PM tips more.