General Your mistakes as administrator?

[NeoMetallix]

What are some mistakes you've made as an administrator?

For me, when we were very active, discussion started skewing heavily to forum games/spam and the chitchat thread. I wanted to move the needle back to other places but instead of curating content in those areas I just tried to kill those areas I didn't want as popular. That pissed a lot of people off. I should have just put effort into content elsewhere.

 

[Arantor]

Not banning some people quickly enough, until the well was already poisoned.

 

[Cedric]

Giving up too quickly. Losing interest in a project while it still had potential.

 

[an0nym0us]

sometimes I'm impatient, which hinders me in dealing with the members..

 

[NeoMetallix]

Not banning some people quickly enough, until the well was already poisoned.

Ugh I've done that too or give too many chances.

 

[Arantor]

Giving up too quickly. Losing interest in a project while it still had potential.

Yeah, I've done that, though sometimes I've wondered if the only person who ever believed things had potential was me, and I was deluding myself. Hard to tell sometimes.

 

[Darth Cognus]

Giving up too quickly. Losing interest in a project while it still had potential.

Yeah, I've done that, though sometimes I've wondered if the only person who ever believed things had potential was me, and I was deluding myself. Hard to tell sometimes.

Somewhere in between is the balance to find. In either case I think it comes down to looking at the project with a clear mind, avoiding time sunk fallacy, and being as objective about the project as possible so you can make the right decision with a clear head. Including the advice and circumstance of others who've worked on the project with you, ie, if perhaps they can or should carry the torch.

Every major error I can think of personally has been caused by failing due diligence in research, getting bogged down emotionally when I should have taken a clearer position, and confusing the balance going both ways: giving up on things that could have lived if I did just a bit more or different, yet not letting go when there was nothing more to be done and lingering is just a drain on energy and resources that could go to something healthy.

Beyond this? Not nipping dangers in the bud, being a bit too aloof resulting in other problems like poor recruitment and things being too dependent on me just doing them until I don't/burn out, and getting a bit sloppy sometimes resulting in me poking a techie and going 'help idk how it caught on fire'...

 

[Ravenfreak]

Giving up too quickly has always been my weakness and common mistake that I'm still working on. I'm trying my hardest to outgrow this, and I intend to keep Thee Zone and Gex Forums at the very least active. I admit that I failed at keeping my other sites active, and I'm at the point where I wonder if it's either A. Worth trying to revive some of them, or B. downloading the databases and closing shop on some of them until I'm ready to actually focus on them or just try to hand them over to people who are interested. (I'll have to think more about this, I'm still sick and can't really focus 100% just yet.)

 

[joelr]

Giving up too quickly. Losing interest in a project while it still had potential.

I think a lot of forum admins have this same challenge. There's an excitement and energy in starting something new: a new design, a new domain, a new server, getting things set up just the way you like, announcing it, promoting it, etc. All of that is exciting!

But the real magic of communities is not when it's new and empty, but when it's thriving and full.

 

[Henrywrites]

The main thing that is important to be done as a forum administrator is ensuring that your forum members are happy. Find out how to ensure that they are happy to always login to your website. If you fail to do this, you've made a big mistake.

 

[Cory]

I think a lot of forum admins have this same challenge.

It's probably the #1 reason forums close down so quickly. People lack the motivation or patience to run one. I know I get discouraged rather quickly when I create a forum only to see little to no sign-ups or little to no posts being made. It takes a lot of dedication sometimes to keep a forum going. You need that passion and drive.

 

[Empire]

Making mistakes is always going to be a thing, XD we make mistakes even if it's just a simple edit and we forgot to edit that line back haha

I did some CSS editing a while ago and I had I forgot to change a line which is why the theme is a little broken I forgot to edit the line back to how it was in the first place hahaha

 

[Husk]

In the past, I would bend over backwards for members or potential members... and compromise my own wishes for what I wanted in a website. I stopped doing that and of course, it meant that nobody joined anymore.

 

[NeoMetallix]

Another mistake I made early on was not banning people sooner. I was just happy to have people on but a bad apple or two showed up and I didn't want to get rid of them due to not having a bigger userbase. Even when it was bigger I didn't want to do that but you absolutely must if you want a healthy community.

There's no place for rude combative members.

 

[Cory]

I did some CSS editing a while ago and I had I forgot to change a line which is why the theme is a little broken

Being a coder, I'm used to this. I break stuff all the time, but I have to turn right around and fix it. I can't count how many times I've accidentally done infinite AJAX loops, for instance. Thankfully, I usually do testing on a test board before pushing the updates to my primary board, but I'm pretty sure there are still some updates I've made on live boards that broke the board into pieces.

 

[SarahKik]

I was/am a big pushover and let people walk over me and use me. My last couple runs as an administrator caused me so much anxiety and stress during some really hard times in my life that I don't think I'll ever run an open forum again.

 

[MrDawn]

Giving up too quickly. Losing interest in a project while it still had potential.

That's me. Presently I've discovered that making new forums isn't my cup of tea. I guess I'm still discouraged from the past 8 years of forums that I've participated in and watched them all fail. Now I just prefer partaking in established forums these days.

 

[Shawn Gossman]

In the past - mistakes have mainly been brought on by just being young and inexperienced in social situations. I have lost friends because I jumped the gun and acted in a way I shouldn't have. I have had favoritism in the past on forums I've owned, and that's never fair. I also trusted people a little too much to trust total strangers on the internet, LOL.

Nowadays, my biggest mistake is not consistently being active. However, I am working on it.

I closed my admin forum. I thought I wanted to do that again, but it turned out I didn't want to. The forums I am doing now are more my speed and passion, and because of that, I'm being more proactive with them.

My advice - stick with your passions.