How often should an admin visit his (or her) forum?

On some forums that I visit, the admin is a constant presence, going from discussion to discussion to keep the conversation going. Then again, on other forums, there are many moderators and staff members but no visible sign of an admin or forum owner (often the same person).

Just my personal preference, but I would prefer to see admin on site. If it were my forum, you couldn't keep me away. I'd want to know what was going on at the forum and check out all the new discussions posted and interact with guests and members as they came onto the board.

What's your preference? Do you visit your forum daily, weekly, once in awhile? Do you work mostly behind the scenes at your forum rather than in front where members can see you? Or, would you prefer to personally interact with forum/community members?

 

I personally visit daily. Post a few new threads, reply to the interesting threads, take part in anything else that's going on on the forum.

 

Didn't know you had a forum, where is it located?

I visit my forum every few hours, check up on things, reply to threads, and start more. Usually I'm the only staff member online however, so it's a necessity.
Also, don't judge admins for not being online all the time, there could be other reasons other than neglect, they have a life to live too

 

I'm always visiting my forum whenever I can, you can't keep me away from it. As for other forums, I'd rather see the staff reply to as much as possible as it shows that they are active, and that they are not ignoring you, etc.

 

The Admin should be on as much as possible. It is their forum after all, and they are setting and example for the rest of the members/staff.

 

Thanks for your comment. I hope that I would never judge an admin or site owner for not being on the forum all the time. And, I don't want it to come across that way. We all have families, jobs, lives, other responsibilities.

I'm just talking about not seeing the admin on site EVER. It makes me think the forum owner is in it just for the money and letting others manage the forum. As a forum user, I would prefer to be on a forum where the admin/owner feels a personal, emotional investment into the site and it's success rather than just seeing the forum as a business opportunity. Though I have nothing against a person making money off a forum.

 

Im on my forum daily, a forum owner should try to at least be on their forum everyday for at least 5 hours or they should not be running a forum, just my opinion. If you cant devote the time, than you shouldnt be running one. Same goes for being a parent, running a forum, and taking care of a child are very similar.

 

Tell me about it. And, I have plenty of experience with that last category.

I wouldn't have any time online if my kid wasn't an online game freak who just so happens to have her own computer sitting in the same room as mine.

So most of her free time is spent on that.

No really, I didn't plan it that way to get more time online, it just worked out like that.



As for time spent on a forum, I couldn't agree with you more. A forum is pretty much a full time job at the end of the day after your other full time job ends. Or, in the case of someone going to college or school, when classes are out. It's the thing you do in your free time. Some people crochet. Others golf. Forum admins tend their forum.

Forums are not like an easy care 'wash and wear' blog where you write 30 entries and then set them to auto-publish at some later date so you almost never have to set foot on the blog through out the month. (Not the same thing as auto-blogging, cause you know how much I hate that).

That's easy. A forum requires intense dedication and commitment. And, a person shouldn't even think about going into it just for the notion of making money. That's secondary, cause if the passion is not there, the money WON'T follow!

 

Yes, I have to agree with that. I've seen several once great communities die suddenly because the admin stopped bing active. It was very sad, a few of you may remember MyBB Runway, a very tragic example.

 

Actually that was a little bit before my time as I'm new to the admin forums. Though I have been on webmaster forums for some time now. Just the time commitment alone required to run a successful forum should be enough to discourage most people from hopping online to create their own 'me too' clone forum. But, you'd be surprised how it's not.

There are so many would've been, could've been, never should've been forums out there littering up cyber space. And, just once in awhile you'll crash into one as you're zipping along the super highway. It's really sad. Those forum owners should never have even tried if they weren't going to be able to either invest time or money equivalent to hire proper staff to keep the forum alive.

 

We all have issues and events in day-to-day life, so a forum admin can't be on 24/7. However, there is usually a period in every day with some free time. A forum admin should use this part of the day to visit his/her forum, check up on it, post replies/topics, and just read around.

 

A constant presence is always a good idea for the admin/forum owner, initially when a forum is just first getting started and there are few other members to post responses or carry on a conversation. In those early days, every voice counts on a forum, especially the admin's who provides strength and guidance for everyone and keeps the forum from falling over on it's face or being taken over by obnoxious bullies and trolls.

Then, when the forum is more established, the admin or site owner is still needed to help set the right tone for conversations so their own vision of the forum becomes a reality.

 

Exactly its true when you say "A forum is pretty much a full time job at the end of the day after your other full time job ends" because lately I have working really hard, and then when I get back home the first thing I do is get on AdminBB. I have been working long and hard recently as its summer now, but I still try my best to come on AdminBB after work while I am tired and stressed out. I get to posting and moderating as soon as I come on here. And I agree about you saying if there is no passion, the money wont follow..

 

Seriously? Five hours a day? That's intense. And I know I can't do that with a day job, a family, and a social life.

I actually have a job where I can take breaks and check in on my forum from time to time. But having kids and a wife and friends and a tv show now and then or a date night and exercising won't allow me to spend five hours a day on a forum.

And to see it as another fulltime job...only if I was making close to "fulltime income" off of it. But if that is my goal, then of course that's the work I'd need to put into it. But for a fun hobby....25-35 hours a week? wow.

 

Well, usually when you crash into one off of Google you do find the information you happened to be searching for at the time, which makes me happy, but I wouldn't be concerned about how they're faring unless I thought I wanted to be a member there.

 

I don't actually have a forum of my own at the minute, though I've had several in the past and I used to visit everyday. I do, however, administrate a forum and I make my best effort to visit that site daily too.

 

Many of us are insomniacs and stay up till the wee hours tweaking things online. At least, that's the case for me. When I don't have a current online project, I'm pretty laid back, enjoying my home life and hanging out with my kid. But, then an idea comes to me and it feels like the right time to act and I turn on the engines and crank it into overdrive.

I'm not trying to give the impression that I run after every idea that pops into my head.

On the contrary. I might mull over an idea for several years and then when the pieces fall into place, I'm more than ready to capitalize.

I can really identify with your situation, cause I have a family too. And, many of us do.

Sometimes, it's just about peeking in on your site, as you mentioned, in those brief free moments during the day. At least, that gives the impression that you are there all the time. People see you are signed into your forum and they just assume you spend all day there. Popping by once an hour to update something on the forum gives you a public presence, so in that way you have an advantage, even if in reality you are on the job and only coming by for a few minutes at a time.

It's all about good time management and being prepared to grab up those snippets of time and make the most of them. You don't need more than five or ten minutes to login to your forum and update a couple conversations, like some posts or tweak some behind the scenes settings.

 

I can see that. And I do agree that to be successful you have to be really lucky, work really hard, or a combination of both.

And I can completely understand when an idea or notion starts to overtake your thoughts and you just have to do something about it. And the night time hours when everyone else in the house is asleep is sometimes the best to do the nuts and bolts of making your online community work.

If I could somehow get by on only 3 or 4 hours of sleep each night, I'd be SOOOO productive.

 

I'm on my forum daily as well. I work a full-time job and still manage to be on at least 3-5 hours a day. It's extremely important for me to keep new content generated because GamerBB is still new. Members create new topics but not as many as I would like or enough to be the lifeline of GamerBB. So I'm constantly creating threads every single day.

It's important for an administrator to be on more than any other user. You're literally the leader and the community is going to move in the direction you run your forum in. If you aren't around much then your members won't be either.

 

You've summarized my thoughts on the situation precisely. If you're really dedicated to a forum's long-term success you have to be willing to give up something just to be able to spend more time on the forum creating threads, responding, tweaking software, adding plug ins, checking ads, etc. All these things are important. You might end up cutting sleep, TV time, other hobbies, time out of the house on weekends, etc. For every forum owner, it's going to be a different experience cause of job, family and home life.

The key to finding more time on the forum for admin duties would be to document what you do in a full day's time, including an estimate of how much time each activity takes and then decide what can be reassigned to another person, cut out or postponed till later. And, learning to use those spare minutes while you wait on something else to work on the site could be helpful.