Separate Admin Account

I see on some boards that the administrator creates a regular account and uses that to post, and only uses the admininistrator account for handling back-end management.

Do you do this? Why or why not?

I don't, because I don't really see the need to.

 

I don't see the need to do this, and never have.

I can see why some may do this - an effort made in order to "separate" the tasks that an administrator is faced with: actively posting (public) and forum management (private - backend). This can also be considered as a method of "keeping things anonymous", or, in other words, maintaining an administrative position, yet keeping your staff role entirely private.

 

I don't. I don't find the need to. I'd like the users to get to know me and me only and not post as "another" user to get my opinions out there. I'd like to speak my mind even if I am an administrator as I let my users speak their mind. I'd like to get the users know me and not be scared to speak to me, to tell me their ideas directly. I want the users to know their admin is there and listening to them.

 

I have never done this and I think it is no need for it. If you do not want people to know that your admin then hide it on your regular user account and have it as an secondary group.

 

We do have a "Team" account, but its used for posting general announcements, not mod/admin functions.

 

Nope, I want my users to know immediately who to go to if they need help.

This is also why I use Image Ranks and User Group Markup.

 

Of course, for the same reason I don't do everything in my root account. I simply, generally do not need to use the actual functions that I have declared 'administrative' very often, and they are potentially highly destructive. My normal account has the same privileges as the other admins.

Nothing anonymous about it.

 

I would find it too annoying to have to log off and on again to administer the forum.

 

I don't. The only other account I sometimes make is a robot account.

 

I can imagine people doing this to possibly protect an admin account as a hacker would probably target user id 1 who is normally the administrator.

 

Why would you do that it does make any seance and why would you want two accounts more hassle and more confusion to remember both accounts.

 

When your an admin, why the secrecy? You want people to know your there and watching. Posting on a seperate account is okay just as long as members know its the true admin of the site but in most cases they don't. I personally would never do that as I want to make sure my members know I'm around.

 

This is what multiple browsers are for : )

 

Yes I do and this is one reason(s). I also felt since I'm doing a lot of posting people would probably be more conferable conversing with a mod than Admin.

 

I'd get all excited about that idea, except for the fact my IE has been broken (well, it runs, but many features don't work, i.e., no Javascript) for over a month now

 

Sometimes 2 is better than 1

After 17 years of staffing or administering forums, I can say with certainty that there can be many reasons for having two accounts on a forum. The administrator needs to see what their members see and sometimes the easiest way to do that is as a regular member (it's easy enough to see what guests see - just log off). I use two accounts and can be logged on in both accounts simply by using one browser for one account and the other browser for the second account. All good webmasters have at the least IE and Firefox so that they can see if there are any issues in the rendering of their site.

When I first started The Floor Pro Community, my goal was to have a website that was not "about" any particular member or segment of the flooring industry. If I wanted that, I would use jim-mcclain.com. I don't know about other industries, but flooring retailers are not well liked by installers, inspectors aren't at the top of manufacturer's Christmas lists, installers tend to not like anyone else in the industry. I was already well known as an installer and very few knew I was also a retailer. What's worse is that I wanted every segment of the industry to succeed and to be able to find common ground.

My feeling was that I would miss out on many dedicated professionals joining and participating had I been up front about who was behind thefloorpro.com. I kept it a secret from most members for many months. I did tell staff and a few friends, but it was a mystery to most for a long time. Jim McClain was just another member and this guy, TFP Admin was one or more people who ran the site. I guess I was lucky that so few people knew I was even capable of web development.

Now that most members know "T" and Jim are one and the same, I still use my admin account to conduct business and answer website problems. In fact, "T" is a fairly active account and I use it too for off-topic banter and posting information that most members forget to or don't understand how to gather (Google is my friend, but I guess is a stranger to a lot of older people). But my Jim McClain account is the most active with posting articles and helping the consumers. I'm not sure the consumer/DIY crowd would expect a webmaster to know much about flooring, but Jim knows a great deal after 35 years in the biz. And now that Jim is retired, he (I) also has a fledgling web design and hosting business for flooring pros - enterpriseJM.

It's important to me to keep things separate. It's less confusing and the active members understand, or at least accept it. I also mention in my public profiles that Jim is "T" and "T" is Jim. At some point, I will merge the personal account into the admin account. Some time after that, I hope a long time after that, someone will have to rename my admin account Jim McClain again (which will include all my posts from both accounts) and then that person will become the new TFP Admin. TFP Admin should always be The Floor Pro Administrator. I believe my forum will live well beyond me.

Don't discount the necessity of some webmasters to have 2 accounts. It's short-sighted to think that every forum has the same issues and circumstances.

Jim

 

I understand the issues of that, but as an admin, in my opinion anyways, for some users not to see the actual admin being part of some discussion, it's a let down.

 

Oh I do have a "regular" account, I just don't use it for posting. It's just for testing.

 

I usually have a "bot" admin account, for automatically posting an RSS feed or just in case I forget my own account, get hacked, etc. But for posting announcements, though, I generally use my own account.

 

Here's something that may help make it easier for vB users like me who don't want to keep logging on and off:

Quick Account Switch - vBulletin.org Forum