So how many staff members do you believe a forum should have for say - you have 1,000 members? Or 10,000 members? Personally I feel that the activity of the community determines how many staff members you need - because if the community is inactive you don't need too many staff members, but what do you think?
Apparently the best ratio is 1 staff member to 50 members, but I disagree with that because you could have 10 really active members who could be troublesome at times, and as such would need more staff to keep those 10 members under control
I think when starting a forum you should have a set number. Like 2 admins, 5 mods, etc. when you reach that maximum you just wait to see how it goes and if you either need to increase or decrease how many you have. As Ashley said there is no set ratio because people aren't robots and some need more control than others.
There is no way you could create a staff to member ratio that would work for everyone. Every board has its own needs and some require more work then others. A service board would have more need for staff then a general chat board for example. Also, a board with relatively well mannered members would need less staff then a board with known troublemakers on it.
I agree with this as well. I try to keep only a few staff members just because of the amount of trust I need from them. My first forum would get 200-500 new post a day, we had a dozen staff on that forum. My 2 current forums both only have 3 staff members for about 100 new post a day.
The number of staff is never really important. It is the dedication of staff that matters. If you have a couple people who care and take the time to keep everything straight that is far better than having 10 people who do nothing. I agree with Brandon trust is highly important and also character when it comes to picking a staff member. And being someone who has been on Brandon's staff on multiple sites I have to say he makes good choices . But, I see a lot of forums die because of picking bad inactive staff who only want the power to ban and such over doing what they should be doing. Make sure you do not pick someone who is going to do more harm than help.
I have pretty much good team even the board is small I like to keep in touch with staffs every once in a while so they won't loose interest off the site we do meet up up every few weekends and go fishing together or lunch . Having less member and more staffs is never a issue until you are able to bring your own helpful contents on the site.
