I've had this happen to me quite a few times, and I'd be interested in hearing if you folks have had similar experiences. When it comes to selecting and choosing specific individuals for staff positions, I am quite "picky" - by this, I am of course referring to choosing these members based on extremely high standards (the amount of activity daily, dedication towards the community, knowledge of the subject matter at hand, etc). Yet, I will admit that I've made a few mistakes. Have you ever chosen a member that originally appeared to be perfect for such a position, but shortly after, proves to be an absolute disaster?
Yes this has happened me. It was in my early years of foruming and I was using my first vBulletin forum for an site, it was an fansite for an game. And I hired I guy that was an member and seemed to be pretty nice and it was almost when I just started the forum, however the guy didn't turn out to be any good staff member so I fired him and he was angry and start to tell people I was using an nulled vBulletin version, wich I didn't. He also started to call me with his friends and threating me. He said he was going to come with his friend and beat me. I didn't care so much about that I said he could come because I knew it was just talk he was like 12-14 or something. I asked him when he was going to come and he said he didn't have afford with the train ticket but if he would have he would come and kill me. I told him that I could come to him and asked where he lived, (He was from sweden to). Later on I got his number and called him and told him that I was going to come like he wanted and said his full name, address and parents name and then he hang up and I never heard from him again, exept on an board wich he spread false stuff about me. That turned out to be an big misstake to hire him and I have learned my lesson.
No I didn't. I know it was serious but I just didn't wanna do it he was just stupid and would never have the courage to do anything. I know I probobly should have but it was a long time ago and its nothing I can do about it know. I got him to stop anyway.
Yea it was. And my forum was no success so it got closed down just an while after that but it wasn't for an nulled vBulletin version since it wasn't nulled
I haven't had any disasters on the level of John's incident, but I did have one mod who flaked out and stopped coming around. Pretty tame, huh?
I've had this happen, as well - about a day after promoting this member to a super moderator position, he completely re-arranged his profile (meaning, replaced the viable information with phony information) and then left. I haven't heard from him since.
That's pretty weird. Maybe he had warrants out for his arrest and thought better of having his profile information public. Only thing I can figure.
That's an interesting thought, actually - or, he wanted to have absolutely nothing to do with the web anymore (which I've seen). Either way, it was a strange situation, particularly seeing as he was pushing for such a staff position. This is true, as well.
Or maybe he thought becoming a mod would instantly usher him into a world of privilege and insider information, and his dreams were crushed when he saw the drab mod control panel and realized it was actually work?
That sounds like it can be very true. I have dealt with many members like that but they never just dissapeard.
He could have been a younger individual (15 years of age or less) - I've noticed a trend. If they feel as if they can't handle the work load and/or deal with the responsibility delegated to them, they will sometimes feel the need to bolt. Of course, this is not necessarily the case with only members in this age range - it varies.
On a forum I used to Administrate one of our super mods was in a car accident, unfortunately did not make it. So whilst we getting angry members complaining about him being inactive ans us sending him PM's we removed him from the team. Only to find out months later after all this was forgotten he had died. Not really a failure as he was a good mod. Just we were not expecting anything like that.
I haven't had anything happen like this at all. I have had several moderators resign/retire, but not immediately. The ones that did leave the team did so months after joining, and it was all because of personal reasons. I'm sorry to hear that some of you have had so many problems arise from some moderators.
This can be a real problem for online communities; not everyone will exchange contact information with other members, so if something happens to them the only way you'll ever find out is if they've told their families about their online activities.
