Consulting Staff Members when Making Decisions

Do you turn to your staff team to help you in the decision-making process? For example, if something happens on the site that warrants the need to revise the forum rules, do you go ahead and make necessary changes, or will you consult your moderators first?

Also, if you had to implement what could be a controversial rule (i.e. one that some members would be glad is in place, but others would despise) do you:

• Implement it without question, or
• Create a poll in the staff forum and make the decision based on the majority vote, or
• Create a poll for the entire active community to vote, and make the decision based on majority vote

 

We all have each other's MSN, so we just hold a chat on MSN, both Pisoga and Setsou. On Pisoga we also have the option to use or chat service and make a new secret chat.

 

I'll consult them for decisions that hinge on member feelings on a subject, as they may have a better idea of what the members want. When it comes to security or things they really don't understand, I just make whatever changes are necessary.

 

The staff are the top members of the site, of course their opinion is valuable and they would be consulted. And consult others with good knowledge on the topic as well. That does a few things

• gives me good feedback from good people
• they feel good about being consulted
• things are discussed and if there input could not be used there would be reasoning behind that decision, and that would happen quietly in the background.
• when consulting other top non-mod people, who are well respected in the community then they are 'buying into' the idea and they would support it in the public areas

I'm not sure there are ever 'has to be' implemented rules on our site. Things like this in the mod forums though. In general only the most benign things are voted on by the members, they just don't put a lot of thought into those things.

 

The reason I ask is because some administrators simply implement new rules/guidelines and then just tell the moderators.
Something like, "I just added xyzxyz to the rules, so be on the lookout for violations" rather than, "Hey guys, Johnny's recent actions have tempted me to add xyzxyz to the rules to prevent it from happening again, but I'd like to hear your thoughts on this matter; do you think it is a fair rule?"... for example.

 

I will tell/ask my staff for there opinions. Make sure they fully understand what is going on.

 

Understood completely.

 

If it is rules then we will ask our mods as to whether they agree if the rules may be worth discussing, as for features we ask both our Super Members and Staff members for their thoughts and ideas and then go forth and implement them if the ideas are liked

 

Generally speaking, most things are discussed in staff forums, but at the end of the day, the admins make the final decision.

 

Yes and No.

Sometimes I will post a thread asking for input and suggestions. And other times I will just do it. Like upgrading the forum software, there is no need to ask for input on that subject.

 

For me, it depends on a) the decision that I'm making and b) what effect(s) this decision will have on the community. It's also dependent on the level of experience and/or knowledge that my staff team has in regards to the decision being made (i.e. making a software upgrade, coding a theme, etc).

 

More and more I'm leaving Site Policy changes to the Staff to decide. The mods are the ones that enforce the rules and so I let them write the rules they have to enforce. The Mods were brought onto Staff because they showed they believe in the direction our site is going and that they have the same vision that I and the only other remaining original member had for the site. When it comes to site layout, or addition of features, generally I will suggest them and if the majority is fine with them, I will change them. Actually, any change in vbulletin is done by me since the rest of staff isn't interested in learning to use vB.

 

Generally speaking, most of the discussion we have regarding the site and whatnot is done in the staff section. Sure my decision is final, but sometimes I don't see everything there is to see. So I appreciate my staff helping me out.

 

I'm with you on that one, Lynne. I have begun to let my moderators play a big part in determining the direction of growth for my forum. I let them vote on the addition of new rules, removal of old ones, or modification of current ones.
They spend more time "inside" the community than I, so they know best when it comes to the community's needs.

 

It depends on the situation and what's being decided.

Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't.

-Raymond

 

Usually (for moderators), if they are able to do it, they can. Moderators can generally edit threads, make stickies, and of course close and move threads. So if they have something to add to the rules, want to edit them, or want to make a new sticky, that's fine. However, when working with someone else that has administrator power, I would prefer to discuss the action first. Either way, a lot of discussion is present in my staff forums, so even if it's very minor, it'll usually be brought to my attention.

Besides, if you're okay with your moderators changing the rules without asking, at least you know they have been changed so you can change your own ways of moderating accordingly.