Why is additional staff needed on small forums?

[MrDawn]

Why are 3 or more staff members needed to run a community of 15 to 20 active members?

Wouldn't 2 be more than adequate?

 

[Kale]

I only ever had myself and another mod on my small forum. We never had to moderate much outside of spambots.

 

[PGen98]

Yeah, you typically only need one, maybe 2 until you reach the point where you've got about 50 active members, and even that's really a stretch. I have two staff members on my tiny forum, but that's just because I don't view staff on my forum as being a job, just something I asked if they wanted to do in the event anything ever happened...they said yes, and now they're staff. I don't expect anything of them at all, lol. Perks of running a small forum.

 

[brad.smith]

Usually if you pick a good staff that helps with setting it up depending on the structure and how intense it can get. or at the very least have a staff to help with content and when it gets bigger you can promote the ones that helped started it to a little more specific custom role a type of admin if their is a lot to do. but to allow an admin outside of the owner comes with trust and can be hard to do at times.

I know ive had a few that were just power hungry I had forums and helped others since 2008 so definitely learned a lot through out the whole thing. with both owning them, Being a Co-Admin, Moderator, Global mod etc etc etc. and getting to see both sides of it def helps because when you have your own you tend to see a different vision than being a staff member. Not saying they arent important but thats with everything even in a business stand point it has a lot of similarities

 

[Nebulous's iconNebulous]

I think having staff isn’t always about handling board issues and moderating the community, it’s also good just to have other people you can bounce ideas off of privately, plan stuff and make decisions for the good of the forum. Having a few staff members just for that purpose makes them worth having in my opinion, even if they rarely have any actual “work” to do on the forum itself.

 

[Kale]

And also there's not much moderation to be done on this forum for example. Sometimes a spammer or spambot is here, but never have seen actual users getting banned. The times are way different now on forums.

 

[Shawn Gossman]

I always look for a #2 from the start to help keep the forum active and the two of us work to make it a community.

After that. I usually won't entertain the idea of a new additional staff member until after a few hundred members.

 

[Nebulous's iconNebulous]

And also there's not much moderation to be done on this forum for example. Sometimes a spammer or spambot is here, but never have seen actual users getting banned. The times are way different now on forums.

Yeah, most peeps here are great and don't need a babysitter.

 

[Ravenfreak]

I've only added a new staff member on my old forums once I had around 25 members or so. I don't think small forums need to have additional staff unless it's a promotional or webmaster forum.

 

[Shawn Gossman]

Here's my golden rule on staff.

I'll start out as the only staff member (the admin) with the intent to eventually bring on other staff (moderators).

When I cannot keep the forum active because I have to worry about forum issues, moderation, and staff related things - then I'll add a moderator.

When the two of us cannot keep the forum active because we have to deal with moderation issues, then I'll add another moderator.

And repeat.

That's really the best way to go, IMO.