Finding forum staff

The Introduction
Your forums are starting to get popular, and of course you would love to share the responsibility of taking care of your forums with someone else. That's not a bad thing, of course, but there's also a bunch of very important things for you in mind. First off, never consider a moderator if you have under 25 members or 10 posts a day (whichever comes first). This means your forums should be active before you consider a moderator -- I mean, there's nothing for this person to do if the forums are not active and therefor no point in this person xD. Hopefully this guide will clear some things up for ya.

Ask... why?
Why do you need a moderator anyways? Do you find yourself deleting or editing the posts of your members more than once a day? Do you need to warn at least 2 people a day? If not, you don't really need a moderator just yet as you will probably be able to take care of everything in the administration direction within 20 minutes each day. The next "why" question is why are you considering making this person a moderator (or whatever) on your forums? If its because of friendship, its a big no. Lets say you let Sammy be a mod because shes a friend of yours. What about your friends Fred, Bob, and Joey? They are going to want to become mods too, along with Fred's girlfriend Sara and Bob's brother George. Its only fair, right? Wrong! Before you know it, 30 of your 36 members will be moderators, and they will be fighting for the administrator position to set themselves off from the rest. Only get a moderator if you actually need one.

May I be a moderator?
Its very common for your members to drop hints that they would like to be a moderator. At this point, I usually just ignore these hints and wait for them to either drop it or ask me straight forward. Should I be asked, the answer is always "no" as I choose my moderators as I need them. Of course, it can be difficult to decline your friends, but just be honest and tell them that your not looking for another moderator.

If you are looking..
What to do if you DO want a moderator? In my eyes the worst thing to do would be to make a board asking people to apply. Just look around, chances are you have noticed an active member who you think is responsible. Talk to them over PM for a while, and ask if they would consider being a moderator for your forums. Remember to start small, and never make someone a full-fledged administrator just like snap. Its always better to just promote them to a moderator and see how things go.

How to make the positions
So lets say Claire agreed to be your moderator, how do you actually make someone a moderator? Easy! Go on the "admin" account, visit the Admin link, then click on Modify Group under Member Groups. Automatically, there will be three groups: Administrator, Global Moderator and Moderator. Its always best to start out with making someone a Moderator -- you can always go up from there if you want to. Anyways, if you select "yes" by "limited powers" then that member will only be able to moderate on the boards you assign them to. This can be a problem since say if you assign them to just the Newbie boards but someone is being rude on the General board, there is nothing the moderator can do about it. Some people choose to make "mini-mods" that only monitor certain boards.

Questions?
You can e-mail me with all questions or problems at Kathrin433@yahoo.com or post on the Neo-Reality forums, of course. Remember to make your questions as detailed as possible in order for me to understand what is confusing you ;).

~ Kathrin