Notice Of New Moderating Approach

Someone likes roleplaying.

So was this the post about sourcing paper for making fake stamps? A bit annoying in my opinion, so I will not mourn his absence. We are all free to do what we want, including starting our own forum if we don't like the rules here. But we did all agree to abide by the rules when we signed up.

This site has 44 potentially active, and separate, sub-boards, not including the old Photobucket board. I would think the site needs at least four moderators, plus one who is the site owner.

Steve,
I think that this forum is definitely not for you. You are active on other philatelic forums, I think they they are a much better fit for you.
Don

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@Willwood42: We have a winner!

Unless I'm missing something, I'm bemused by the response to Steve's suggestion about reducing/spreading workload.

Who here has experience as a philatelic forum staff? Richard (edit: and Al) do, is there anyone else?

The issue is not the number of Mods; the issue is that there is no satisfying everyone and the whining and complaining that comes after someone disagrees with a hard decision.

How is increasing the number of staff going to lower or change the decisions that have to be made that are not black/white? Is increasing the number of staff going to change the amount of whining and complaining about the decisions? No.

Typically increasing staff would be required if the current staff is not responding to issues in a timely manner. Looking at the last 35 'Send Message to Staff' reported, the average response time was 29 minutes. Given that these can be sent 24/7 and the three staffers here are all EST zone and sleep at night, this is an incredible response time average.

The solution is not to post complaints about the hard decisions that are made, recognize that this job sucks, and cut a bit of slack to the staff.
Don

Amen.

Also, increasing the number of moderators adds complexity to decisionmaking processes. Who has authority for which decisions? Is it majority rule? Is it quorum? Does it vary depending on the issue?

"Well we can't take action until everyone has had input."... It can be paralyzing.

Might I suggest an even better solution is to consider making a regular donation to this board, a solution that I personally just did recently.

Jim

Don, I apologize that my posts likely added to the problem.

shermae,
No worries.
Don

Thank you.

Agree, and I just did the same as well. I can get emotional about things I care about and the truth is the folks that run this board do a great job and put up with a lot.

Thanks for the reminder! Just donated. I haven't shown my appreciation lately for all the good work that get done behind the scenes here!

Dan