Anyone have a suggestion on what to do if your moderators starting to get inactive. Stop beeing on the page so much and not checking out things as they should.

Do you think its best to "sack" the person or simply hire more moderators. The persons I talk about are very trustworthy and I dont want to loose them on the page. But I just need more moderation and more suggestions from them.
And if you would "sack" a person, how would you do it? The person has not done anything wrong, but just doing to less.
I am currently have moderators responsible for the whole forum, maybe its best to let them take parts of the forum. Split them up a little if you understand.
Happy for any suggestions.

The thing I would recommend against is recruiting new mods on top of your current ones....because what happens when you have twice the number of mods, but your old mods become active again? Now you have twice as many mods as you need, all of whom are active...This can be a bad thing if you have read my "Finding and Hiring Staff" article here

Now, it sounds like you have good mods and you trust them - that is good, you should try to keep them if at all possible. Although, no matter how good a mod is, if he/she isn't active, he/she shouldnt be a mod. So, the first thing I would do is contact the mods in private. Just be very nice and subtle about things. "Hey, I've noticed you havent been visiting the forums as much as you used to and was wondering why...I'd really like to see you become active again." Give that a few days.

If nothing changes, do the same thing but be more stern about it....something like "You havent really increased your activity like I was hoping...I'm afraid that if your activity doesnt increase much, I might have to find a new moderator to fill your shoes." Hopefully that works.

If not, you should probably create some written rules. I assume you have a private section fod mods? If so, lay out some rules for moderators in there...something that includes "Moderators must visit the forums daily (with exceptions) and must make x posts in x amount of time"....follow that up with "If they do not do this, they will be warned and perhaps either placed on a probationary period or demoted"

Whatever you do, be very careful about it...Even if you are dealing with a mod that you trust and think you know well, they can always turn on you. Don't make a moderator mad and still provide them mod privileges. If you sense that he/she is getting angry, you may be best revoking mod privileges right then before they try to do anything crazy.

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I think you should send them a PM regarding inactivity. Them not coming to the site often will probably have them not return the PM for quite some time. After a period of what ever you set, you revoke their permissions, because they are just not commited. Then at least you have something to go on

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Well I thought it was cool

Yeah I agree. I think I will try to send them a nice pm. Good idea.
I currently have 4 moderators and 640 users, is that maybe to little in the first place? Many of the users is also very active and I have alot of new posts everyday.
I dont think they will get mad, its girls over 25 so they are very serius.
But on the other side they know alot of "secrets" I dont want them to talk to.

I just have bad experience with sacking mods, last time I did it she started her own forum. And tried to get members from mine.

I think maybe I will say I judge all moderators every 6 months and then someone will be taken off and some new will get the chance. How does that sound?

You are saying that every 6 months you will drop one of your mods and pick up another? I don't know about that...from the mod's perspective that would be very discouraging and would almost encourage competition among them.

I would go with the PM thing and see how that goes...would also consider laying down some rules for all of your moderaters regarding activity - most important of all, be sure to enforce these rules...dont get caught up in favorites and not follow up on your rules because you like the person.

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Yeah that was what I ment. But I guess as you say it will get as a competition.
When I think about it is not a good idea at all.

Any suggestion how many moderators I need by the way?

I think the best way to determine this is to look at how long posts that need to be moved/moderated sit before they are taken care of...If you start to find that a lot of posts are not moderated as quickly as they probably should be, it is time to get a new moderator.

There's obviously no formula that will work for all forums...you just need to sit back and get an overall feel for how good your coverage is. Another measure I tend to look at is how my mods online compare to members online at any given time...if you tend to have 5 members online at a time, it's a good idea to always shoot for 1 mod or so online also...If you have 20 members online at one time, you might need 3-4 mods on at a time also. Stuff like that should help you decide, at least a little bit.

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I have just experianced this problem, I had a moderator, who was very active, encouraged posting etc, everything you could want in a mod. Recently he has been getting less active, I put it down to work and the time of year (coming up to xmas) untill he didnt visit for several weeks. I sent a email, that was ignored, I sent a PM, he came onto the forum, read it and left again, and hasnt visited since. I asked him if he was ok, I understood he may be busy at work blah blah....... I gave him every opertunity to reply, let me know what was going on, I was more than prepared to keep him on as a mod, if he let me know he was busy with work, family etc, all I needed was a PM or email. With the fact he hasnt bothered to reply. I removed him as a mod. I havent bothered to tell him, and I dont see him coming back. I will PM everyone on my site soon, asking people to apply to fill the Moderator job if they are intreasted.

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Sorry to hear about that, RWD, it happens

I do want to make a suggestion regarding finding a new mod though. If you can, I would look at the members of your community and pick out one who you think would make a good moderator. If you have other staff, ask their opinion as well. Once you decide, PM this person asking if he/she would like to be...if the answer is no, pick another person. This is just personal preference...I would do this before PM'ing everybody in the forums and asking for applications because then you're subject to getting people who aren't the "best" for the job

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I have 2 other admins, and we all make the decision. I send out mass emails, asking those who are intreasted to apply for the post, and why they should get it, what they would bring to the forum etc...... From those replies, we decide who should get the job. I did this to get a admin, it worked well. I vet people closley before they get a job, I dont just give them jobs because they applied to my email.

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