Is it wise to consider staffing a brand new forum before it launches or do you think too many cooks can spoil the soup? What I mean is I am on the cusp of launching my first forum-only site (I own a couple sites that have forums as a component) soon and the topic is red-hot among a certain demographic. Enough so that a number of folks who know about the upcoming project have expressed keen interest in being involved. Part of me wants to suggest they be involved simply by becoming active members of the new forum, while another part of me does not want to douse their enthhusiasm by saying they can't play a bigger (mod) role.

Seeing as how this is my first forum-only site (and my first experience with vBulletin admin) I am concerned about doing the right thing from the onset as far as setting expectations with these very eager individuals.

Suggestions?

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One of the big problems I see new admins or new boards making is over-moderation. I still only have one moderator and myself after 3 years of operation and 300-500 posts a day.

First off, you don't know anything about most of the people you choose and it seems people throw out moderator positions just to make sure they have a few active people that stick around because they have that sense of power. It's not the way to go IMO. Moderators should be appointed when you need them. Once a apart of the forum, or the forum in general gets to a point where you can not read all of the posts then you need to have moderators appointed, ones you can trust.

The real difference here is these are people I know and trust in "real life". The forum itself is not even built yet - I am buying my license next week and will spend some time setting up and seeding it and so forth. I want to retain the interest of these folks, but as you mention, I worry about exactly as you put it "over moderation". I have two forums now as integral aspects of larger sites that each have a couple moderators who do little more than post replies and occassionally add new forum sections when the clear need arises. Neither are power hungry and both defer to me for decisions involving banning or otherwise keeping the forums in line with our concepts and mission.

I guess maybe the way to manage this is to simply reward key and active members after some time with the forum growing. Inside I rather knew this was the case, I wanted a 2nd opinion. I'm still open for siggestions, though =)

Thanks for the reply Seraph

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I think mods truely make the character of how a forum feels..

For instance if you have a few a-holes as mods how do you think the forum will feel? Myself I picked 5 mods to help me run my forum because of there nature and well roundedness. But I also know each and every one personally...

Another thing I did was not give them all the power of a mod for instance banning people.

Also nake sure to have an area on your forum for mods only so you can discuss any issues...

What says they have to be moderators, if they are your friends I don't think they would really care, they are just helping out? Once you need moderators make some of them moderators.

The problem with that though is you really wanna have a good control structure set right off the bat ---- a game plan so to speak....

But if your forum is only getting 5-10 posts a day, there really isn't anything to control.

I always say plan big

My forum's have over 400 in less than 3 weeks.

I made sure to build the user rules, mod rules right off the bat from my experiance of running another simular forum...

Yes, staffing a brand new forum can prove as a good thing if you take my advice:

-Have you new staff create a bunch of topics, try for the controversial-type threads, which will make people want to reply.
-Have your staff try to invite friends, and make sure to help you promote.

Those are basically two tips as to what I'd do.

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I agree with that, but not always the best choice to bring 5 mods in when there is nothing to moderate.