I have another staff question. We've been going through a wave of negative attitudes and disrespectful posts lately, and some members have left as a result. I'm looking to hire some more moderators (specific forums or global, doesn't matter). The problem is, I can't really think of any members who I can trust as a staff member. A lot of our member base is young, and I don't really want to hire them as most of them aren't really good "role models," as moderators should be. (They not bad members, it just they do annoying things like typing using some net speak and stuff like that.)

I'm also looking to hire someone who's active and loyal because one of our super mods abandoned us a few weeks ago without warning (yet she was active and appeared loyal). Unfortunately, I can't really find any members who stick out above the rest.

I know most of the members would like to become staff, but for the wrong reasons. I feel the ones who openly say they'd like to join the staff, want to join simply for the power and authority, and I don't want that. I want someone who wants to join because they want to help improve the community, not because they want to tell people what to do.

How can I go about finding members who fit my criteria? I'm already keeping an eye on all the members, and no one really seems fit to be a moderator.

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Talk Budgies - a site for budgie owners to talk about budgies
Talk Parrotlets - where parrotlet enthusiasts come to talk about parrotlets

Well, you could look for outsside moderators! My Co-Admin is one i got from AdminFusion! (And yes he does have all the same rights as me, even FTP access)
Sometimes outside help is good! And im sure someone will be willing to help out! (im lightly interested myself )

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Thanks, I'll keep my eye out for someone outside maybe.

There is a new member who I'm watching though. He just joined yesterday, but so far he seems pretty good. He's made a few posts and even submitted a really nice article (and is working on a second one) because he noticed we were lacking in articles. That in itself was great because no one submits articles at our site.

Any more advice?

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Talk Budgies - a site for budgie owners to talk about budgies
Talk Parrotlets - where parrotlet enthusiasts come to talk about parrotlets

I would make an informative post telling that you are looking for a moderator at your forums and at other admin-type forums. That way you can take a look at some members which maybe you hadn't considered or learn things about them that you didn't know. And make sure to put something like "we reserve the right to not accept any members if no one appropriate is found" or something like that.

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I'd also recommend looking outside of your forums.

It's always best to choose from within your forums of course, but as you're finding out, this isn't always an option. I've had good success through choosing staff outside of the forums...Anybody can as long as they do it correctly...I've got some pretty good advice that you might want to check out here if you haven't already.

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Or you could consider merging with another board. By merging, you would acquire the board's staff.

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There is another site that's about 10,000 posts larger than our site (but we have many more members). I'm pretty sure we share quite a few members, who post on both sites. They're only an InvisionFree board. How would you go about asking a competing site if they'd want to merge?

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Talk Budgies - a site for budgie owners to talk about budgies
Talk Parrotlets - where parrotlet enthusiasts come to talk about parrotlets

My opinion (humble as always )

I don't elect people from outside the site anymore. Done this 2 times already and they're not dedicated and I will demote them.

I do get my members to this position if they're good posters and have a nice attitude. AGE has NOTHING to do with this. I have a large part of my staff as underaged people (I had a mod who started "working" with me when he was 13. He's now 15 and my top poster, after me). My mods are 15-18 (most of them) and I have yet to see more dedication and maturity from other adults as I saw from them.

They were with me from the time we were on a free host and struggled with downtimes and some content creation as a brand new forum, when we moved to phpBB standalone after using Nuke, when we moved on a paid host with domain, when we moved the forums from the forum folder in the root and finaly when we moved to vBulletin and in a folder again. They were there to cheer for me when we made yet a small step to developing, when we changed something in the theme or when we had some nice achievements (like now as a forum of the month in this remarkable community). They are proud and happy for our efforts start to pay off, they were with me when we had to deal with errors (well, I had to start from somewhere in my phpBB modding, and yeah I made a lot of blunders), they were trying to keep the site alive when I was already almost discouraged. These are the members that deserve to have such a position and will use it for the good of the forums.

So .. my advice after this long (Again) rant:

For some time be alone. As a small forum you won't need to many mods. Then try to track THE BEST posting members, who have a friendly attitude and are committed to the forums. Contact them and tell them what you expect from them. My mods were happy to be in this possition and realised that means MORE work. But they love the site, they've been with us for some time and they are the best choice.

Hope I make some sense

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You make them an offer to buy their forum.

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Good point, myself i also think younger members have more free time to commit to the forum, and they understand more the situation the webmaster is in, and what needs to be done to achieve a better community.

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