I hope this is the right board to post on, if not feel free to move it to the right one

I am really torn here and could use some advice on how to handle this.
A little background.. I was a supermod for about 3.5 years on a similiar site and met this person there. She and I became friends over the years. I ended up leaving the site and she followed soon after. At that time I was planning on opening my own site and she had asked to help me with everything( by becoming an Admin) and I agreed, thinking it would be fun to have a friend help with stuff. Well, that site never took off and years passed. She and I lost touch because she didn't have a computer or I didn't.

Present time.. When I got a computer and was putting together my site, back in March, she found me again through instant messanger (which I was happy about) and I told her that I was actually in the process of building my site, so she kept talking about helping me out, so I agreed, then she just assumed I was placing her as an Admin. Well, me not thinking too much into the future, agreed to let her become one. I never thought that having two Admin's would be bad or that the site wouldn't need two.

Here are our current stats:
Members: 62
Threads: 1,287
Posts: 8,415

We also just added two new staff positions that I think are good for the site, one is a person that will welcome new members and will contact older members that haven't posted or have only posted a couple of times. The other is for advertising the site, etc. I do have one other person on staff that helps me with things that no one else can, she is our community liason.
We don't have any moderators because we are still so small that I think it is a waste kwim?

So here is my problem..

I am not sure I really want my site to have two Admin's. I think it would be better for me (the owner and one who does everything anyway) to be the admin and for my other admin to become a SuperMod. She doesn't really do too much as far as behind the scenes stuff goes. She changes our recipe of the week, weekly for me and she was in charge of changing the welcome block on our main page, but everytime she would change it, I would have to go in there and correct almost all of it because the spelling and grammar errors were just too much for me to let it slide, believe me I am not perfect, but I proof read everything hoping I catch any errors. This was also every single time she did it and it would make me feel bad to go in there and redo it all. So needless to say, I am doing that now too.

She does a great job on our contests and games, and she finds some great articles for some of our boards, but that is about it. She sometimes offers to help with things, but I know if I let her, I will just have to go back and fix it again. I don't have time for this. I homeschool 3 of my four kids and I have a life. I can't spend every moment online fixing mistakes.

Now I also have to say, that one of the new staffer's I brought in is also an old friend from the other site I belonged too and she has actually has her own board (but its not open now because she liked my site so much and all of her members are at my place ) and knows how to do everything from backing up a site to doing all of the code work. She is a huge asset to me and the site.

Well my other admin is aware of all of this and is getting jealous and feeling bad, which I don't want her to do, but what can I do? One just knows more than the other. I am also closer to this other person, she and I just click, its a good relationship. I bounce ideas off of her and she gives me honest answers, good or bad. My other admin, just agrees with everything I say, like she can't think for herself. If I do something in my siggy or title, she copies it to a "T". I am a little frustrated with this whole situation. I don't want to make this other person an Admin or promote her or anything like that, she and I are both happy with her current status. So there is no issue there.
I do know that my other admin will think she is being replaced and that is just not the case. I just want people with higher titles to know what they are doing and do it well.

So tonight I was making a rules thread for my new staff and I wanted to bounce it off my other admin. The only part she had trouble with was on the open door policy, which originally said this:

Please feel free to come to me anytime you think things aren’t going as you thought. I would much rather you come to me so we can work it out than to just not show up at all.

She didn't like the fact that she was not in any of this. She wanted them to know they can come to her too. This might be petty on my part, but it is my site. I pay for everything that goes into it. I am the one that put hours of my time in it to get it just the way I want. I am the one that freaks out when things don't work right, etc. So is it wrong of me to get a little annoyed by her wanting to be on this too? She would end up having to come to me anyway to let me know what is going on and I would have to get involved anyway, so why not get rid of the middle man kwim?
I don't know, it just seems like every little thing she does is getting on my nerves lately.
Please don't get me wrong she is a wonderful person and a good friend, but I am afraid if I ask her to change titles it would destroy our friendship. I don't think she would ever forgive me to be honest. I know we have only been open a month and a half, but if I am feeling this way now, how is it going to be in 6 months? What should I do?

Sorry if this was so long, I guess it has upset me more than I thought. Thanks for reading all of this

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It sounds to me like you know what you want to do (demote her) but you're emotionally connected to this lady too and in order for you to be content someone will get hurt, and you need to accept this is down to you for placing her as admin in the first place.

If she's a good friend, as you express she is, then talk to her.. explain things as you have done here and i am sure a 'true' friend would be ok with it, but probably a little upset... if all hell breaks lose over a 'title' then you will probably have made a wise decision as the 'title' would have been her priority and not the friendship..

good luck any way, it'll be tough but it's better to do things now rather than let it get worse..

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Thanks shellspeare for replying. It is a hard situation but you are right. I should have thought things through before getting all excited about having her help. I am not a confrontational person so this is going to be a challenge. I guess if I am going to be good as an admin, I better get a backbone huh? LOL

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Well I told her and she is pretty upset and hurt. I knew she would be, but what else can I do?

She won't talk to me now, and hasn't been on the boards since last night. Normally she is on into the late hours of the night and she was on there for about 20 minutes and that was it. So I guess I will see how tonight goes...

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IMO you did the right thing. If she's a real friend, she'll get over the hurt and won't let it ruin your friendship

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: Exquisitely Erotic : an adult community forum

Thanks Peggy! I did get a message from her through pm, but that was it. I guess time will tell.

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Hello,

I also have a very good friend who I made Admin of the forums at one time. Fortunately, he was the one who said that he would prefer to be a Super Mod as opposed to Admin.

I think he is wise, much more so than I but, I would never tell him that... lol no I'm just joking. He knows I think he hung the moon.

The point I want to make is, I think it is less significant what a person's forum title is versus how important, we as admins, make those who help us out feel.
Seems to me that you are doing a good job trying to balance things out in this way. The reality is, that sometimes feelings will get hurt no matter what we try to do.

You said:

That is a classic example of what I was saying above. No matter what you try to do, no matter how much you strive to make everyone feel important, sometimes people's feelings get hurt anyway.

I support what you feel the need to do. Tho I have not had much forum Admin experience, I have functioned in the capacity of Admin for an outpatient mental health program. I know first hand what it can be like trying to organize and utilize the various strengths of each person.

Hang in there. It sounds to me as if you are doing the right thing. If this person's attitude continues to deteriorate then I would allow the situation to speak for itself and take the necessary steps from there... even if it means letting this person go. Hopefully it will not come to that.

Best of Luck.

Gehanna

Thanks!

I updated my other thread too. I haven't heard from her but one time. She said her and the kids were getting over colds and that was 2 weeks ago. She hasn't been on since So I took away all of her supermod permissions until she can let me know what her plans are. ALthough I am pretty sure she won't be back. I am really sad, she was a nice person, just a little messed up with things. Oh well, what can I do? I have tried contacting her, through emails, pm's and im's...the ball is in her court now.

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I'm sure she'll come round soon

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Thanks shellspeare, I hope so too

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