On Productivity

seriously 30? Maybe half of them do their job. A little staff "cleaning" might be in order

Nah, we can't do that, it wouldn't be right.
That's why we're going to be doing extra work instead.

30 staff and over 3000 members. That's like a one staff per 100 member ratio. I'm impressed with how large this site has grown in the almost one year that I've been a part of it. It's been fun seeing all the changes, and hopefully there will be plenty more.

I've gotten out the vacuum to keep things clean while RP's stay quiet. Keepin' busy and all that.

Their writing Yaoi? Really? Are you planning to return the gesture?

I'm fueling their imagination, but it might turn into a fanfic war.

I don't think there are too many. I mean, there might be 30-ish staff members, but they all have different jobs to do, don't they?

You just need to focus more on how many you need of each.

According to the statistics, there are roughly 500 active members on the forums. I don't know how accurate those numbers really are, but let's go by that anyway.

The only staff members i actively see moderating the forums are the Community Officers, Saikyo, and in some necessary occasions, Foxy or Grey.

If you assume that per day, a handful of threads or posts need to be moderated in some way, that's pretty much all the moderators you need. (Though i don't quite see the difference between Community Officers and Forum Moderators.)

Then there's the Radio DJ's, who in my eyes, don't have any actual duties on the forum itself other than the radio-related threads. And if they do have other duties besides that, they shouldn't.

And then there's section-specific moderators for Roleplaying and Fanfiction. Can't really say anything about them since i never visit those places.

The amount is fine. What you should change, if anything, is the manner of recruiting new staff members. Anyone could apply for a staff job and not be as efficient as he promises to be. Because of this, quality of the staff reduces, leading to ineffectiveness, leading to downgrading the quality of the forums. (This is worst-case scenario, of course)

Right now, you're hand-picking people based on the promises they make without knowing if they can actually uphold them. And since you usually get to pick them from a huge list of applicants, that might be why you think you have too many.

If i may suggest the following:

Moderators and other staff members should just keep an open eye on members who could potentially be a good staff member, ask them by PM if they'd be interested, and then send them a questionnaire of sorts with "situations" and how they would deal with it as a staff member. Based on the outcome of that, you can really see what kind of staff member you're actually hiring.

Right now, you're blatantly ASKING people if they want to be staff members. And in most cases, of course they would say "YES!!!"

Generally, be more strict in hiring staff members, instead of being reluctant to add more. By doing that, you'll have effective staff members who know what they should be doing, and you won't have too many.

Having too many isn't a bad thing however, but you need to put more limits to the specific staff jobs. There's no real difference between Community Officers and Moderators. You could either merge them, or seperate their duties more clearly and effectively, so they actually are two different groups.

I thought the Community Patrol's job was to assist the community. They can move and lock threads as well, right? That's a moderator's job.

That turned out much bigger than i expected. I hope my advice helps. :Boo:

Actually that's what we mainly do, it just makes our job of doing such vastly more streamlined when we see the people we're already interested in with their applications written, this way we can make it more surprising and know more about our candidates beforehand (timezones, other obligations, etc)

And I actually think you'll be pleased to hear that CP and Forum Mod was essentially merged very recently because of this issue. The only difference between the two is the title and a few responsibilities now; CP having more of the community-related jobs but not all of them and the same with Forum Mods and functionality jobs.

This is all wonderful to hear though, if you have any more suggestions please send them in, they help more than you can imagine.

I usually come up with a few good ideas every once in a while, so i'll be sure to let you know when i do. My mind is a complicated maze filled with good ideas. It's just very hard to find them.
It's nice to hear they're appreciated. :derpe:

Featured this entry! It's a good topic that needs some more attention.
It's interesting that you should say that Rarit-E - About the anonymous approach, that's how I've always hired my admins, Derpy and Foxy but I've never thought to apply it on a wider scale. Would you suggest completely abolishing applications in favour of headhunting or to utilize both in some way?

I'd say the application threads have their uses, like Zephyr said. But in general, it seems just a bit "unproffesional" for a lack of better words. To me, the application threads look like another way of saying "We're looking for people, who wants to join?"

As a result, you'll probably be getting many applications of people who just want to join the staff because it'd make their name look good. And it sometimes overshadows the applications of people who are genuinly interested for the right reasons.

If you've read my recent blog update, you can learn a bit about my past forum experiences. I had my own methods of recruiting moderators. But i'll share those with you tommorow, if you'd like. I need to be ready and awake for work in 5 hours. :derpe:

I'd say this should be expanded to Forum Moderators and Community Patrol. Having active staff look at certain members that have been helpful to others is a good way to weed out those who would be worthy of the position.

What mike406 said actually makes some sense, and I have seen other large forums do it.

As a user, I wouldn't really know much about this unless I heard it second-hand, which is why this Blog post was so informative, but with each great increase in staff, does not the question become "Who watches the Watchmen?" If the staff were to increase from 30 to 40 with the influx of new users, how would the Administrators make sure everyone does their job?

The best way is probably asking you guys, who do you see doing their job? Who is on the staff, you don't see?
You don't need to answer those, but think about it - you guys actually know better than we do.

For Example: If I stopped implementing features, fixing bugs or posting in bug reports, I think people would notice. Right?

That would be a good survey to throw out everyonce in a while

Well, one nice thing about that survey I filled out a while back was that it asked some of those questions. From what I see as a user the current staff do a fantastic job, and if what you're saying is true, the proof must certainly be in the pudding.

You mean like the one they did a couple of weeks ago? :derpe:

It wasn't good enough
it felt like it was more for the staff
we need one, made for the members to evaluate the staff

maybe a list of these 30 staff members
So I know who is missing

you mean this list?
http://www.everypony.com/forums/showgroups.php

:derpe:

thats not what I meant don't you mock me

Then what did you mean?

sorry Rarit-E

A member only survey with staff member
so each individual staff member can get evaluated by the members of this site

Seems a bit unnecessary if you ask me. The survey they made a while ago already had plenty of questions on how good or bad the staff members do their job. If anyone specific bothered you, you could have mentioned them then.

Foxy said he's using this week to evaluate the submitted surveys, so maybe he could make a more specific survey based on the opinions given, if that's even necessary. There's absolutely no need to evaluate specific staff members unless they were mentioned in a bad light more than a few times in the previous survey. And i don't think there'll be that many, if any at all. It'd be a waste of time and effort on the staff's behalf.

thats a good point
I feel dumb

There could be Senior staff too. Of course, they wouldn't be as powerful as Foxy or Grey, but people like Zephyr who have been here for a long time, and can be trusted fully could have a little power over the rest of the normal staff. Just an idea.

And Rarit-E, i like the headhunting idea too, seeing people in action is an easier way to see their skills and potential. Just applying isn't the best way in the world, but it does still work, so we should probably keep the application thread. Also, an idea for the radio is to keep track of who is on frequently. That would help to see who can DJ and mod longer and more efficiently.