Paid moderators on forums?

Over on Wood Online the Moderators don't get paid per se, but they do get free subscriptions to wood magazine, and also get any of their special issues that come out. I don't know if that counts or not.

Personally I think mods ought to get paid. I did it for a year or so, and its nothing I will ever do again. To many whiny people out there that have nothing better to do then complain or try and get people in trouble for personal reasons. I've seen 5th graders that are more grown up.

I have a lot of respect for moderators. Just something I will NEVER do again.
 
Anyone ever get involved with the Badger Pond forum? It got so big that the "owner" shut it down due to lack of time. Any forum such as this I give full credit to the mods for carrying on. Thank You.
Part of the intent when this place was formed was that it be self-perpetuating...to the extent possible, owned and operated by the members, based on members' choices. So far, it's worked out pretty well. We've had one "changing of the guard" so far, and by making the Mod job a temporary elected position, we hope to keep the burnout rate down.

...I have a lot of respect for moderators. Just something I will NEVER do again.
I also have a lot of respect for the civil group of people here who tend to keep the workload down on the Mods. We have the occasional flare-up, but in general, all the folks here police themselves pretty well. Moderating can be a tough job, but we're fortunate to have good members. It keeps the workload down.

Alan's recollection about the old days jogged my memory. I guess I've technically been a paid moderator on CompuServe. I was a mod there on a forum related to our products, and I did much of it on the company payroll. I've also been a "company rep" on various newsgroups on company time. (I wasn't shilling though, I was up-front about my affiliations.)
 
Without a doubt, this place would be easy to moderate.

I think a lot of people come here because its pretty mild. I know I come up with some off the wall stuff and if I posted this stuff (heating my shop via compost, using a clothes dryer as a kiln) that kind of stuff on other forums, I would be picked on ruthlessly.

Some people on here have pretty big woodworking budgets. Some have very small ones. Myself I just like to make the most with less, so I come up with crazy schemes. Anyone is welcome to blast me for any of them, I have thick skin after all, but no one does. I like that so I stay.

Jeesh 1000 plus post...must be a good place. My only concern is money. We are getting big with more members and more data transfer and bigger servers. Who is paying for all this? Is it time to have an auction to help pay for this place???:dunno:
 
Travis, and anyone else who is concerned, we are no where near the limits on our account for disk space use, or bandwidth transfer.

From April 2007 to December 2007 we used 105.29 GB of bandwidth, that is about 11.7 GB of bandwidth a month, well below our limit of 100Gb monthly.

We are fairly liberal with our picture uploads, for example the sizes well allow and a lot of member use this function, but still, we are well below any limits.

Trust us, if we need money we will just simply ask for donations, and I know they will flood in.

We are nowhere near a large site, but the way we have things set up, we are not always needing fresh infusions of capital.

The time and effort the all the members put into this place are to me, of much more value.

Cheers!
 
Firt, I did not mean to step on any toes or accuse anyone. If that is how it come across, well Sorry. As far as the "other" site I am not going to get into that. This would open a can of worms that is left closed. This forum is very open and forward about what and why things get done. This why I like most come here. So, if you feel like beating me, heres the paddle.:eek:
 
I would like to Thank all the team members, and would like to Thank everyone on the site for your patience, professionalism,and willingness to share knowledge. This site is a way to relax and feel comfortable with my questions and comments. Thanks to ALL:thumb::thumb:
People like Greg for instance go the extra mile to help solve problems I have posting pics or finding info. Time is precious to all of us, its great when these people really don't know you and are willing to give you a hand. Thanks Again:thumb::thumb:
 
Firt, I did not mean to step on any toes or accuse anyone...
At least speaking for myself (and I'd suspect all the other staff here), you didn't step on any toes at all, Al. Don't worry about that one bit. You just gave us a platform for posting a bunch of wisecracks. :p No paddling is warranted, IMHO. :thumb:
 
Alan,

Hmmmm.... interesting post. (http://familywoodworking.org/forums/showpost.php?p=85613&postcount=3)

As moderators, and admin, are first and foremost members....their posting is nothing more than contributing to the forum as any other member does. I hope you do not see that as a problem.

The number of moderators and admins was established by the membership when they voted for the FW constitution. If you wish to change it, feel free to review the procedures and submit your request.

Activity of the staff goes up and down with activity of the forum, season and other factors. The mods just do their best to uphold the constitution and the CoC, as voted on by the members. Rest assured, the fewer problems the mods have to get involved in, the better they like it...naturally. They do have work schedules, family commitments and community involvement, all of which keeps them away from the forum from time to time...at different intervals. Vacation time, weddings, birthdays, club meetings also take mods away from the forum, so at any given time, there are less than a full house of mods, if you will.

Changes to the way things are done here can be done by the membership....even the "less conservative" ones....:D
 
When things go off track, sure, there is more work for the staff, but even when everything is ticking along nicely, there is still a fair amount of work to be done. Well, let me choose a different word, "Work" may not hit it, how about "A fair amount of time to be spent" :dunno:

Now don't get me wrong, we all do this willingly and we mostly love doing it, but there are times when it would be really nice to NOT be on the staff, and at times like that, it is nice to have such a large staff that I know can shoulder the extra work if one of us, or if heck three of us need to bail because of work, school, health, stress, etc. etc.

Yes, we could run this place on with only 3 or 4 staff, but if something happens and one or two of the staff cannot get online, then everything falls to one or two staff members, and that is not fair to those staff members, IMHO.

I know that with the number of mods we have right now, it can be like herding cats, but I'm also one who believes that when a government does nothing, it is often the best outcome, just doing something to look like you are busy, is a BAD thing, again, IMHO.

Cheers!
 
My Thoughts,
#1 Thanks to those that put in their input, good, bad or otherwise within the rules set down. :thumb:

#2 The mods some time come to the aid of a sluggish forum when things are slack. :)

#3 The few people adding input to this place are more important than thousands who view. :type:

#4 People who view are viewing the few people who contribute.:p

#5 This place is inexpensive enough for 5 contributing people to share the joy of woodworking, with no one else giving money. (as should be noted):)

#6 We have givers (people who post) and takers (viewing without ever becoming involved) as in life. :rolleyes:

#7 Takers are welcomed here,(always with the hopes of you sharing your knowledge with us folks). :eek:

#8 Givers are not always givers of good advice!:rofl:

#9 Great advice can come from index finger typists. The one finger kind, short but to the point!

#10 You don't have to be a good woodworker to be here, nor do you have to be smart or a good speller.:huh: Just.........Join in! :thumb:

I will add more stuff as the spirit moves me.:D
Shaz :)
P.S. Oh!:doh: This may be a response to the wrong thread!!:doh::rofl::rofl:
 
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...I hope this doesn't hurt anyone's feeling, this is not meant to, but there are way too many moderators on FWW, than really needs to be here for the amount of traffic and posts that are being done....
I think that it is easy to confuse sensitive and forgiving. We may be a fairly forgiving crowd but I suspect that you would have to work a lot harder to hurt anyones feelings. Not that I think that you were trying to.:D

Too many mods? I think that many of the early settlers here came from a place where there was a fairly consistent plea of overwork for the (IMO too few) moderators. Many of us ended up here at the wrong end of moderation/administration that was not what we would have chosen for ourselves. So it is only logical that we should try to do things differently.

In a funny way we only really have one moderator anyway. No permanent action is taken by any moderator until the decision has been made by a majority of the moderators so while that probably means a bit more work and a bit slower response, it also probably means less inconsistency and fairer decisions.

As to the size and activity on the forum. Yeah I think sometimes that the traffic is a bit slow and I am not fooled by numbers either of registered members or page views. As far as I am aware this is a very small corner of the web and maybe it will be for as long as it survives. If we ever get to the point where we start measuring success by how many members we have I think we will have lost our direction.
 
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Ian, I like and agree with your post above, as it mirrors my sentiments. Well done.:thumb:

I didn't know though that you were a descendant of some famous British "Statesman".:D
You may have missed your Calling and should consider running for the House of Commons, (I think I remember it being called that).:dunno::D

Anyhoo, all kidding aside, :thumb: to your post.
 
...#3 The few people adding input to this place are more important than thousands who view. :type:

Shaz

As always - an interesting perspective. The only thought that I would disagree with is your third point. A hierarchy of contribution is no different to a hierarchy of knowledge or a hierarchy of money. I hope that we don't have any of them here.

I tend to be a viewer rather than a contributor on many of the subjects here. Many of the tools that people ask about are not available in my market. Many of the techniques used are not things that I practice in my workshop (chair factory). Lots of the off topic stuff gets pretty US-centric and I don't often have a point of view on that. So all those things I tend not to post about because I don't have anything useful to add and will learn more by listening than speaking. But every now and then I think "Now this I have a bit of knowledge on" and start to post.

As far as I am concerned the longer somebody spends reading the more likely they are to have a NTIHABOKO moment and dive in and contribue. I personally think that telling somebody that they are less important because they are learning rather than teaching is a bad choice of words because it is more likely to discouage them from visiting than encourage them.

But apart from that :thumb:
 
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