Hi, I have a forum setup about 2 weeks back and is doing well. I have a few good users who are very active in my forums and very knowledgable, hence I thought of inviting them to be my Moderators. My question is apart from some meagre Adsense income, I don't have that much revenue? Should we pay for Moderators? Please reply Thanks
It all depends... If you are looking for volunteers,no need to pay them. If you are hiring MOD's,you surely need to pay them.
If the forum is still small and the people you're referring to enjoy being at the site, I'm sure they won't have a problem helping you out for the time being and in the future. Don't propose the situation to them and offer them money; I think this is where loyalty will come in to play. Once you begin making a fare amount of money or enough, anyways, then offer it to them.
if u pay them they will moderate better...thats wat i feel...rest is up to u...u can pay them 5 - 6% of ur earning thru the forum so u wont have ne probs!!
the problem is how well is well? some moderators may feel they are under paid. The best thing is that you invite them to be a volunteer. See how the response like. If it doesn't turn out well, you can do something to encourage them like buying things for them etc.
I think you should start with volunteer moderators and pay them if the forum become successful. Problem with this is that they can leave anytime they want because they spend time on your forum but don't get anything from it.
If that site has some PR (which I doubt since it's new), but perhaps you own another site with like 4+ PR, you could offer them a free link on that site in exchange for their moderation services. Or if that site receives a lot of traffic, they could place their own sites somewhere on it.
What motivate the mods on DP? Don't want to appear to be sucking up, but they do a great job -- what's in it for them? -- i.e. ask a mod!
I do not think you should pay for moderators, if you do, you do not get the most loyal moderators, but people who are working for money, if you do not pay, you know you are going for more loyal people who want to do it, for the fun and helpfulness of doing it. Also instead of spending that money on them you could use it on the website to make it better and use it for advertising fees.
Try starting a thread inviting voluteers as forum moderators. Most probably, the people you expect will apply. But it is always better if the moderators get some kind of reward for their work (special position / revenue sharing ). Ofcourse, being a mod itself is a reward . If you start a thread, ask interested parties to PM you rather than post openly. So that any hard feelings of being rejected can be avoided.
We believe in paying moderators. If you pay peanuts you get monkeys is our motto. Those interested can contact admin at AmericanForum.com for details. Carol
The moderators at my site do it voluntaraly because they know that people that are active would die for the position and that in the long run it does pay off.
I never paid them and wasn't paid either as a mod in other forums. I offer them links on my pages and it's OK so far. As long as the project doesn't monetize that well I cannot afford paying.
Well, my forum is www.listvideo.com/forums . A forum for the Digital Video Camera community. Lot of Pm's recieved, hence I thought of publishing it. Thanks
If you are asking for staff, or you give members staff positions for contributing greatly to the community there is no need to pay them. You should always ask the member if they are willing to do the moderating job before giving them the powers. If your staff have helped out, and you have hardly done any work, and the staff have produced you an high stats, and high revenue making forum, I suppose you could always split the revenue. Unless you hire staff, you will never need to pay them. If you decided to thats just your descion.