How hard is it to manage a large forum like this one?

Im just curious how much time someone would need to manage a forum like this, it might seem alot, but than you have the mods do pretty much of the work for you.

Any ideas?

 

Well it would be if you were alone. But many big forums have moderators who help out

 

do moderators get paid?

 

must be hard as you can see but how much crap is floating around on this place, nothing can be kept on top of!

Just my opinion,

B.

 

Compared to other forums out there, this forum is doing a really good job. Ive seen forums with 100 spam threads and one real one....

But yea, this place has its share of idiots too especially in the BST section.

 

most forums dont pay mods, its a privilage

 

It's a lot more work than you'd think.

And while mods do most of the work, you're still expected to show your face as an admin, keep on top of problems that arise. Definately not something I'd want to take on.

 

As the site grows, you can automate some of the backend jobs

 

It would be an 9 hour day job anyway - keeping an eye on the posts and deleting spam would be a lot of it.

With a few decent mods around it would drastically cut the time required. My guess is 1 -2 hours a day primarily on backups. More if theres any upgrades/modifications being done to the site.

 

well said shawn,

count the growth before you count the money @ thread starter

 

i think you should ask the owner of this forum.

 

I have about a dozen moderators right now (probably more than necessary).

However, my moderators do more than just make sure that spam is deleted. They also take part in the creating of the content on the website. They enjoy doing that, so I allowed them to.

Also, it helped that my moderators are spread throughout the world. That helps out for those hours when I'm asleep.

 

how do you know they enjoy? is it a paid position or volunteer?

 

Honestly, you do not need to manage it anymore. The users are making it active, so it is not needed for an administrator to do anything.

Updates and stuff need to happen though, to keep people satisfied.

 

wrong
do you know how difficult it is to control spam...and that too if you have a community with some rules , you will have tough time in managing it ...

 

Although the forum I co-run would be considered large by some (just passed 225,000 posts), it's actually relatively small compared to here - and yes, it's a pain to run.

Many people seem to think it's a walk in the park, sitting back watching all of the stats grow whilst having your moderators take care of the formalities. In fact there's a lot more to it than meets the eye, for example installing MODs / Add-Ons, training staff, paying the bills and of course doing the technical maintenance - not to mention dealing with the many complaints, trolls, multiple accounters and generally small annoying kids who don't know how to behave on a forum.

*What he said*

Believe it or not Adsense isn't a great revenue stream, and people won't click on a PayPal donate button just because it's there. At the end of the day, make sure the forum you manage is about something you enjoy - otherwise you'll experience a whole load of stress and won't enjoy a thing.

 

Mhw and Shawn are right on the money above. (And Shawn knows his eggs - lets be honest)

We have a forum with about 1000 members and 150k posts and it can be a pain in the arse to run sometimes. We are the busiest forum in our niche though.

Yes a busy forum does swallow a lot of time and adsense and other advertising streams whilst they do pay the bills, they do not generate any quantities of money that would be cause for celebration.

Having a product relevant to the niche helps too. The forum generates buyers and the buyers from elsewhere generate forum members.

I wouldn't like to run a forum this size personally.

 

Well, it would be hard to manage a big forum like this...
But, yeah. It's kind of worth it at the end don't you think?