forums

Assembling your Forum’s Team

by James Seligman on October 6, 2010

Some forums can’t be run without some staff. So, what should you look for when hiring staff?

Well, you sure don’t want a bunch of unprofessional leaders on your staff. So, here are some tips on how to hire some good, trust able staff.

  • 1) You can’t stop the willing!
  • When hiring staff, you should always look for the person that is either most active or most helpful on your forum. Always make sure to pick the people that are most willing to do the job, because you don’t want your staff to find that visiting your forum is a task.

  • 2) Literary Analysis
  • One the most important things that I look for when hiring staff is how good their grammar is and how well their sentences are formed. Let’s face it, no one wants staff that can’t correctly form a sentence, it’s just unprofessional. Spelling is important, but not as important, most software has spell check built-in, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t pay attention to it.

  • 3) Past Experience
  • When you are hiring staff always look for the most experienced in your forum’s niche. Having the most experienced members as part of your staff will allow things to be done more efficiently, then someone who hasn’t had past experience.

  • 4) Communication
  • Can you easily communicate with the person you are planning to hire? Will you be able to contact them outside the forum (Skype, MSN, or Phone)? Communication is a key for preventing staff confusion. So, when hiring staff make sure there is another way to contact them outside of your forum.

  • 5) Are they truthful and have good behavior?
  • When hiring someone make sure to check that they haven’t been in any trouble or have caused in trouble in the past. Make sure that they are not banned on any other forums. Also, make sure their alias is not located on any “Malicious” sites or listed on any spam lists. You can simply ask them and if they do answer truthfully, then don’t penalize them. If they do lie to you, then don’t hire them, because if they lie to you before you hire them, then what’s going to stop them after?

    So those are some basic tips that can help you Assembling your Forum’s Team. What are your tips for hiring staff? Also, what was your worst moment during hiring a staff member or being on a staff?

    { 2 comments }

    How Spammers are Using Your vBulletin Forum

    by James Seligman on July 18, 2008

    Right before the 4th of July Holiday I was doing some regular maintenance on one of my forums and discover that spammers are finding a new little way of spamming your forums without even posting a post or sending private messages.

    So what are they doing?

    Well since the new vBulletin 3.7 came out with the new expand profile comments where yourself or other members of the forums can leave a messages. Well spammers are now using this comment section to show their porn links or whatever else spam link they have. Here is an example:

    vB Visitor Spam

    I have installed a new spambot system, but you really can’t stop the human spammers. But if you have had what you thought was a spammer but didn’t post or send private messages. Check out their profile, you might just find something.

    { 0 comments }

    Managing Online Forums: A Must Read!

    July 3, 2008

    If you have been following my blog you know that a couple of weeks ago Patrick O’Keefe contacted me via Twitter to see if I would be interested in reviewing his book; Managing Online Forums, I said of course without even hesitating. I used to listen to Patrick’s podcast that he used to do a [...]

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    Upgrades and curling up to a good book

    June 11, 2008

    Yesterday turned out to be busier then I thought. I decide to take part of the day off and spend sometime away for the computer. Although the weather sucked, it was 55 degrees out side and it’s June, something is definitely wrong around here. But it was nice o just get away. So after spending [...]

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    Getting it done with cold calling

    May 16, 2008

    I had to call on a potential new advertising partner for one of my forums yesterday. I have never spoken to before, although I have talked to some of his co-workers before, but never to him personally. So hear are a couple of tips that I have learned and use when making a cold call. [...]

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    New forum admin Q&A video coming soon

    April 14, 2008

    I am going to be testing out a new video segment in the next couple of weeks where I will take a couple of questions from some of the forum administrator forums and answer them via a quick little video segment. I am going to try and do this on a weekly basis. I am [...]

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