Hi,
It is not uncommon for forum moderation and administration teams to become friends with their members..and then when you close a thread or the topic gets heated and u have to pat someone on the hand, things can get touchy feely!
So how do you deal with it?
simple!
Tip #1
Create an account with global mod status and name it "Staff Member" or something along the lines.
Give the details of this account to all your global mods and people who have rights to moderate or administrate the forums.
So next time they have to take care of a sticky situation they can easily login as the "staff member" without revealing their identity and take care of the matter - and the members, they wont know who it was - so no personal harm to any relationshps or friendships :D
PS: Be sure to set rules of WHAT to use the ID for and WHAT NOT to use it for. Otherwise your team could end up using it for intimidating other members as well!
Just a useful tip I thought I would share.
If you have a tip as well then share it with us :D
PPS: This message will now self destruct
Tip #2
Always have a board for yourself as the head admin. Make it hidden to all other people such as global mods or other staff.
You can use this board to store all your code snippets and change logs for the backend of the forum, plus links to your different admin areas (if ur running more than 1 script on ur server)
It helps and when you upgrade the forum - u have a whole list of things that you did on your last version - all the modifications and stuff, right there making your task of re-modding simpler
To give an example..here is how my personal board looks...a preview:
(https://www.tinyportal.net/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg246.imageshack.us%2Fimg246%2F3236%2Fawc1rf6.jpg&hash=1732150a9c3ffbb3c8d1e5be8e9b29ea00a700b5)
Tip #3
Try never to share administration with people you have not known for a long time! By long time I mean a LONG time like 2 years!!
The reason behind this is because there actually exist whole forums whose sole purpose is to plan forum raids and invasions. They work in many cases slowly over months trying to win the trust of the admin and pressure him/her (using other member suppot) into making them a co-admin.
If you MUST make someone an admin - create a JR.Admin ID - with less previlidges than you, that way you will always have one ovr them - and dont allow them acces to your server settings or details or you may just find yourself in your underwear outside your door one day
Tip #4
Create an Admin block for yourself in TP with useful links and tools on it.
This will only be visible to you and give you the ease of accessing key areas with a single click.
I cant show you my Admin block here as a preview since it contains some blacklisted mods :D top secret stuff :D
Great pointers AKU.
I will try to use them.
For Tip# 4, what type of links or tools are you using?
Thanks
Denis
Great tips, thanks Aku! 8)
I disagree with #1. I want my forum staff to remain known, and if there are disputes for them to be resolved properly rather than being resolved by an anonymous admin account. And if the identity of that account was discovered, it would most likely cause bigger problems than if you had never used it.