You cannot make everyone happy!

Just wanted to post both some advice and a little rant.

You cannot make everyone happy. As a forum admin, you have to ultimately decide what's best for your forum. Some of my moderators are getting a little out of hand with requests for this and that.

I suppose it's partically my fault. When I started the board I promised myself it would remain an "open community" in short what that means to me is the members make most of the decisions. This is/was done mainly as a counter point to similar forums which heavily moderate and don't actively administrate. One of the more popular boards delete your posts if you give unflatering reviews to an advertiser.:eek: This same board is still running 3.5.3 with no hacks and everything at the defaults so there's no reason not to upgrade but to each his own I guess.

In short my membership is small so far only about 20 members, they're are very active though. I keep getting requests for new subforums, and I keep saying the posting areas are already split up enough once we get more members we'll add new stuff. One member already left because I wouldn't add a board for her to moderate. :( Well tough noogies!

I switched the forums over to postbit legacy (poster info on the left vs. on top of posts). I figure it sets us a part from looking just like every place else. 1 of my supermods made it very well known that he doesn't like it. After I explained the reasoning for it, he likes it. Duh, make up your mind. The same supermod loved the idea of the thank you hack with I first installed it. Now he thinks it takes up too much space. :confused:

I added Miner's SmartBlack theme, originally I was going to make it the default. Most of the members said that the current skin is unique and they'd like to keep that as the default. So, I installed it but left it as an alternate. All of a sudden the same mod that complained about the postbit change said the sites theme changes to much. I quietly explained that it's only an alternate for people who don't like the brightness of our default, you don't like it don't freakin' use it! :rolleyes:

[/rant]

I guess in short what I'm trying to say is: Don't feel discouraged by "over-opinionated" people. If you're a forum admin take suggestions for your members and staff but sometimes you have to put your foot down and say "I run this place"

Just my two cents,
Dan

Very well put.

No matter what you do, there will be people who dont like it. Some will be quite vocal about it. Its one of the fun things about running a forum.. :)

One of your members left because you didn't make her a forum for her to moderate? Was she serious? Good riddens honey! Unreal!

In my case, I don't get enough feedback...I have to dig and dig and dig to get feedback from Mods and Members. It's frustrating, but other Admins tell me I'm lucky.

Oh and I like postbit legacy...I changed mine to that after about 2 weeks after launch.

I have run with this so many times that I could write a book about it (hmmm, there's an idea). I define the admin work as a balancing act in a razor's edge. If you give too much leeway to your staff or userbase you could end up having a riot, wich ultimately affects your whole forum, with users taking sides and the such. If you "tighten the leash" too much and your site can become stagnant and ultimately die from desertion "to greener pastures". Micromanagement it's a bi**h, and in every organization it must be avoided. So there's no other way for you to have to find this delicate balance of when to put your foot on the ground and do what you believe it's best for the site, and sometimes to give in to reasonable petitions.

The keyword of course is "reasonable". One user demanding for his own forum to moderate would be ridiculous in most scenarios. But what about giving that option to paid subscriptors?, then of course becomes a more reasonable and feasable option (I'm of course not telling you that this is what you must do, I'm just giving a rough example). Then of course you would have to consider more than one user's feedback, mod or not, to come to a sensible decision.

Yes, there always be at least one "Big Ideas" user demanding for his petitions to be satisfied because they are "so kewl" and they saw it in "that other site" and it cures sick puppies and every user rejoices. Most of the times I just brush them off to my mental recycle bin. But I know I must keep an open eye for my userbase reaction, and most of the times I leave the decision to them.

amen!

Oh and I like postbit legacy...I changed mine to that after about 2 weeks after launch.

Great, now I'm the copycat. :D

Thanks for the advice guys. I'm personally a member of a lot of forums and a moderator on a few. As a member or moderator, I always try to give contructive critisim in an "easy going tone", I don't piss and moan if it isn't taken.

I do piss and moan if something doesn't work right and it should though. I've been a member of this one forum for almost 7 years, a while back the admin spun part of his forum in to a completely seperate forum to relieve the tensions between two groups of people. Long story short this second forum hasn't been admin'ed in a really long time. No one can register because the image verifaction system doesn't display an image. I politely nudged him twice with no response. Finally yesterday, I "called him out" on his main board, still haven't gotten a response. He's the setup and run type though so I don't expect much.