Staff members on your site

[Floris]

We have a private .staff chat room on irc.xenfans.com where users get auto banned if they're not on the accept list. The team is free to join at any time, it's not mandatory. Big - things and bigger decisions are being publishe in the staff-lounge anyway. But it's nice. We can discuss users, ask mods if they are around to handle spam. Or ask for their input before we put something live or make a decision (to help make a better choice). It just helps.

IRC allows us to log the chat and republish it in the staff lounge, and it allows us to talk offtopic between staff without flooding the staff-lounge with useless offtopic stuff (though we have some great off topic chats there too).

It's just a tool Live skype calls with friends that are also team members, help. Nix and I discuss matters once a week without really making it a meeting or scheduling it. It just helps to voice our opinion to make the right choices. Any conclusions are then shared with the right staff and members where appropriate.

Just an explanation how we do it.

By the way, we run a chat network for site owners that want a live chat room. We have addons for vbulletin, xenforo mybb, etc. And users are free to use it, we are an open network, allow private chat rooms and don't tolerate abuse of things against the law. We've got about 50 active rooms - and a lot of them seem to have private staff rooms (which we stay out of). Feel free to consider using our network. Get a chat room, and ask for help where needed (goes for anybody).

 

[trilogy33]

^ Gold!
Is this (IRC) discussed for newbs and/or in depth anywhere on your site Floris? Because I'd love to get more input of the mechanics, ease of use (in today's social scene) I bet a lot has changed since I landed on there going back some years, new protocols, or have they remained constant? That kind of thing.
I'd not discount IRC in the main for people who know what they're doing, but for new Staff, maybe only those who have only just mastered Shoutbox, for example...and more importantly new to IRC.
I sometimes wonder, is it right for us, or a bridge too far.

Basically: load IRC, jump in and start typing in one of many rooms. That's the way I remember it, with certain commands to join/kick/ban/op.
I've seen it run on XenFans.com within a page. It looks the part, quick and could help as some boards get bigger to offload their instant chat session onto IRC rather than to drag ShoutBox (SB) into a complete no-go area.
SB copes well no doubt but as communities grow, a quick alternative to it; twinned with an "etch-a-sketch-ease-of-learning" would no doubt be of great benefit to...well; just about every board owner that requires an instant chat module that: isn't Flash, that can run on, say an iPhone with very little lag, that doesn't take forever to learn and/or implement nor train users.

The learning curve for some could very well be:
"More MSDOS than Web2.0 big-pretty-button-for-the-masses"...I digress. *nods*

 

[Floris]

IRC is still IRC Nothing much changed. It's plain text, users can join a chat room and discuss stuff there. We have a few features to help manage the setup of the room and prevents faking of accounts of ppl snooping around. But that's about it.

We run the servers, we have enough bandwidth and resources to share the network with others who want their own channel. So it' not a big deal if we get 500 or 5000 more people to join (concurrent connections).

Users only have to a) go to the network by pointing their client to it (via the web or stand alone client), b) pick a nickname, (register it once, then identify to it before joining the private room) and c) then join the private room. Oh and d) chat and press enter or idle until someone says something they can respond to.

 

[trilogy33]

^ Thank you
Might be an idea for contingency if ShoutBox falls over. In other words becomes clogged with 40-50 or so concurrent chatters in a small area.
Could/would help to load balance.

 

[Matt_oth]

I have a few staff members that are going to be on the forum. Its still not opened yet, but it will be soon. Currently I have me as an admin and two moderators. For a new forums that is plenty. Once the forum becomes more active thought, I would, of course, need to get more staff. The are all volunteer.

 

[Beverly Johnson]

I have just forum owner (myself) and a community admin who is more of the face of the community and deals with guests rather than does the actual admin work, which i do for the most part.

On another Xenforo forum where i am admin, there is forum owner, admin and moderator. Oddly enough there are no actual members because they are all staff now.

I guess that part will come later.

Though I am not sure why the rush to add staff with no members. I have a very small forum community and do fine just by myself with the occasional help of my community admin. We manage well.