Staff Madness

[FUser2]

I'm not quite sure what to do anymore. I've always had the problems with my staff, honestly, I think I could have some of the most staff issues before. Let's start in the history, shall we?

Part-Owner - Who I started the forum up with together. Eventually hacked phpBB, and kept hacking it. Resolution? Banned him, and moved to vB.

New-Part-Owner: Eventually quit as a moderator caught him breaking the rule, so he trashed the thread, made him quit.

New-New-Part-Owner: Still the admin today, and one of the issues I'm having with. The very first Super Moderator, and was elected Administration by the community by quite a bit of votes.

New-New-New-Part-Part-Owner: How about that for a title? :uzi: He was(is) in charge of the technical background, things that I'm not sure on how to do. Also does Administration/Moderation.

Now . . . That's just Administrators :S

Time for Moderators!

Once upon a time, there was a new community, 3 members were elected the position of Super Moderators. One eventually became the New-New-Part-Owner dealo, and still is. The other, eventually got banned. He decided to start an anti-us forum, even before he was active. Never posted anything too good, never posted often, never once performed a moderation duty other then editing his own post. Because of this ban, he eventually got banned. Well, he didn't like that too well. So, of course, he started stirring up hate on his hate forum. It lead to over 30 members over there, to register at our forum. Resolution? Stop all new registrations, turn off all guest boards (for computer help). Well, few days later, he thought he'd take it on himself to try to see if we was accepting new members. Well, we were, but they was moderated. A record of 13 accounts, and over... (/me opens the file labeled ip.txt file.

Over 113 proxies used to try and get to the forum to stir more things up. So . . . Of course, we took action against his free forum host. But, he wanted to start things a little quicker then we were (we already reported him to Level3 - his ISP). He claimed we was hating his forum, and was sending him hate mail. Well here is a quite humorous email from the free host to us...


It has been brought to our attention that there has been a content battle
betwin one of our users and your site, reasontly we have noticed ongoing abuse
for your site.

We has a webhosting site are requesting that the abuse stop from "Both" ends.
Meaning we're requesting that you and the user both stop contacting eachother in
any way, shape of form.
We're also asking that you both ask your members to not contact each other.

We understand that both users have transmited message back and forth.

Which is why we're asking that your please stop this from happening again.
We have got permission from the user to release (1) message for your proof.
This message was sent via his pm system:

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*****************,

I would suggest knocking off the childish games, as they are considered
abuse of provided services by XXXX
services, and XXXX (XXXX.com) and as such, will not be
tolerated.
Period.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This message was sent out of context, it was not the users place to send this request.
It was the website owners request and the request should have been sent to XXXX.com support!

We have also contacted yahoo about the abuse via his email box, what yahoo
does what that we do not know.

If you have any questions please feel free to reply!

And ... of course we replied :angel:


To whom it may concern:

Notice: This e-mail as been sent to the following addresses: .....

I do not enjoy being contacted and threatened via AIM by a party who has absolutely no involvement in the below matters.

1.) I have access URL for the purposes of investigating the abuse matters, and have not registered as per your access logs will quite clearly show.
2.) All contact with your "client" has been via private e-mail and not "Private Messages" via the forum software InvsionPower Board
3.) Your "client" was(/is still possibly) abusing services provided by XXXX and was notified to simply put cease and desist. He was then warned again, and failed to do so. He continued to register, and evading bans via anonymouse proxy, other methods of ban evasion included changing Browser User Agent, along with setting the UA to "". Further more, your client was trying to exploit old vBulletin exploits which only work in certain circumstances to begin with.
4.) I would consider the AIM conversation with Tyler the owner of XXXX unprofessional and inappropriate. I would also consider the threats against me as libel.

Also would someone please explain to me how 3 e-mails sent from my end via SquirrelMail are considered "loads" as per the AIM conversation.

Below is a partial list of full IP's along with partial IPs that were used to block whole D classes. These Include Proxies and His IPs via Level3


A rather small list of examples.

Excerpt from XXX.com-access.log
XXXX- - [22/Jun/2005:05:55:28 +0000] "GET /forums//misc.php?do=page&template={${system(id)}} HTTP/1.1" 200 0 "-" "-" "-"
XXXX - - [22/Jun/2005:08:22:35 +0000] "GET /forums//misc.php?do=page&template={${system(id)}} HTTP/1.1" 200 0 "-" "-" "-"
XXXX - - [22/Jun/2005:09:36:59 +0000] "GET /forums//misc.php?do=page&template={${system(id)}} HTTP/1.1" 200 0 "-" "-" "-"
XXXX - - [22/Jun/2005:10:51:21 +0000] "GET /forums//misc.php?do=page&template={${system(id)}} HTTP/1.1" 200 0 "-" "-" "-"
XXXX - - [22/Jun/2005:12:28:27 +0000] "GET /forums//misc.php?do=page&template={${system(id)}} HTTP/1.1" 200 0 "-" "-" "-"
XXXX - - [22/Jun/2005:13:53:38 +0000] "GET /forums//misc.php?do=page&template={${system(id)}} HTTP/1.1" 200 0 "-" "-" "-"
XXXX - - [22/Jun/2005:18:43:09 +0000] "GET /forums//misc.php?do=page&template={${system(id)}} HTTP/1.1" 200 0 "-" "-" "-"
XXXX - - [23/Jun/2005:01:33:32 +0000] "GET /forums/misc.php?do=page&template={${system(id)}} HTTP/1.1" 200 48 "-" "-" "-"

Note how nothing except for the originating IP and method of access and Date are available, "normal" access logs will look something similiar to
XXXX - - [23/Jun/2005:04:51:14 +0000] "GET /forums/online.php?order=asc&sort=username&pp=20&page=1&ua=1 HTTP/1.1" 200 9074 "http://XXXX.com/forums/online.php?order=asc&sort=username&pp=20&page=1&ua=1" "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7.8) Gecko/20050511 Firefox/1.0.4" "-"
68.170.102.152 - - [23/Jun/2005:04:51:58 +0000] "GET /forums/online.php?order=asc&sort=username&pp=20&page=1&ua=1 HTTP/1.1" 200 8759 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.8) Gecko/20050511 Firefox/1.0.4" "-"

Which normally included the Browser User Agent.

Seeing as the access log for XXX.com is 22mbs I will not be attaching it, however it is available for download along with an md5sum check to verify intergrity upon download.
XXXXXXXXXXXX

Along with the access logs, the e-mail's in question between myself and your client have been attached as plain text files which include FULL e-mail headers.

I look forward to a response from Mr. XXXX especially who I'm gathering owns/operates XXXX.com/XXXX.net

Thank you,


And we got a reply from the President of the company saying what can he do blah...

Well, in the end, its been quiet on the homefront so far. :nurse:

Now where was I? Oh, that's right, final mod. He's not the most active thing on the planet...

Last Post:
Blasts Hit London
08-03-2005 06:21 AM

And before that?
07-10-2005, 06:18 AM

As I said :S

Okay, now back to the present. From all that babbling up there, if you didn't understand. There are 3 Administrators (myself included) that pretty much run the forum, with one active moderator, and one moderator who is on a personal break. I'm having problems with 1 admin, and 1 mod :S

Our forums runs on a non-profit server. There are 3 "owners" or partners. One of them, is my administrator and partner, has been for awhile now. But, we've launched our IRC now, and our forums has became the "central" for them (The 3 partners). Since this is all for non-profit, you would think to reward them, right? So I did just that. I gave them all free Premium Membership, and access masks to all of our hidden forums in case they need it. They have no moderation power or administration. My administrator hates this, and he completey disagrees with it. But in my view, there isn't much I/we can do in the situtation, they have gracisouly donated their server for us to use (some what, we don't use a lot of resources) and of course they could gain any power they want anytime they want(ed). But, how do I convice my admin to allow this? Since we have no choice really in my eyes.

[adb22791]

<< Snip >>

Give them the free PM and make a few forums for IRCops. If they arn't moderating the site, they shouldn't have access to the moderation forums. However, they are using IRC and need a central, so just make a new catagory and a few forums, and call it IRC Private. They are also donating web space to you guys, but you're giving them free PM, which equates to roughly $5 per month (times 3). That would more than make up for hosting costs.

Good luck,

[writespeak]

FUser2, I'd read your post, but the log excerpts make the line lengths wider than my screen. Can you fix that problem or provide a condensed version?

Lois

[FUser2]

Is that better Lois?

[SoftWareRevue]

While I agree with adb22791 that a special forum for IRCops is a good move, it appears there are underlying problems afoot.

We have a separate forum for IRCops on WHT. Because, although they're staff of WHTIRC, they ain't staff of WHT.

Let's back up a bit.

If I follow the post correctly, you've had some sort of issues for some time.

It may seem a little late, but you need to write some staff guidelines.

If I follow all the "part-owner" stuff, it still appears that it is basically your project. That, even though there are/have been part-owners, its FUser's project.

My advice is going to be based on that assumption.

Every successful organization has someone at the top. Someone must lead. Even within joint efforts, someone has to make the final decisions. Any good partner or staff understands the need for such.

You need to assume that position.

It's not always the most glamorous, or the most fun. But, it is most important.

On to your problem at hand. . .

I don't think you would have had the reaction you had, if you would have discussed your proposed "thank you" with staff before initiating it.

Staff are there to serve the community. They don't enjoy surprises. The private forums you've discussed things with them, are their sanctuary. Adding more staff into their sanctuary is one thing; but arbitrarily adding people that don't have anything to do with the immediate community, is another.

But, that's all in hindsight. It's how you handle it now that matters.

<<< I gave them all free Premium Membership, and access masks to all of our hidden forums in case they need it. >>>

Premium Membership is good. :) What reason could they have to need access to all hidden forums?

<<< how do I convice my admin to allow this? >>>

Maybe I could help, if you could convince me. :)

<<< Since we have no choice really in my eyes >>>

Okay. So this has to do with a donated server? Why do you feel the owners of the server want access to your hidden forums?

As I said, this should have been sorted out before you initiated it. Maybe now is the time to look at what your community needs regarding moderation and work on that.

I would suggest letting the donators know that you removed their access masks for now, while you sort out some internal issues. And then sort it out.

Unless you have plans in place where this is going to be another ex-co-owner.

I don't know your forum, its members, or its moderators. But, from reading the post that started this thread, they need to be defined.

[adb22791]

We have a separate forum for IRCops on WHT. Because, although they're staff of WHTIRC, they ain't staff of WHT.

Must get pretty lonely in there with only Tyler posting :D


Maybe I could help, if you could convince me. :)

Another forum for SWR to terrorize :evil: :bonk:


Okay. So this has to do with a donated server? Why do you feel the owners of the server want access to your hidden forums?

They donated the server to you, what do you have to give them in return? Last I heard donations were one sided, and giving them PM is already pretty good (in terms of value).

Good luck,

[writespeak]

Is that better Lois?

Thanks. Now I can just fit your post in the screen, which is exactly the width of the --------- lines. If you took a few inches off of each of those, the post would appear normally for me. :flirt:

I didn't understand all of the problem, but I understood Dennis' response. It was very good IMO, and I just gave Dennis points (never thought I'd say those words :eek:) for it.

I think that in a few situations with a mature, cohesive team, there might not need to be a leader. That's probably a topic for another thread. With most situations, though, I think that as I said at WHT recently, the people (or person) who have the responsibility have to make the decisions, and the rest of the group needs to let them do their jobs.

The leader also has to have and keep the respect of the members. I'm sure that won't be a problem with you, but I've seen groups come apart because the leader didn't have that respect when problems happened. Developing leadership skills takes experience and time. Fortunately, you have some good examples to follow. :)

It sounds like you haven't taken a leadership role or created rules yet. Discussing and creating rules with your admin team is a good starting point.

Lois

[writespeak]

A couple more things.

It was a bad move to let non-admins into the admin forum when there was no purpose to them being there, and it'll be a problem to take away that access too. As Dennis said, people don't like surprises. Also, the non-admins might have thought that you were offering more than you were. And taking away something like that can feel like, well, taking away.

Your admins might wonder if they can have confidence in you now. If I were you, I'd explain what happened and that you won't do something like that again without communication first. The trust needs to work both ways.

Concerning the bad-mouthing, most of the time, it's best to just let other people shoot off at the mouth while you take the high road. Observers will see who has credibility. When people are being libelled, sometimes you have to say something, but doing so can add fuel to the fire. That's another topic for another thread.

I couldn't follow everything that's happening in your situation, so I don't know if any of this is relevant. But the high road is good. :)

Lois

[SoftWareRevue]

A couple more things. . .And, it's never too late to fix something. :ftag:

[FUser2]

...Every successful organization has someone at the top. Someone must lead. Even within joint efforts, someone has to make the final decisions. Any good partner or staff understands the need for such.

You need to assume that position.

They know that I'm 'at the top' if you will. But, sometimes, on a heated topic, they seem to forget that. It's not that I have an higher opinion then they do, just that I have the final decisions. And with 2 of us, it can get pretty heated since we can't do a vote (mostly). I think, I'll start being a bit more aggressive then I normally am, when it comes to that. 'Laying down the rules' a bit more heavier then I have been. As I've been a softy :S

I don't think you would have had the reaction you had, if you would have discussed your proposed "thank you" with staff before initiating it.

It's been a little while since I've started a "Thank you" thread, and I may get a gift soon just as a thank you to all the active moderators. Hoping to get the inactive moderators a bit guilty, as selfish as that sounds. But then again, how selfish are you, if you realize you have no time, but you don't participate in a leadership role?

I'll try and remember, to discuss things first, if they don't agree, pull in rest of the members, or as I do quite often - consider the Premiumies' opinion.

I would suggest letting the donators know that you removed their access masks for now, while you sort out some internal issues. And then sort it out.

With the guidance of my staff *hint hint ;)*...We went ahead made a general (with IRC), forum for them. I went ahead and told them, I think this is the best way.

the people (or person) who have the responsibility have to make the decisions, and the rest of the group needs to let them do their jobs.

That's a part of the problem - people who aren't doing their jobs. But that's another thread I believe :angel:

The leader also has to have and keep the respect of the members. I'm sure that won't be a problem with you, but I've seen groups come apart because the leader didn't have that respect when problems happened. Developing leadership skills takes experience and time. Fortunately, you have some good examples to follow.


Well, I've had the same moderation staff for almost a year now. I think they are probably just getting a bit burnt out. I would love to bring in a new fresh blood, but there are only about 10-15 members who make the forum still run how it is. Without these "core" members, we'd be in a world of hurt. Sure, there is a new member, but most of them now simply post their problem, leave and never return.

It was a bad move to let non-admins into the admin forum when there was no purpose to them being there, and it'll be a problem to take away that access too. As Dennis said, people don't like surprises. Also, the non-admins might have thought that you were offering more than you were. And taking away something like that can feel like, well, taking away.

Yah, I realized that, but a bit too late. It goes to say "You learn from your mistakes". They didn't mind at all, I simply told them the situation and of course - they agreed.

Your admins might wonder if they can have confidence in you now. If I were you, I'd explain what happened and that you won't do something like that again without communication first. The trust needs to work both ways.


I've already done that part :)

I couldn't follow everything that's happening in your situation, so I don't know if any of this is relevant. But the high road is good.

I guess that's what happens when you ramble on and on. :D

[writespeak]

I think, I'll start being a bit more aggressive then I normally am, when it comes to that. 'Laying down the rules' a bit more heavier then I have been. As I've been a softy :S

I don't think that aggression earns respect. You have to do what works with your personality, but here's some of what I look for and admire in leaders:

- They listen to other people and weigh feedback carefully when they make decisions.
- They are available to talk to.
- They are fair to everyone.
- They treat everyone with respect.
- They give praise when they can.
- They are themselves with everyone, and they make friends easily.
- They stay calm when things go wrong and steer things in the right direction.
- Their requirements are reasonable.
- When they make mistakes, they admit it and fix the mistakes.

With all of those traits, people usually accept it when the leader draws the line. You don't need to be heavy-handed, just firm. But you can have all of those traits without being a leader, so maybe you need to be seen as a leader first.

It's been a little while since I've started a "Thank you" thread, and I may get a gift soon just as a thank you to all the active moderators.

Excellent idea.

Yah, I realized that, but a bit too late. It goes to say "You learn from your mistakes". They didn't mind at all, I simply told them the situation and of course - they agreed.

We all make mistakes, and it sounds like you have the respect that you need. :)

Lois

[Jan]

It sounds to me like you have too many mods and admin. Do you even need extra admin yet? And what's with the run of part owners?

[FUser2]

There's 350 members, 3 mods, and 3 admins :)

[Floris]

This really sounds like it is time for a site revamp. Keep those who fit the team, and release those who do not fit the team from their position. Improve security and keep a low profile with the staff you have left over. See how that works out first. Sometimes you find out you really don't have to have more owners, admins, super mods, etc. A few people can go pretty far, and over time you will certainly notice who from the regular members might be a potential new and good asset to the staff.

Bad staff = bad vibe = no reason for visitors to register or members to return. In the long run .. it bites you.

Good luck!