Those of you who've been mods... what did you hate about it?
What problems did you see over and over again?
What worked particularly well?
I absolutely would not tolerate the wheeze of 'I'm just a volunteer so I can do sloppy work,' and would have some kind of concrete rewards system. What kind of rewards would you consider worthy? Credit towards any branch of EMG at some rate per month of volunteer work? (It couldn't be a decent hourly wage... yet... but it could be up to $20 worth per month or something, only applied to months with significant work.) How would you rate work? Honor system of hours worked? Actual output?
Those of you who've had conflicts with mods (either as one or as a 'victim' of one... why'd they happen?
How would you get rid of them?
What tasks do you see moderators taking? Is it really a moderator role that I'm seeking? What would you call it, if not?
Tasks that take time:
EMG:
~Selection of new work (I'm not sure I'll ever delegate this one)
~Prep of design webgraphics
~Shopping cart codes
~Set of up new artists (new webpage, menu update, new email address)
~Mentoring. (Almost all new artist require a certain amount of hand-holding... file formating, navigating the upload site, questions about paymenet, etc)
~Entry coding for new products (mostly cut'n'paste, but some finesse needed)
~Email replies to the basic messages.
PA:
~Approving new work
~Adding new work (no new shopping cart codes, but it would be like entry coding of new products above.)
~Graphics for new work.
~Mentoring (see above)
~Moderating forums. (So far, no real problems, but those come with size.)
~Setup of new artist pages (non-delegatable)
Oh, and probably lots I'm just not thinking of now.
Feel free to email me: ellen at ellenmilliongraphics.com
Any input you have would be welcome. I probably won't implement anything for months or years, but I want to be ready for the problems that will come with spreading out the load. And be thinking about it now so that I can set things up such that I can assign others the needed authority, etc.
