What do you believe is the best way to command respect as an admin of an online community? Do you think that an admin who adopts a distant attitude and very rarely participates in the main discussions and instead focusses exclusively on meta-site related stuff is an admin who'll gain respect?

Or do you believe that an admin always have to participate and relate with members on a personal basis to gain loyalty and respect.

My opinion is that it depends on the community size. A large community can get away with less dependence on the admin while smaller communities definitely need admin participation and involvement to get members to become loyal.

But ultimately a community can only prosper when members feel a sense of responsibility towards the community and this can only happen when admins give them respect and treat people as people and not as stats (post and thread counts).

From past experience I'd have to say that you must keep active. Members should know that you are around and that the forum is being run efficiently. If you have a good number of posts and a clear direction from an admin standpoint then you should be in good shape.

I definitely agree with that aspect. But how about larger forums? Do you think they manage to carry on without much admin participation?

I've seen many large boards where the admin tends to have a smaller post count than many moderators and they seem to do fine. I think it's about how much the members tend to identify the forum with the leader:cheesy:

For instance, Daniweb here is a strongly leadership oriented board. We tend to associate this forum with cscgal and the brand was built around the persona. Whereas I've seen many boards where the branding is completely separate from the individual running the board and they too seem to do fairly well.

I think to a large extent the way members perceive the leadership depends on how the leadership is position -- as a single person or as a group, as a more democratically oriented leadership or a more (benevolent) dictatorial role.