Moderator has gone away. What do I do?

[harishankar]

I am running a pretty new site and I have two moderation groups:

Editorial Staff (for my content forums)
General Staff (for my other forums)

The person I chose for the General Staff has not logged in for over a month now. I am caught in a difficult position. Do I remove this member from my moderation team and appoint someone else? Will this look good?

How can I resolve this issue?

[SilentSpic]

Since we are on a holiday month, I would wait another two weeks or so.

[harishankar]

The person was last online on Nov 18th. After that, not a word. I cannot even contact the person by e-mail, there has been no response at all...

I even went to the person's website's forums and there have been no new posts for about the same period. Not a word. Weird...

[cscgal]

If they used to be a good poster and a valuable moderator, I would remove them as moderator. At the same time, send an e-mail saying: "I have temporarily removed you as moderator because you haven't visited in X months. Therefore, I don't want it to be confusing for members who try to contact you as part of the forum staff, etc. Should you ever choose to resume your activities on our forum, I will happily reinstate you!"

[harishankar]

If they used to be a good poster and a valuable moderator, I would remove them as moderator. At the same time, send an e-mail saying: "I have temporarily removed you as moderator because you haven't visited in X months. Therefore, I don't want it to be confusing for members who try to contact you as part of the forum staff, etc. Should you ever choose to resume your activities on our forum, I will happily reinstate you!"

Thanks. That's an idea. Although I have e-mailed earlier with no response, I guess there's no harm in sending another e-mail.

[Mighty_Squid]

Besides starting my own little forum I am a Mod on a Big Board with over 40,000 members.

I am not sure about your forum but in my expreiance Modding can burn you out faster than just being a member or an Admin. I usually take a few weeks off every 3 months or so. Otherwise my burnout would show on the forums which is never a good thing.

If this person was a good Mod than I would say keep them on but get another as well.

The Big Board has about 8 active Mods and the others pick up the slack when one goes on hiatus.

[harishankar]

Besides starting my own little forum I am a Mod on a Big Board with over 40,000 members.

I am not sure about your forum but in my expreiance Modding can burn you out faster than just being a member or an Admin. I usually take a few weeks off every 3 months or so. Otherwise my burnout would show on the forums which is never a good thing.

If this person was a good Mod than I would say keep them on but get another as well.

The Big Board has about 8 active Mods and the others pick up the slack when one goes on hiatus.

Well, I started Oct 2004 and I still have only 23 members and get about 5 to 6 posts every day. There is nothing to moderate so far. Maybe I shouldn't have appointed moderators in the first place.

[baker011]

For now you could probably cope without him, its best to remove him as a mod though incase any user tries to get in touch. To me there is nothing worse than getting no response for that one time you actually need help. Just make yourself a mod of that area until the member numbers justify a replacement, atleast this way if he does come back it wont look like you quickly replaced him. Send an email explaining what you have done and for what reason though as its just being considerate.

I own a forum with only 1300 members and have a moderating team of 14 a technical mod and myself. But we do have an active community and they always have something to do. Surprised a forum with 40000+ members can get away with only 8 moderators.

[Mighty_Squid]

There are more than 8 really but we are the most active.

The forums don't get too bad and there are 3 Admins who also Mod.

http://www.tolkienonline.com