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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).

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Both and are circling the same core point: respect and loyalty grow from predictable, fair leadership and from a community that feels it can contribute. Commanding respect is less about raw post counts and more about setting the tone, enforcing it consistently, and creating ways for members to take ownership.

  • Publish a short, pinned statement of purpose and a one-page code of conduct so expectations are explicit.
  • Show leadership through a few visible rituals (weekly roundup, policy clarifications, welcome threads), not nonstop posting.
  • Make enforcement predictable and transparent: public summaries of moderation decisions or an appeals path build trust.
  • Empower volunteers with clear, documented roles and simple SOPs so the community scales without single-person dependency.
  • Recognize and amplify helpful members (profiles, highlights, small rewards) to convert participation into loyalty.
  • Automate routine triage (filters, queues) so human time is spent on judgment calls, not paperwork.

Consistent, visible moderation matters because people need to see rules applied fairly; for a concise take on that principle see .

Scale changes what works. Small groups benefit from hands-on onboarding and founder warmth; larger communities need institutional processes, delegated authority, and succession planning. Where a board is closely tied to a persona (as Daniweb is often associated with @cscgal), formal governance and trained deputies protect the brand if that person steps back. For background on how community dynamics shift with scale see Online community.

Starter to-do: pin a 300-word purpose + conduct doc, set a 10-minute daily admin triage, recruit/train 2–3 moderators with one-page SOPs, and review member retention and flag trends after 60 days.

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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.

Member Avatar for harishankar

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.

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