Ok i am starting my forum as the admin/webmaster etc...
and i am recruting some good peeps to be moderators on the many forums that i have.

My question is: As we are just starting, what level of control should i give to the moderators of the forums on the site?
To be more specific, my question is related to features like announcement, sticky, vote or poll creation? and should i give them more power as the time goes and promote some to the admin level?

Ps: my forum is a phpbb2.0.2 in case it helps!

As with starting any team or partnership, you need to know more about those members you are selecting. If you're recruiting members and mods that you don't personally know or have not worked with, it would probably be best to have them as mods for a while and give them more options and control as you go along.

That would let you make sure that they are a valuable member of the team before giving them too much responsibility and too high a level of control.

Dave

Thanks
i think i will do that

Another thing to point out to your admin/mod team is that they are not just police to edit or delete bad or SPAM posts. They are also there to nurture the forums/threads for which they have been assigned.

The new mod might be the world's best on some subject and they mod the forum about that subject. They can't just sit and wait for someone to ask a question about their subject. They need to get in there and ask questions themselves to get others to thinking and then replying.

For example, I have trained guard dogs for 20 years. I'm assigned the forum on guard dog training. I can sit and wait for for someone to ask about guard dog training, which could take some time. Or, I could put a poll up and ask a guestion about dog training........like "What method do you use to teach a dog to heel? with several answers like "the Kohler Method", "the Incentive Method", "no method", etc. The mod is then actively nurturing their forum on training.

Admin and mods are not just forum police, they are the caretakers of their soon to grow garden of posters.

Dave

one thing i would say is that it is unwise to appoint mods early in a forums life if you dont know the person previously

making a member who initially posts regularly can backfire - wait until the site grows and theres a need for posts to be moderated

you should appoint mods kinda like webmaster-talk is doing, when someone has many posts where Chief can determine the kind of person he/she is and wether or not he/she can be trusted with the powers a moderating job comes with.

Either that or you can get your friends to be MOD. It all really depends.

Great insights
I think i am going to mod admin solo for now and will contact real life friend who want to get involved in the project i am putting together etc... Maybe in during the course life of the forum they will be sometrustworthy persons who i can appoint as admins etc...

Regarding the caretaker of the garden, i like the image of that and i will have to write like a formal document that will be posted in private forums for admin and mods of the forum, to define the moderateor/admin policy etc... I think when you have already a formal written policy of what an admin/mod should do etc.. It can help first so those new apointees will understand their job easily but it will show them how serious they have to be about it etc...
By the way do you guys have such instructions that you post or e-mail to new moderators or admin?

Thanks for all those great advices...

hey i found this link that i think tells a lot of things to a scientific a proach to community!

They have everything for how to lauch your community to how to hire moderators and when etc....
It is very complete

a must see!
http://communityanswers.com/archive.asp?keyword=

I do not know if this is too late or not, but if you need a moderator for your forums i would gladly go and help you out!

HGF Webmaster