I've probably asked this on this site before, but I don't remember. Go figure haha.

Anyways I've seen sites where staff members share the main admin account, but they have their own accounts for their RP characters.

I've also seen sites where the main admin has their account, along with a seperate RP account for their characters.

Which is a better idea?

I prefer for all of my character accounts to have admin powers, so I don't have to log out and back in again. However, with phpBB it's possible for some of them not to look like admin accounts, which I take advantage of so that visitors don't think the place is overrun by authority. We also have a shared admin account so that if someone needs access to the board (as in tech support) they don't have access to anyone's personal account.

I share an admin account with M. Everard, but only because she's one of my best friends IRL and I trust her. And I know where she lives if she decides to do anything funny. And she knows how to hack into my accounts anyways. :sweat:

It's very useful to have one admin account, because all of the admin-related stuff goes to one account and everyone can see it. On the downside, we don't have admin powers in our character accounts, only an admin mask, and we have to spend about a second switching accounts in order to do admin work. I would only share a root admin account if you really trust the other person(s). Bad things could happen if there were ever an info leak or disagreement.

I don't trust people enough to all share the same admin account. I would also be afraid of screwing something up and then accidently blaming someone else for it unknowingly.

On my first RP I made the mistake of making the root admin account the name of my own character. The site has since died but if I had ever wanted to pass the site along to someone else to take over it would have been a bit messy.

Now, I always make the root account an "adminy" sounding name completely separate from my own character accounts - just in case I decide to leave. It makes it easier to pass the board (and root account) to someone else.

Oh and....never, ever share the root admin account/password to ANYONE else on the site (unless you DO want to give ultimate power to someone else).

Well what exactly does the admin mask do?

It allows a regular member account to see what an admin sees; namely, the invisible admin forum, so that we can still talk about general site stuff without having to switch out of our accounts and hold a conversation in one account...which would get really confusing really quickly, haha. I don't know if masks work the same way outside of invisionfree, though.

I've kept the root admin account separate from all my other accounts, and do admin stuff under my OOC name. My fellow admin's Admin account is also her OOC account.
If I'm there under my OOC name, it's generally specifically to do admin or OOC stuff.

It doesn't take long to switch between accounts using Firefox anyway, and I think that having my IC accounts as ordinary member accounts can help make the place look less authoritarian, as both myself and my fellow admin have multiple character accounts.

I don't like sharing accounts, even if you know the person really well. Too many bad things can happen from that.

I would suggest having individual accounts, even if you're just starting off as an admin. It allows you to be thrown right into the mess of it all and you have to struggle to survive rather than being overlooked and having everyone else do everything.