How often do you communicate with your staff?

Communication is important, especially in what regards staff members. In my opinion, not only concerning board issues, but also in general. And I don't mean only with some of the staff members, and not necessarily with all of them in conference, but... in general. And... talk, ie online - yahoo, skype, facebook, whatever you have. Not "to do lists" sent by e-mails.

I am talking with my moderator almost every day on yahoo, and I like this. But with my co-administrator and with my coding and graphics moderator I seldom talk (well, timezones suck too), and I feel we should talk once a week preferably, or if not possible, at least once at two weeks. What do you think?

Sometimes I feel... strange, why am I needy to talk to them when they obviously aren't? My need for communication might be interpreted as clinginess, or overbearing, or something… if the others obviously don’t need it as much. But, at the same time, why do I have to I talk with other people from other RPGs about characters and plots they are only reading about, when it should be my staff to be interested in this kind of discussions?

I know we had a PM conversation about this, but I thought I'd just jump in and say I don't think you're asking a lot at all and it does concern me when I hear that others have staff members who don't email each other daily/every few days. I think staffers should talk to each other on a regular basis, and about more than just the board. A tight-knight staff team is better than one that doesn't know it's left from its right, and staffers who are more friends than anything else will be more likely to help each other out.

I'd be quite interested in how the 'D's team communicate and team build

It can be hard to coordinate schedules to meet up regularly, so as long as it is not a requirement set in stone, then talking things over once a week or two-weekly seems reasonable.

I picked almost daily, because my co-admin and I live together, so you can't help but discuss things over washing up or coffee.

My co-admin and I talk daily. We started out as RP buddies and we talked daily then too, so when we took over admining the site that communication was already there. Of course a majority of that conversation is really just for the lulz, but we do discuss important staffy and plotty stuff as well. We're lucky to be in the same time zone and have similar late hours, but honestly I'm connected to the online world an obscene amount of time (partly because of my job) so time zones wouldn't really pose too much of a problem for me anyway.

I only have one other staff member, and we talk so much and make such major decisions together that she isn't 'my staff member', we're co-administrators and that's that. I have the root account, because I'm a little baby, but that doesn't mean anything. We're still basically entirely equal beyond my being the one to say 'BUT I WANT TO HOLD THE KEYS.'

And.... I talk to her more than almost daily. It's like all day, every day. If I don't talk to her in like 12 hours we get CONCERNED for the other, like 'oh god, they haven't responded to a text in a while, they must have DIED'.

& lololol @kisstheground, me and @secondrisings have that same problem, even on our site, since I go by Britta and she goes by Rita. Everyone confuses us, always, and people complain about it and we're like 'well what do you want us to do about that?'

LOL, that is exactly what happens with my co-admin and I. My husband makes fun of me for it and I tell him off for being secretly jealous. (To be fair, when he's twenty minutes late coming home I assume he was in some horrible car wreck and has amnesia because why else would he have not called?!)

It'd be very hard for me to not to communicate with my co-admin daily, seeing we're friends in real life and we live together during the semesters. Even now, when we're at our parents's houses, we talk on a near-daily basis.

If the situation was different though, and I ran a site with an internet friend, I'd still want to talk to him/her on a regular basis. I think communication is crucial for being able to keep the site running smoothly, without misunderstandings and the arguments that arise from that. Also, for me, the social aspect is a huge part of why I role play; I want to be friends with the people I play with, and friends enjoy talking to each other. Doesn't matter if it's a co-admin or a member, I love having a relationship with them outside the characters, and I find that it's the people I've become friends with that are the ones I can really trust to stick around.

Constantly, pretty much? I don't think there's any co-staff member I don't talk to every day (on all three boards I staff on) unless one of us is out of town.

It's not about not being friendly with them. We are friendly, we have never quarelled, I have no qualms with their way of doing their duties, because they are helping. It's just... a problem of time, and I guess they are not so keen on communication because they have other people on other sites to communicate with more frequently. I think they don't have the need to communicate as much as I do.

LOL, @kisstheground, me and @Catastrophe86 are in that position, too. One of our members even went so far as to combine our two names, so it'd be easier to refer to the Admin Entity as a single unit.

But yeah, to answer the question, I talk to the other staff members pretty much daily. When it comes to @Catastrophe86, I'll get wicked withdrawal symptoms if I go too long without talking to her, anyway, so it's really the only way I function properly. But even on the occasions when the person (or people) I've run a board with hasn't been my real-life friend and roommate, we'd talk on AIM about the board or just chat wildly about nothing in particular almost daily, until it got to the point where I'd really start to miss talking to them if a few days went by when we weren't able to catch each other online.

In my opinion, it's important, or at the very least beneficial, to have a pretty good relationship with the people you staff a board with. If I'm going to share a workload with someone, I want it to be someone I can get along with, discuss things with, and trust to not suddenly vanish into thin air. So, from my point of view, it's not strange at all that you'd want to communicate with your staff, even about topics that aren't directly related to the board. At least for me, it just feels better to know that you have a good relationship with the people you staff a board with.

I could never be staff if there's no regular communication D; As of right now, my board is run only by me and my co-admin and our timezones are quite similar so we speak daily (or almost daily.) That's helped, of course, because we were friends prior to making the board but anyways >_. I don't know, I couldn't also run a board with people I'm not comfortable enough to talk about things other than admin-y stuff and/or plotting. There's a reason why staffers are a team, yanno?

The majority of my staff have the same/similar timezones to me so generally they're AIM at the same time as me. My coadmin actually has my phone number and I his. This was done long before either of us were admins; it was more of a close friends thing back in 2008. My moderators, I try and talk to them daily as well, either on the board or through AIM, just to assure that they're on task. I often will sort of nudge them toward tasks that need to be done instead of doing it myself; only if it looks like they need something to do or if they don't have anything going on at the moment. ^^ One of my moderators also has my phone number. This is because back in June, he was going to be the only active staff for one whole week. XD; Myself and my Coadmin were going on vacation together for that week and while most of our other mods would be there for part of the week, this one was the only who would be there the whole week. So, he got my phone number in case something happened.

@Elenitsa, I know when I was at BTM we did talk on a daily basis. I'd be talking to the ones who don't communicate with you and asking them what the deal is. Honestly, communication is the key to everything when running a forum. I like to get to know my co-admins (and set up crew like @puddipop) because it's fun. I like to get to know them on a personal level (not so personal as to know when they use the bathroom on a daily basis, lol) and be able to ask them about their day when we're not talking about site stuff.

I apparently lack all that though, lol.

A site administrator should be communicating with their staff daily or almost daily. Just a general touching base to make sure things are humming along and they are managing things all right, and you aren't immediately needed.

My staff and I communicate almost daily. If we're not online or out of the country (one of my mods is in Japan and only JUST got internet connections), we tend to text each other. Even if it's not about staff or CG related stuff. For example, my mod and I talked recently about her new job and her new boss and dog food and cat food and what kinds are awesome and aren't. Not even joking. We talked seriously about dog and cat food for fifteen minutes or more and it was actually an interesting conversation.

We send each other jokes and we're also all facebook friends which helps. It means that if they drop their phone in a lake or CG isn't working for them, I know because they've put something up on their facebook. In the case with my moderator in Japan, her mom was updating her facebook for her and so we knew she was alive and kicking from that alone. I think it helps when you've got a constantly feed of information, especially if a catastrophe happens on CG but I'm not available (such as if I'm on vacation or just can't get an internet connection). I can tell them, via text or call, what I would LIKE to have happen and how I think it should be handled and then they can get it done. Likewise, if they need me to do something on CG (post an absence, explain that they're in Japan (I think it's cool she's there so it's going to be mentioned a lot!)) then they can text or call me and I'll be happy to do it for them.