Do you pay or compensate your staff?

Do you pay or reward any of your staff, or are all your staff members working on a voluntary basis?

While I imagine there aren't many moderators paid with cash, I guess there's probably quite a few who offer some kind reward. An example I've seen and heard about is a friend who was offered the odd free month advertising space for work as a mod.

Obviously the above isn't something you should advertise as it might make people want positions for the wrong reason. Not that I'd ever really recommend taking applicants anyway. People who want to be a moderator, often want to be one for the wrong reasons.

That's not to say it's at all common and most mods probably are quite happy working for free to give back to the community they love.

Also, if you're a moderator yourself; have you, or would you like to, ever be paid for your work?

 

I don't offer the money but since they all have forums they get all the services offered for free.

 

I'm guessing that means you run some kind of admin/forum related board?

I've yet to cross this bridge with my current forum. I set it up with a friend, so we both pitch in a little, but there's very little to do in terms of moderation. Spammers always fail on signup (my SFS log is HUUUGE!) and members are generally well behaved, so there's no need for moderators as of yet.

We also have one moderator, but that's more of a ceremonial role for a family member I trust, and as the forum hopefully grows he'll be able to take on more roles.

 

Yeah I run a promotion forum, so I have the opportunity to offer free things to them.That they might need like ad space or post packages.

 

My forum for now only have one moderator and he's my friend, a classmate since gradeschool and a partner. He choses to be a moderator because he can't loggin about 5 times a week because he has to do his online business too but its fine for me.

If I were to get another moderator, i'd probably just pick one member thats really loyal and have done great things to the forum and ask if he can do it voluntarily and maybe rewarded from time to time.

 

I've never offered money as "compensation", I think once you introduce money into the mix it can make things a bit messy in a community. I've always opted instead for other perks such as text links and free advertising for staff members (provided their site isn't in direct competition with mine). I make it clear to staff when they are recruited that they are applying for a voluntary role

 

And really small/medium communities don't make enough revenue to pay for staff. Most staff members you see on forums these days - are because they're volunteering for the love of the community. If a staff member asks you to pay them to work for you, then there's something you need to address so you can move forward.

But to answer @benjaminp No, I do not pay staff. I just give them a quality community to work with. As long as you're nice and friendly, then staff members will always want to work for you.