Tough Decisions Time

[Shayera Hol]

So as I'm sure that most of you are aware, Clark Kent, our main admin, has been inactive. But if you're unaware of the details, you also need to know them: I've had absolutely no word from him since the 11th. I've even sent him email and haven't gotten any replies. And when he disappeared he left no word about being busy or any other hints that he might not be able to get online for awhile - in fact, in his last post he specifically said he'd be doing something the next day and he didn't. Which obviously puts me as the remaining admin in the difficult situation of trying to figure out what to do about this. One thing I do know is that I think that what we've started here is awesome so I'm not going to suggest that we give up. But I don't see DC Beginnings as my site or mine and Clark's - you members have a large stake in this too. So I thought that I'd ask for everyone's opinions on what to do about the issues this raises:

1. How long to wait. Like I said, there hasn't been the slightest sign of Clark since the 11th. This is a tricky question because I obviously want to be generous to him and not rush into action - there are many legitimate reasons to vanish without a trace for this long. But on the other hand, it hurts the site both because it's hard to have a good DC site without a Superman and it's hard for me to give it as much attention as it needs by my lonesome. (If any of you are unaware, I'm also the only active admin on another, much busier, site right now too so I'm stretched a bit thin.) And when I start doing things like picking moderators or new admins without him, that's when I'm obviously no longer waiting.

2. Unfortunately, he's the one with the all-important admin account. For those of you who are unaware: proboards gives the person who created the forum a special account that can do things no other account can do, even another admin account like mine. Then again, the only real immediate problem with that is that I can't change what sorts of powers the different levels of staff have. However, if something happens like his account getting hacked or something along those lines, I do know that proboard's support people are of limited help to anyone except the legitimate main admin of a forum for security reasons. So it's not exactly safe in the long run to run a forum without access to that account and the only way to fix that without Clark is to restart the site in a new forum so that I would have the admin account. And I wanted to bring this up now because if we want to move the site then it's better to do so now instead of waiting until we're even more settled in here. It would be a bit of a hassle, but we could recreate what we have here with a lot of copy/pasting.

So, with all that said, I would really, really, really like any input at all that any of you would like to give.

[Bruce Wayne]

Give Clark, and every other inactive member a final notice of two weeks from today. If you don't hear from him or anyone else their characters and positions within DC Beginnings should be forefit.

If you really feel like moving the board. I'm happy to help create, co-admin or co mod. Although I don't know much about skin design.

Whatever you decide to do in the long run, I'll support it 100%

[Shayera Hol]

Skin design is not a problem: I made this skin. And the sidebar and... Let's just say I personally have all the skills required to make and maintain a forum - I've actually run a lot of forums in my day, so any of that stuff is not an issue.

What I'm lacking personally is a knowledge of the DC canon outside of the animated series (and even then I don't know all of it), I'm not the best at coming up with plots, and I don't have the time to personally attend to every minor detail of maintaining the site. So what I would need in a co-admin is basically someone who is really good at coming up with plots and is familiar with the DC canon - that's essentially what Clark is. They wouldn't necessarily need to have any forum-running experience because that's what I know.

Though I could also probably get away with being the only admin by on letting the members come up with more of the ideas and simply having a number moderators to help with all the grunt work - which I'd choose would probably depend on exactly who and how many people offer to be on staff.

And it's good to hear you offer to help, because I've already seen you helping out so you're one of the people I've pegged for roping into the staff if that's where we're headed.

So really it simply boils down to those questions: how long to give Clark, and whether or not to move the forum. I personally think that giving him a full month but no more than that would be best, but I wanted to get a sense if anyone thinks that's too much. It's the second question that I'm agonizing over more since moving the forum would be a pain and the odds of the bad stuff we'd need the admin account for are small - but then that bad stuff is site-endingly bad.

One thing I can say is that any inactive person has, at most until July 11th to get back. I've been planning on doing a formal activity check at the beginning of the month anyway to clear out all of the inactive members, and I typically make those last a week so it could be July 7th instead.

Anyway, thanks for the input Batman. Anyone else? Seriously, even if it's just 'I agree' or 'Whatever you think is best', I want to hear opinions!

[Hal Jordan]

My 2 cents;

Having read the initial reason for the absence as Clark posted it I can sympathise, I've been there myself.

However as you noted realistically you simply can't run an RPG board with one Mod and no Admin. Apart from other considerations you really need two or three people to review bio's and deal with any day to day decisions that crop up. Otherwise things just stop working.

I've been on a few RPG boards over the years, and the biggest killers of them in my experience is almost always the mods and admins simply not being there* - followed by a tendency to think that their opinion is the only one that matters**.

I think you need to cover your bases here, in that you should set a deadline for Clark and other missing players. While in the meantime starting work on setting up a new board. If Clark doesn't return this should allow us to move over quickly and easily. If he does then that board could act as a backup for any important information posted on here - such as the rules, history and character bio's in play. Even if we move and Clark later returns you can always bump him up to co-admin on there if he wants the job.

(*I've been on some 8 RPG boards over the years. Of these two were closed down by the mods for no apparent reason and less warning. One petered out after one of the mods died, one I left as the mods were posting on average once every six months. Another I left because the mods/admin were ignoring most of the players and treating them like crap - ignoring or refusing to accept ideas even when they only affected two players. As you can probably tell, with one exception all the problems on these boards were the fault of the mods.
The only board I've been on (and still play on) where problems are the fault of the players is an adult board - which unfortunately seems to draw people who think 'Adult' automatically translates as 'Porn'.)

(**I'm not, by the way, implying anything like this here just to be clear. Apart from anything else it would be a daft claim to make after you just asked us for our opinions)

[Bruce Wayne]

Hal's logic is sound.

I also know alittle of the current status of the DCU. However with the reboot/relaunch coming up in September, things are still unclear as to what will be official and what's now going to be non existant within the DC Universe.

Just as long as there are no more crises, then I'm ok with it.

[Shayera Hol]

Hal, you've just proven to me yet again why I ask for opinions - I consider myself to be a smart person, but I'm hardly going to claim that I have a monopoly on good ideas. You're right - if I decide that we should move it definitely would make things go much easier if I start setting up a board before we actually reach whichever deadline I set, and there's no real reason not to since it would be no real loss if Clark comes back. And I do think that I'm leaning towards moving the site - it's just better in the long run and I really do want to be thinking about this site in terms of the long run.

And Batman, I don't really expect that there's anyone who can keep track of it all given how twisted the DCU has gotten - is not the premise of this site sort of a complaint about that? XD I'd just be happy with a co-admin that doesn't go 'I've never heard of that character before in my life' to every other app. Because, frankly, I'm known to do that. XD And I just don't like having to try to decide if a person has made an acceptable app for a character when all I know about the character is what I'm able to learn by skimming the DC Database.

[Jonathan Crane]

From running several boards this is what I can Advise.

One, Keep going

Two, what you can do is something that I have done before an it takes time an effort to do but, switch boards. What I like about IF is the Admin accounts, you can have multiple with the same powers. so if someone goes missing you can keep going.

It jut happened recently with a tron board I'm on. So I was just in your shoes not to long ago.

Just continue to contact him. Hope he responds an the first chance he does, Get his password an change the main account over to a ADMIN account accessable for the both of you an make him another one for his Rp purposes.

<flings Pennies an walks away>

[Shayera Hol]

Lol - I don't like IF. Sorry, but I really, really don't. XD The interface is just... Let's just say I must really like your site (shameless plug) to continue to be there this long. It's the first IF forum I've ever actually joined and though I'm sticking with it since I've gotten to like the place, I don't think I will again. XD

And I understand the reason why they set up proboards they do with the main admin account. The account is linked to one and only one email address and thus is linked to one and only one person, so if there's some messy dispute among admins about who the rightful owner of a site is... That's why they do it that way - it's more secure. And it actually wouldn't be such a problem right now if he'd set up the admin accounts better before he vanished at least - but then, he told me that he didn't really know what he was doing with proboards - I really should have been the one to set up the board. Hindsight is 20/20 and all that.

[Bruce Wayne]

To your knowledge, has he been active in any other sites?

I ask because considering the reasons of his absence, perhaps he's reconsidered on rp'ing for a good amount of time, or he's just decided to abandon the site completely and concentrating on someplace else.

[Shayera Hol]

No. I only know him from one other site and he's been gone from there several days longer than here. And it seems odd to me where he left things off - his last post here was that app for the OC he was planning on making. And he'd been working on that thing for days.

[Bruce Wayne]

Well, if you're hesitant about moving over to another forum, you can always just have Clark Kent/ Superman as an available character. Main admins can change their username at anytime, and the person can take an observatory role.

[Shayera Hol]

The only reason I hesitate to move to another forum is because of all the stuff we've already done here - namely, the RP threads. But then, I have a theory about how it might be done even more easily than making everyone recreate threads. But even then it'll be a lot of work, and I know that if we wait another two weeks it'll be even more.

[Bruce Wayne]

Totally understandable. Picking up and moving is incredibly challenging, but yet at the same time...why recreate past works when we can simply transfer over.

[Shayera Hol]

When I said 'recreate' I meant what you meant when you said 'transfer'. I didn't mean write up new posts.

[Bruce Wayne]

Sorry for the confusion.