Negative sideeffects of being a webmaster

[symptome]

Thanks!

- Get privacy enabled on the domain name
What? And how?
- Use a new screen name or simply "admin" on the site
- Don't post any personal information about your site
- Don't use the same IP as any of your other sites.

[MrEyes]

Originally Posted by Vtec44

* Late working hours.

Yes, my site is like a second job. A second job that doesn't pay very well

Originally Posted by Vtec44

* People always complain.

Yep

Originally Posted by Vtec44

* Idiots that think they're entitled to everything because they have a subscription.

Yep

I have a usergroup on my site that contains members that are not allowed to subscribe. Yes I loose some cash, but I save the hassle of the "I pay for this and you have moderate my 'quality contributions'" private messages.

Originally Posted by Vtec44

* You can never make everyone happy

Yep

When I started my forum I had some extremely naive ideas about keeping all the people happy all the time. After a few months I realised that I could only maintain the site if I placed the sites, and the community as a whole, interests first.

I run my forum as a business which means that I do have to expose some personal information, i.e. my name and address. However I paid for a PO Box number (not sure what the equivalent is in the US) so my domain name whois info is:

Company Name
PO BOX 12345
City

This prevents anybody who has nothing better to do from knocking on my door.

[Zachariah]

^ Who would stalk this face.

Originally Posted by symptome

Do you have any experience relating people stalking you because you're administrating a forum?

I post where I live and phone numbers online. There is no need to stalk.
If you come over bring a beer or a gun.

Fear is the mind killer.

[Ryan Ashbrook]

- No one pays you. (Except advertisers, but even then it sucks)
- People who think you can do anything and everything.
- Stuck Up Snobs ruin my day easily
- Stupid People
- Stalkers (I've never had one, but have seen cases)
- People who intentionally destroy your boards with stupid posts and slander (Goes alongside Stupid People, but these people are in a class of their own, I've had three already on my 33 member board)
- People who ignore the do noty PM/IM/Email me note in my signature!!! I have a feeling the guys here at the .org can feel me on this one.

With the last one, this seriously happened, one guy IMed me for help with another BBS I was a support tech for (some time ago) and I kid you not this happened:

Me - "Did you read my note in my signature?"
Idiot - "Yes I did, will you help me now?"

Thank god for the Block button.

[5th-Level]

Yea its funny. I use to get messages all day asking for moderator.

[edgecutioner]

Originally Posted by KTBleeding

I think that's a positive, as weird as that sounds. I like troubleshooting, it helps me learn.

I'd say a downside is getting too involved (I think this was mentioned earlier) and letting your forum take over your life for a few weeks. I've been known to do that while developing new features / styles. I've got friends and family who need me though, which is where the downside comes in.

You read my mind! But Since there's nothing more to add with my forum, I don't spend much time on it as I used to.

Originally Posted by Ryan Ashbrook

- No one pays you. (Except advertisers, but even then it sucks)
- People who think you can do anything and everything.

ads suck. they pay cheaply.

Originally Posted by Ryan Ashbrook

- Stuck Up Snobs ruin my day easily
- Stupid People

Don't let them ruin your day. Retaliate.

Originally Posted by Ryan Ashbrook

- People who intentionally destroy your boards with stupid posts and slander (Goes alongside Stupid People, but these people are in a class of their own, I've had three already on my 33 member board)

One of my fellow admins was careless and a keylogger got his password. The hackers succeeded 2 times in deleting everything(Attack #1 => Restored with Backup => Attack #2 =>Another Restore[Paranoid this time, I even lost my cPanel login LOL])

Ohbtw, thanks to Paul for the backup hack! it's a real life saver

[MrEyes]

After, this weekend, adding a paid subscription to my site to do nothing other than cover the hosting costs, I have another negative side effect to add to this thread:

Most will accept and understand the reasons for subscription.....

....however no matter how honest and open you are about the fact that subscriptions are absolutely voluntary and only exist to support and go towards the high costs of running a site, there will always be a small group of extremely vocal people who turn your honesty against you and openly accuse you of lieing, empire building and using the goodwill of the community to fund your next holiday.

I put them all into a "I don't want your support" user group that does not have access to the subscriptions.

I would like to be more explicit in my description of these people, but I don't want the vb.org mods banning me. So all I will say is:

:erm:*(&(*& &"?))" **** "&"^?*** ****

...and breath

[Bradley_Wint]

-ve Effectsss...hmmm let's see.

1. Lack Of Sleep
2. Lost Study Hours
3. Getting Mad when spammers attack
4. Reaching to classes late

[legionofangels]

This sounds like an NBC exclusive or something.

Negative Side Effects...hmm.

* Exhaustion

* Realizing that you simply cannot do everything on your own

* Realizing that if you don't do Coding all the time it's hard to communicate what you want with people who do

* Having to run 4 or more systems on top of just a forum

* Having to make sure all assignments are being completed by your Team or Staff

* F R U S T R A T I O N

* Trying to do something, getting 90% into it and then getting stuck again!!!

* For every good idea someone has, they have at least 3 that are completely ridiculous

* Everyone else can have a bad day, but if you do, your not forgiven since your the owner and the expectation is to be perfect at all times

* Errors

* Problems

* Questions about things that were fully explained in announcements

* Maintaining Motivation when you don't want to

* Making time for every single staff member, even when they just want to chat, nothing actually business related of course

* Wanting to retire when the whole website isn't even done yet...lolz j/k

I'm done

ok one more

* Redoing an image 17 times because you are having trouble getting it to look right

[cheat-master30]

For me, there are the usual negatives of running a website. And for forums, that is usually:

1. As said, errors and things going wrong, which DOES and WILL go wrong at the most annoying time possible. This then leads to less members and posts that day, various forum members complaining the site's down/broken and untold agravation for just one line of code happening to be totally broken, or a database error.

2. The side effects of those negative side effects, like the constant emails when said errors occur. And to add to that, members then emailing you individually to complain the site/forum is down.

3. Trolls/idiots/troublemakers, especially persistent ones that won't... get lose and then constantly try and destroy the site/forum and its community. On the flip side, it must be worse for those running an actually large forum, since I've heard of all kinds of notorious trolls and even hackers trying to attack said forums.

4. Spambots. Annoying, but some good account verification will get rid of them for pretty much ever.

5. The problems and side effects of drama. Leaving topics, unban me topics, ban this user topics, site is going downhill topics... The first often end up causing stress to you and members, and end up spiralling out of control with about three more members ending up to leave with the leaving member. The second type ends up usually with a good reminder WHY the user was banned, the third just looks bad and the fourth... well it seems every large forum has had this at least once or twice, and seems to be thrown about an awful lot at support forums for companies... *looks at vBulletin official support forum*.

6. And finally, demands for changes and anger that things have changed, i.e the most annoying thing ever when managing a community or making a product which has been around a few months. The former seems extremely common at support forums (also vBulletin.com) and the latter... seems common at any forum over a year old when a major change is suggested. The second one is even worse when the forum in question is an extremely basic looking one with basic functionality that hasn't been changed a few years. And also sometimes happens when really badly taken April Fools Day jokes are implemented.

Probable effects of this... stress, anger at various members and sometimes feeling in a really bad mood because some minor thing caused a key member to leave or the forum to explode.