Leadership Inactive Owner & Limited Moderator Permissions

[Deleted member 560]

I recently became a moderator on a fairly large forum and it consists of an owner who is difficult to reach and logs in only once a day but sometimes takes like a week to login. Hasn't typed on the forum since 2020 (not counting PMs) and that was when a staff member mentioned him (that staff member has since gone inactive as well). The forum was overtaken with spam I cleaned up most of the forum as the only really active staff.

Moderator permissions is also messed up as I can't issue warnings or delete posts however I can use spam cleaner (purge all of a members messages) and ban permissions (he said he was going to contact XenForo as he said those perms were enabled for me I suggested him to check node permission overwrite didn't hear back). The forum still sees decent daily growth as in members/posts. Communication with him is difficult as he does minimum and doesn't always respond to everything if I include it in one message, any thoughts? (Members also asked over the years if he'd sell and he told them six figures he would)

 

[Al]

If he can't be arsed, why are you? Create a competitor, stick a link in your signature, and take any active members with you.

 

[Cedric]

Honestly, run away. Waste of time. You are being treated as his slave. He doesn’t care, why should you?

 

[Deleted member 560]

why are you?

why should you?

Because it takes a couple of minutes to check in and maintain and he still checks PMs every once in awhile. His site still ranks really well on Google.

 

[Al]

But does your site rank really well on google? You could be putting this effort into building something of your own, not maintaining something belonging to someone else.

 

[Cpvr]

Because it takes a couple of minutes to check in and maintain and he still checks PMs every once in awhile. His site still ranks really well on Google.

Honestly, I’d create my own community and focus on driving the members from that community to the new forum.

When an owner is inactive for that long, he’s just reaping the benefits from Google.

However, if a new competitor is launched with better content and a better owner, it won’t last too long ranking high on Google. Especially with word of mouth growth, users linking to the new forum, etc.

You have the opportunity to create something special and make it magical, I’d go for it!

 

[Ravenfreak]

I'm with Al and Cedric on this. I would move on, and start your own forum. It's clear that the owner doesn't care about the forum anymore sadly, if he can't be bothered to log in at least once a day to help out and he's ignoring your DMs it's time to move on

 

[Mace]

Do you have too much time on your hands? I honestly don't see why you're trying so hard if nobody else is - it is a proper waste of time. The owner is obviously not committed to running the community (anymore). Of course, that can happen in what, 5 years? However, it does not seem like he is planning to get a second (active) administrator or sell it to someone genuinely interested in the community for a realistic amount of money. Also, as some of the members already asked if he would sell the forum, they seem to be very interested in having the type of community it is around. There's a good chance that if you'd create your own community instead, they would actually follow you there.

 

[1stop]

That is what you get when you have a limited moderation permission and it can be so frustrating especially when you are dealing with a problematic post like yours or when you have too many spammers trying to destroy the forum with stupid posts. Perhaps, you should continue to reach out to the owner of the forum with the hope that you would get an answer someday.

 

[Matthew]

Either create your own community or leverage your efforts to negotiate greater permission sets and compensation with the existing community. If he’s got the infrastructure but no drive, utilize what he’s built in a higher capacity. If this second plan doesn’t work out, default back to creating your own community, market through his existing infrastructure, and drive traffic to your location.