Administrative roles

Occasionally the Research Cooperative receives non-specific offers of help for administration.

Here we introduce a range of administrative roles for which we need help. There are many roles, and many people are needed as volunteers to help develop and manage our network as a cooperative, not-for-profit enterprise.

In the future, if sources of income or other sponsorship are adequate, we may be able to offer paid positions to professional administrative staff. At present we cannot offer such positions.

If any of the roles described below are of interest to you, please contact: Dr Peter Matthews, National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka, Japan (email pjm at idc.minpaku.ac.jp).

Thank you.

Roles (main categories)

1. Board of Advisors

2. Network Communications Officer (coordination, technical enquiries, PR, formal correspondence)

3. Social secretary (new member greetings, social advice, member-member relationships)

4. Groups Manager (focus groups for countries, languages, occupations, topics, volunteers, etc.)

5. Forums Manager (forums for offers and requests)

6. General or Regional roles, according to need

7. Research and Development (R&D for our network, scout for funding sources)

8. Short Communications of the Research Cooperative (finding and managing writers for Co-op)

9. Topical Notes (finding and managing writers for sponsored content)

10. Other (make your own suggestion!)

We currently have a Chief Administrator (Dr Peter Matthews, who is also the Network Creator), and a small number of Group administrators and moderators. Many administrative roles remain to be filled, by volunteers, to support development and operation of the network (see note here).

A 'roles' control panel -- in the computer system used to create our social network -- allows the Network Creator (Chief Administrator) to give other people various administrative roles within the website of our network. An unlimited number of members can be assigned to a particular role, and up to 20 different kinds of role can be created within our network, using the control panel.

Here is a breakdown of the specific permissions that can be given to a role (in various combinations):

Appearance: Access to the Appearance page, including ability to change the theme, settings, or add or remove CSS.

Blog: Tag, feature, and delete blog posts. Delete comments. If blog moderation is on, approve pending blog posts.

Forum: Access to Manage Forum page, including ability to add, edit, and delete categories and change discussion style. Tag, feature, close, and re-open discussions. Delete discussions or replies.

Groups: Edit and delete groups. Send message to group. Manage group members. If group moderation is on, approve pending groups.

Members: View full list of members. Feature, ban, and unban members. Resend or cancel invitations. If member moderation is on, approve pending members. Create and add members to specific roles.

Notes: Add, feature, edit, and delete notes.

Pages: Create, edit, and delete pages.

Photos: Delete, tag, feature, and rotate photos. Delete and feature albums. Delete comments on photos and albums. If photo moderation is on, approve pending photos.

Videos: Delete, tag, and feature videos. Delete comments. If video moderation is on, approve pending videos.

Specific content:  When help is needed to moderate specific content  such as a very active forum thread the Chief Administrator can choose an individual content item by URL for the role to moderate. The administrator of a content item can delete comments, remove the item from our network, and perform other administrative duties.

Some features available from our host, Ning.com, are not currently installed on our site (hence no administration required). These are:

Music: Edit main page playlist. Feature songs. Events: Feature or delete events. Delete comments. Send message to guests.

(PJM, 20th Dec. 2012)