I hereby declare today as “National Thank Your Facebook Group Admin Day”! The official date of this holiday is whatever day you are reading this post.
I have spent the last several years administering vintage groups on Facebook –some smaller (such as my Negro League collectors group with less than 1,000 members) and one mammoth (Vintage Baseball Cards, with over 50,000 members).
Overall it has been a positive experience–I’ve met most of my current vintage pals through the groups, and have made hundreds of deals on social media. There’s no denying the power of these groups in helping us all buy and sell cards and memorabilia. I’m a teacher by trade, and I do genuinely like helping people and being useful.
But . . . if you have done admin work in these groups before, you already know: it’s a labor of love. It is mostly thankless yet necessary work that most people take for granted. Scammers, frauds, complainers, threats, trolls and more can suck the joy out of the experience, turning it into a dreaded no-wage job. If you are in a clean group of any size at all, count on 20-40 hours of admin work per week behind the scenes.
So, what can we do to help these important hobby resources sustain themselves (and their administrators)? Read on.
Admins Unite! Feel free to share this post in your group. And if you are just a group buyer / seller member, please keep reading so you can learn how to make your admin’s life much easier.
Fun fact: Facebook group admins are volunteers, and they have lives!
Admins are often treated as though we are here to offer 24/7 customer support. But remember–this isn’t a paid gig, and honestly, a group admin doesn’t owe you anything. Group users are adults doing business with other adults, and with many possible tools at their disposal (Paypal Goods and Services protection, for example).
We don’t have a “returns” department; can’t retrieve your money; have no access to USPS databases to track your package; have no authority to arrest or charge anyone. We are just like you in all of these regards.
Further, Facebook is not very conducive to running a clean group. Facebook cares not about fraud, or scams, or fake profiles, or cloned profiles, or SPAM, or anything else admins and mods deal with all day, every day. If you have every had your identity stolen on FB, you know the pain.
Here are a few ways you can make your FB admins’ lives easier! if you are going to contact an admin–which is more than welcome, often!–let’s please avoid repeating conversations anything like these:
“Admin please contact me.”
No. If needed, you contact admin. We do not have time to reply to commands with no context. Click on the list of group members, and Admins and Mods are listed first. Contact admin yourself if needed. But wait! It’s probably not needed!
Good Admins are happy to help–everyone is new at some point, and there’s a lot to learn about how to navigate the groups effectively. I’ve written extensively about answers to many of the most common FAQ questions here, but when in doubt, friendly questions are always welcome! Better safe than sorry when listing or buying for the first time. But please, for the love of the Babe, don’t make contact in any of these ways of for any of these reasons!
“Hey man, why was my post removed?”
99.99% of the time your post was removed because you broke a group rule. Review, revise, resubmit–you can do it!
“This group has RULES? Where are they?”
Every group’s rules are in the exact same place and accessed in the exact same method. You could Google the DIY on this, but in short, just click on the group’s title to see the rules.
“I know the group says only 1985 and earlier can be posted, but is 1986 OK?”
No, no it is not.
“Bob Jones won my auction and did not pay. What should I do?”
First, make sure you tagged Bob Jones to let him know he won your auction. Replying isn’t enough–you need to tag winners so they get the notification. Almost all of the time, this is the issue.
The other culprit is that one or neither party understands how to use Facebook Messenger and how to access Message Requests. Now that you are reading this, you can Google these things as well!
Admittedly, these folders are easier to see on mobile than desktop.
What should you do, otherwise? 1) Block Bob Jones (Google: “how to block someone on Facebook) and 2) Re-list the card for sale.
What else can you do? Don’t go to Bob’s house or call the police–these qualify as bad ideas.
“The cards I received are not as advertised! Help!”
Take it up with the seller first, and then with Paypal. Again, admin is an unpaid role with no liability. This is why Goods and Services protection and / or private insurance are so important.
Also, look inward: did you request sufficient pictures to gauge condition for yourself? Sometimes, the answer is live and learn. I’ve had to learn this lesson and most of us have just failed to do our due diligence at some point.
“I claimed cards but the seller says they are sold! Help!”
This happens. Cards are often cross-listed or sell via DM. Not everyone wants to put their offer in a public space, and that’s fine. We can’t help in this case–and it’s best to just move on.
There are more than this, but if we could eliminate everything above, we could stick to the real work of deleting fake accounts and fighting fraud and scams! See if your group accepts tips. Send the admin a fun card. If nothing else, learn the ropes and don’t count on admin for basic things you can do yourself!
