What Does It Mean To Be A Webmaster?, What does it entail? Options

[saschaeh]

What are the key roles of a webmaster?

To kick things off an array of points:

1. Being the head developer?
2. Managing Developers and making sure they are using correct methods?
3. Managing developers and developing some parts?
4. Project managing the website and reporting to site owners?
5. Webmaster is the owner of the site?

What is your idea of a webmaster and what roles should s/he fore fill? What is s/he responsible/liable for?

Also, what roles does a webmaster have within a meduim to large company?


Id be interested to see what you all think.

This post has been edited by saschaeh: Oct 16 2007, 12:19 PM

[bobbb]

5. No

[AbleReach]

6. The person, sometimes the owner, who manages the site after it's completed.

I'll hazard a guess that #6 is the most common for really small businesses.

[EGOL]

lol... we have disagreement already... should be an interesting thread.

I am the webmaster here and I own the site. I am responsible for it's goals, its content and its development. My investment will rise and fall in proportion to the job that I do and how well my decisions and resources fall to or defeat competitors. The goals are limited by my ability to generate content or hire it, plus by my abilities to comprehend design, SEO and development.

The website is the entire business, not an additional channel.

I delegate or hire content, design, analytics, programming and development - but I do a bit of each of these things myself.

The responsibilities of SEO strategy and content focus are mine. I get advice from SEOs, analysts, developers and designers. The critique of all of these things hits me and any failure in them cuts my income first. Others are paid a guaranteed rate.

Most important.... what I think, what my employees think, and any advice that I receive is subordinate to how visitors behave on my site. In the end, they run the site as best as I can make that happen.

This post has been edited by EGOL: Oct 16 2007, 02:01 PM

[JohnMu]

Are you a webmaster if you have a MySpace page or a Facebook profile?

[EGOL]

I would say, YES. You are responsible for a specific piece of the web.

[saschaeh]

really webmaster if you have a myspace or facebook account...

So a punter who has, myspace, HI5, facebook, linked profiles can put on his CV. Webmaster experience on multiple sites. hmm

That means that anyone with a webmail account is a webmaster as they manage there email on a piece of a website and customise what they see when they login. So what you are suggesting is that almost everyone online is a webmaster?

These are site users not webmasters, surely. Webmaster will create functionality that will allow a user to partly manage the service provided by the site. But the site, in turn, is ultimately managed and determined by the Webmaster.

Perhaps Pagemaster or Profilemaster or Webuser (or Webservent )is a better term for these people - website users.



This post has been edited by saschaeh: Oct 16 2007, 02:52 PM

[EGOL]

I like "PageMaster".

If a person claims webmaster experience on a CV, he/she should include the URL. That way people can go see the product and be impressed either with the work or with the character of that person. :=)

[AbleReach]

"Profilemaster" is precious. Me like. LOL.

[ccera]

I think of the Webmaster as simply the person who is contacted when things go wrong. I also think (and think that this thread proves) that it is term with too broad a definition to have any real meaning - unless something goes wrong and you need to know who to contact.
CiCi

[AbleReach]

I think of the Webmaster as simply the person who is contacted when things go wrong.

Does anyone else have an experience of contact links that say "webmaster" being a black hole?

[SEOigloo]

Hi All,
Neat discussion.

When we offer webmaster services to clients, what that means to us is that we remain available to them to be the people who update their website. The client does not want that responsibility, we stay on board after launch and work at an hourly rate for the client, doing whatever needs doing.

And, obviously, we webmaster all of our own sites.

Miriam

[Autocrat]

Well, my tupence worth (suprise... merely views and toughts - nothing official.)


It varies... alot.

It ranges from the person who is to handle the general content and possibly the addition/deletion of pages throug ha CMS.... through the the mastermind of a major site and handcoding everythign whilst managing all the designing and SEO stuff.

The term is non-specific, and thus in many cases moot.

Originally it was the title often assumed, sometimes bestowed, upon the person within a company whom handled the generation of the the code, the managmenet of the server (uploading and access permissions) and generally add/edited content etc.

Those days have kind of disappeared(ancient history) in many situations, yet the term is still hanging around.

You are more likely to find terms such as Administrator (controller/Director), Editor, Content supplier etc... more job specific and targeted terms as being a more defined and applicable method of labelling.

That said, as ...EGOL... pointed out - there are still those that handle the majority of things... and considering the cope... it makes the term of "WebMaster" either patheticly imprecise... or all consuming.

[EGOL]

I think that the word "webmaster" was originally given to a person who produced the code that rendered the site. I think that a lot of people still see it that way.

I could give myself the title of "CEO" or "President"... but those poorly describe what I do. I could grant the title of "webmaster" to an employee who makes most of my pages. However, he is following instruction and not determining the course of the site and making the decisions that will result in the success or failure of the site.

I know that I will probably hold minority opinion here on this subject. However, if I had a staff of 50 people my title would still be "webmaster" and I would hire some egghead to be President.

[bwelford]

I think the problem is that the term 'webmaster' has by now picked up a particular meaning in the minds of many. Most often it is seen as the person who is responsible to keep the website in good order and functioning correctly. You can't fight the common perception so that is what the word now means.

IMHO it often stems from a view that a website is a static thing like a garden or a museum exhibit. Once the object has been created for all to see, then the webmaster does the tweaking and upkeep necessary to ensure people can see the website as the owner intended. In other words the word webmaster is linked to a very static view of a website.

If you have the view that the website can be the most potent part of a company's marketing strategy, then the job of making it perform to the maximum in generating sales should be done by someone who has the responsibility for maximizing sales. In many companies, if the word webmaster is used at all, it will not link to this sales maximization role. Indeed perhaps the word webmaster may inhibit someone approaching all this with sales in mind. So I would suggest that it may be better to drop the word webmaster entirely and use some other that better reflects the achievement of the goals of the particular website.

[Respree]

I'm not so sure there is a clear definition. I normally associate the word with the broad-based overall management of technical aspects of the site, including security and ensuring the site functions as intended. There may be owners who take on a dual role with include additional responsibilities like developing site goals, strategy, marketing, usability and the like, which case the line becomes blurred.

I think the size of the organization matters too. Who would you say is the webmasters of Google and Yahoo? I could be wrong, but I don't think anyone would carry a title like that in a company that large.

This post has been edited by Respree: Oct 16 2007, 08:08 PM

[EGOL]

For some companies the webmaster is a person who they hired on contract to produce a website.

For some companies the webmaster is a person in the IT department.

For others it is a person in marketing.

What do you think? For the companies with the highly successful sites, which of these places do you think the webmaster works from. Maybe another?

[A.N.Onym]

Successful companies have a designated web developer to handle the site and implement all the changes, including content, SEO and such. Marketing/promotion, in this case, is handled by others.

[DianeV]

I guess the definition from Dictionary.com (via answers.com) might be a little surprising.

[saschaeh]

According to the unofficial encyclopedia: Wiki

Webmasters are practitioners of Web communication. Typically, they are generalists with HTML expertise who manage all aspects of Web operations. On a smaller site, the webmaster will typically be the owner, developer and/or programmer, in addition to the author of the content.

On larger sites, the webmaster will act as a coordinator and overseer to the activities of other people working on the site and is usually an employee of the owner of the Web site, hence webmaster can also be listed as an occupation. If the webmaster is hired by a larger Web site, or promoted to the position, they could do things from web design, to project management, or employee supervision. The range of activities to be undertaken by a webmaster may be estimated using the concept of Website scale.

In the early days of the use of the term "webmaster" (a take-off on the term "postmaster", the administrator of an e-mail system), this role encompassed all aspects of planning, coding, production, and user interface. The webmaster may have many of the duties of an information architect, including ensuring site usability, user experience and menu taxonomy.

However, since the late 90s, this type of webmaster role was typically only found working on small Web sites that could be managed by one person, or in environments where there was not a great deal of role definition. The current model tends to be more team oriented with a website manager or online producer leading a team consisting of web developers, designers, programmers, QA lead, Adobe Flash developers and often at least one usability expert or a UI/UE team. In established web development companies, especially those existing since the 90s, the term webmaster may be used by senior officers of the company, and may include usage such as "Webmaster-in-chief."

A broader definition of webmaster is a businessperson who uses online media to sell products and/or services. This broader definition of webmaster covers not just the technical aspects of overseeing Web site construction and maintenance but also management of content, advertising, marketing and order fulfillment for the Web site.

Core responsibilities of the webmaster include the regulation and management of access rights of different users of a web site, the appearance and setting up web site navigation. Content placement can be part of a webmaster's responsibilities, while content creation is typically not.

Typically, the webmaster is the agent who reads user feedback and complaints about site functionality.

Pretty good rounded look at webmaster. (Quite interesting little point about it been takenin from post master.)

What do you think?

This post has been edited by saschaeh: Oct 17 2007, 12:35 AM