Personally, I wouldn't want to be a PO for anything. I think it is, for the most part, an underappreciated position.

But was wondering what everyone likes to see in a PO (not talking about honesty and paying, more about personality)

I like a PO that is professional, yet still fun and attentive. The PO's who obviously work hard to keep their members interested and their programs from getting stale.

I like PO's who welcome feedback, suggestions, and comments from their members. Who do not mind constructive criticism.

In short, I guess, I just like PO's who treat people the way they would want to be treated.

I can agree with most of that although I assume I prefer an paying admin with a lousy personality above a great personality that doesn't pay

Paying is a very good quality to have. As well as taking suggestions with regards to making their site better.

Well, now that I am one of those "PO's" I try to behave like I wanted PO's to behave when I was just an average ordinary clicker...

I want an honest owner who pays the members, who doesn't belittle the members with rude admin messages and acts professional in all matters of business.... EVEN when the "other end" of the discussion isn't. I also dont want umpteen zillion admin messages messing up my clicking rhythm we deal with enough from those pesky turing numbers. If I see an admin message it should be important and as short as possible. If its not important why not send it in an email.

This could be a very long list, lol

SORRY, WHAT DOES PO STAND FOR? P...OWNER?

PO means Program Owner.

I prefer professional, polite PO's who treat members well. When I say treat members well, it is not necessarily about paying on time. A PO should have a good, courteous attitude. I understand having bad hair days and about needing to be curt from time to time. That is acceptable. What I cannot accept is PO's going around behaving very badly, rudely and thinking it's A-OK because they "pay". Basically I like to see PO's who:

- Do not think their program is perfect and whine about the least mistake made by other programs
- Have the attitude they can get away with blue murder because they "pay"
- Misbehave and be rude in forums
- Being rude to members when problems occur

Attitudes of some PO's are so appalling that I would not join or continue to stay in such programs.

Having said that, it is indeed a pleasure to see PO's who are helpful and wonderful. I am in a few programs run by wonderful PO's who go out of their way to make things great for their members

To not be normal. I like POs to be on nutty side of life like me. It be boring if they all normal good thing is seems this industry attracts nuts when comes to POs.

thanks for your explanation. I guess I am the PO you prefer

Not really. I don't know you

When I mentioned about the wonderful PO's, I was meaning people like Aileen, Kim, Esperanza, Tipsy, Gene, the two wonderful ladies at Mental Emails, Mary & Sandra, Sini & Jutaky, Gail (sylvega), Cjay, Melissa (ashpot12) to name a few. There are many more wonderful PO's and would prolly kick myself for missing one

Amen to all of that RoadRunner

Personally I would add: "A Program Owner who deals with me as me, and not as their pre-conceived ill-conceived notion of "that's what ALL members do!" and doesn't address rude emails to ME (and ALL members) when it was a FEW other members who made the PO's life miserable that day/week/month..." aka "I am not a number".

I like a PO who's kind, dedicated to the site AND it's members, laid back (at least not uptight) and still acts in a professional manor. I also like a PO who involves their members in certain decisions for site changes...majority rules type thing. I gain more respect for a PO who can realize their mistakes and openly apologize. I also lean towards a PO that has good ideas to keep the site from being the same ole same ole months down the line.

If I sign up for a site because I did like what I saw/read from the PO, I like that PO to remain the owner of the site I joined, with some, they buy and sell so often that I have given up being a member of one of their sites unfortunately.

POs that really care about their members. I've seen a few POs who take their time to post helpful and caring comments not even related to gpt. might be a bit unprofessional to some but i find it thoughtful

I like when PO's let us know who they are. I feel so much better about joining a site if I know who the owner is. When a PO keeps their identity a secret it just makes me feel uncomfortable. Then I think: "What else could they be hiding?". Friendly, paying, honest PO's are the best. I also like when they are open to suggestions and comments to improve their site.

There tend to be two styles of PO I favour - the hands off and the hands on. Aquamails springs to mind as the "common" PTR that falls into the first category. There are no annoying admin messages or emails other than required ones - "I will be out of town" rather than "I bought a new hat today, it makes me look very pretty, I just wuv u all!!!!!!!!!!11111". As well as Aquamails, the truly professional PTR sites tend to do the same thing - HTMails, SendMoreInfo, etc.

The other style of PO I like are the ones that add the personal touch - Zodiac Mails spring to mind - but not too often, and only "safe" things. There's the occasional joke, and a weekly "ramble" about, well, not much really. That kind of PO goes too far when they start adding to the weekly ramble that their cat died, but their daughter graduated, and old aunt Maude had such a hard time making her meatloaf that they had to take her to the supermarket to buy a pre-packed version.

The choice between the two depends on whether the site tries to be professional or hobby. Most PTR sites are run as hobbies - that's fine, just don't try to run a professional site and try to be my "bestest friend in da whole wide world" at the same time.

The "democratic" webmasters offered earlier as a good thing, I simply cannot stand. There is one program I am a member of whose owner insists it is "our" site rather than his. Well, frankly, no it's not. If it were our site, we would get a bank loan, register as a limited company and hire a professional website designer, a full time programmer to write a unique script, much more secure and professional than the cashcrusader model, and run a full offline advertising campaign in mainstream media, and start sending email advertisements from real companies to a database of millions. No, it's your website - make at least some of your own business decisions yourself.

I hate the ones who hug or love me all time. I am not this way as to be honest I probably be tell some that I hate them, neutral on some and very few I want to hug. I figure it probably best I not mention my feeling in emails and stick to trying to be professional. I am whole lot more professional as I age. In 10 years just might be where I want to be in that aspect of it.

Honesty, if their gonna scam, just come out right before you scam and say:
"sorry for wasting your time and money here but I'll be taking all your money now, k thx ."

The vast majority of PTR sites do precisely that. The world of PTR is a lot like the world of estate agents; once you have worked out the code, everything is entirely true.

Where "vintage" means "dilapidated", "$1 for a 1c email to all" or "Earn 100% referral commission from your downline" means "we do not pay".

I have tried for many years to be what I think a PO should be. Sometimes I am not great at it but I do my best to try. I think a PO should be honest and forthcoming with any issue, not go on and on in admin msg's about their personal life unless I ask them how things are going.

I think they should be willing to give advice when they see newbies promoting scam sites and try to educate the newbies so they don't make the same mistakes we have all made.

I think a PO should be professional in ALL business dealings whether support emails, admin msgs or forum posts. I think a PO should not have an attitude problem or belittle other's.

I think they should be friendly and willing to chit chat if the members wants to do so but not too friendly giving hugs/kisses as they are not our family/husband/wife etc..

They should be willing to be there even when things are not going great or take a vacation with notice but then come back when their vacation is over. I as a member also need to realize that they are not sitting at their computer 24 hours a day/ 7 days a week/ 365 days a year and give them ample opportunity to respond.

They should never delete support tickets they don't want to answer, they should always answer even if the member will not like the answer or even to say I don't know the answer to that question.

I think that's bout it that I can think of although I know there's probably more...

Such modesty. Not many could run such a successful, reliable and professional (if a bit "cute" for my liking) site for so many (five, I think it is now, no?) years. I would, therefore, have to disagree wholeheartedly with the first half of that sentence.

I also look for POs who likely to rob me of my money so I get to have forum fun.

I also look for POs who make sites that can not pay so I get to have forum fun.