Online Communities | Articles

How to deal with abusive forum members

Sometimes, regardless of what you try to do abusive forum members keep coming back and causing trouble. This article will teach you how to take effective action against abusive forum members to prevent them from ruining your online community.

Why making all of your forums private is a bad idea

If you are trying to bring more people to your forums and your target is growth, your primary forums should be available to the public. There are various reasons for having your forums public and accessible…

How to fire a forum moderator

Three weeks ago I wrote an article entitled, ‘How to respond if a forum moderator goes crazy‘. You should always work to resolve problems with your moderators amicably however, this may not always be possible. Consequently, the time may come when you need to fire a forum moderator. In this article I will offer my [...]

Things I’ve learnt from running a forum for 4 years

Greg is a Slovenian tech journalist, writing articles about social media, Linux and open source for the tech magazine Software Power. He also maintains his own Web productivity blog and is a big fan of CommunitySpark, whose author quite curiously got his first computer in the same year as Greg.
Introduction
It seems like it was just [...]

How to respond if a forum moderator goes crazy!

As a forum grows, it is highly likely you will need additional help when it comes to moderation. Even if your members are fantastically well behaved, moderators are useful to have as they are a reassuring, visible presence in your community. They help encourage conversations and are a reflection of the care and attention you [...]

How much are online forums worth?

As online communities become an ever more important part of the online experience, you might expect the value of forums to be ever-increasing. To investigate just how much Internet forums are worth, I undertook a little research.
Recent online forum sales
By browsing through the SitePoint Marketplace, I collected details of all recent forum sales that were [...]

What is your online community’s added value?

Making a success of a brand new online community is hard work, not least because you are highly likely to be competing against a number of other sites that are already established. The challenge you face is how to attract people to your site when there are others out there that already cater to the [...]

Why are active forum members like gold dust?

Without interaction, you have no community. Your forum may well be attracting visitors and a good number of them may be registering and becoming members, but unless they post and get involved, your site will struggle to be a success. Very often, active forum members are like gold dust - this doesn’t need to be [...]

The best online community: A forum or a blog?

So you have a great idea for a new community, and the subject of your community is something you are passionate about. Your next decision is what kind of community your new site will be: a forum or a blog?
A forum as an online community
For most of us, when we think ‘online community’, we immediately [...]

Fantastic forum members make fantastic staff members

*This is a guest article from community developer Zane Friedman*
One of the most important factors of your site is your staff – your administrators, moderators, and in some cases chat operators. In this article we’ll go over what makes a good moderator or administrator, some specific roles that different moderators and administrators should take, and [...]

How to use Google Analytics to identify popular forum threads

Interaction is the key ingredient of any community website. When your forum is young, it can be hard to determine just what gets your members talking, therefore it is important that you keep an eye on your traffic statistics to understand what forum threads and posts your members like and make more of them!
Use Google [...]

The wrong way to redesign a community website

I have written before about the importance of working with your community members before redesigning your website. By involving your members in any decisions that need to be made over the future direction of your site, you are encouraging their loyalty by making them feel valued.
How one online community failed to involve members
Hot UK Deals [...]

The real purpose of forum moderators revealed

As your forum becomes popular, you will inevitably need help administering it. Many forum owners understand the need for forum moderators but few understand what their real purpose is. This article will reveal what forum moderators should be used for - follow this advice and you will have an immediate head-start over your competitors.
Forum moderators [...]

phpBB launches brand new version 3

Many readers of this blog will be running forums based on the free phpBB forum software. I am a huge fan of phpBB, using it on all the forums I run. The beauty of phpBB lies in the fact it is open source and free to all. Now, the long awaited version three has been [...]

Do you make these community building mistakes?

Building an online community is hard work. For a forum to be successful it needs content, members and interaction. Without content, you will get no members. Without members, you will not attract members. It’s a viscous cycle and one that is hard to break out of. With hard work though, it is possible to make [...]

How anonymous should a forum admin be?

I have been asked on a few occasions just how personal forum owners should be with their members. Whilst I have mentioned numerous times the benefits of being approachable and personable, some readers have sensibly questioned just how far they should go in getting to know their members and sharing information about themselves.
Of course, it [...]

A quick way to attract more forum members

One of the most frequent questions I get asked from readers is how to attract new members. To be honest, there are loads of ways to do this but the most effective way is through the quality of your content. If you are already creating masses of fantastic unique content on a daily basis and [...]

5 early warning signs that your forum is failing

Nobody likes to see a huge crack appear in their home - it is a sign of weakness and acts as a warning: if you do not invest in the property it will soon crumble and end up as nothing more than a pile of rubble. The same thing can happen to an online forum. [...]

What everyone ought to know about forums

Ah, you own a successful forum - doesn’t that feel great? It does - and so it should. However, there is a problem with that great feeling - a successful forum isn’t really yours. Sure, you technically own the site but for a community to be successful its members need to enjoy a sense of shared ownership. You [...]

Give me 5 minutes and I’ll show you innovation

I have written before about the importance of making your community different from the competition. If your community offers nothing new, how can you expect people to take the time to register and get involved? People will not submit comments to a blog that posts articles on subjects that everyone is else writing about. People [...]

Should you add a forum to your blog?

I have been seeing many blog owners of late publicly debating whether to add additional community features such as forums to boost their site’s popularity and value proposition. In this article I will write about the potential pitfalls of adding a forum to a blog and tell you why you should only take the plunge [...]

Fight like a champion for your forum members

It costs businesses far more to attract a new customer than it does to retain a current one. Of course, this makes perfect sense - once you have a customer, you simply need to keep them happy and meet their needs in order to retain them. Without a customer, you have no sales and have [...]

Here is a method that is helping forums succeed

If you want your online community to be successful, you need to engage with your members and encourage interaction. During your community’s early development, this can be difficult to do - with a low member base you may find there is a lack of interaction. If this continues, you will not attract new members, and [...]

Forums don’t have to be popular to be good

When developing your forum it is easy to have only one target - to get as many members as you can. A successful forums needs to have a huge number of members, right? Not necessarily.
What makes a good forum?
It is easy to surf the Web and come across a forum with a huge number of [...]

Warning: Big advertisers hate forums

As soon as your forum is generating huge amounts of content and traffic every single day, advertising networks will be desperate for your business, right? Sorry, it doesn’t work that way - many advertisers hate your website, regardless of how good it really is.
Advertising networks frown upon user generated content
It doesn’t really matter how popular [...]

Have a forum you can be proud of

By adding a forum to your website you can enjoy enormous benefits but you can also make your site instantly appear amateur. How? By failing to properly integrate the forum into your website.
Integration not segregation
Your site looks professional when all your features are integrated. Visitors do not want new windows to open when they surf [...]

Never camouflage your forum

Camouflage can be great, but not when you are trying to convert visitors into members. If they can’t see what your site is about, or even find your forum, then you cannot expect success.
Additional content can distract attention away from your forum
I have already written about adding additional content to your community website in order [...]

The first 5 things a new forum visitor looks for

Visitors to your forum are a fickle bunch of people - if they see something they don’t like, they will leave: simple as that. You have to blow them away if you want them to register and become a valuable member of your community.
In this article, I will present you with what I feel are [...]

Keep your moderators personal but identifiable

Back in May, I wrote about how to give your site personal appeal and why it is important for you to do so. One of the methods I endorsed is doing away with names for your moderators such as ‘admin’ or ’staff’, and giving them regular user names. A small move like this can immediately [...]

Attract forum traffic through article writing

You run a forum site, your site has a forum - but does it have anything else? Bulking up your website by adding new sections and publishing articles can create a more engaging user experience, help you attract new traffic and ultimately help your forum become successful.
The more you add, the more you attract

One of [...]

Irritating members are not always a bad thing

I have written before about how to deal with abusive users. Before you do that though, you should always consider whether those irritating members who frequent your community are all that bad.
At times, irritating members can inject some humour into your site. At other times, they can create controversy and encourage discussion. Either way, you [...]

New members feel special when welcomed

When a new member joins your community you are at a critical point - will they stay and get involved or will they leave, never to return? Ignore them, and they will soon leave and forget all about your community. Make them welcome, and they will feel valued and more likely to stick around.
It always [...]

Have you noticed all of your members?

I have written in the past about how to effectively moderate forums. In that article though, I did not make any mention of the areas of a forum that the vast majority of forum developers fail to pay any attention to - namely the member list and the member profiles.
Why the member list and member [...]

How to kick life into a stale forum

Maybe when you first started your online community you weren’t able to dedicate the time needed to get it off the ground. Perhaps you didn’t realise just how much work it takes to create content and attract and retain members. Whatever the reason, your online community is now a little stale.
Don’t despair though, as it’s [...]

Keep your phpBB member count accurate

How many members does your forum have? 50? 100? 1,000? 10,000? Are you sure this figure is accurate, though? Forget about your ego - ensure your member count is accurate and use it as a motivator to encourage you to continue working hard at attracting genuine members.
Why your member count may be inaccurate
Thanks to spammers [...]

Ensure your moderators work as a team

For your online community to be successful, it will require moderation as it grows. As it continues to develop, you are likely to require more than one moderator.
It is essential that your moderators work well within a team and that team harmony thrives. Anything less will damage the effectiveness of your moderators as well as [...]

Sending welcome messages to new members

The personal touch can make a new member of your community feel truly valued. If they feel valued, they are more likely to be a regular contributor and add value to your site.
One way of making a member feel valued as an individual is through the use of welcome messages.
Using welcome messages on a forum

If [...]

Should you pay your forum moderators?

Many forum owners feel they can only attract the best moderators if they can afford to pay them. I disagree with this notion; I feel that if you have passionate members you can attract the best moderators absolutely free of charge.
The benefits of paying moderators
I can understand the argument for paying forum moderators - if [...]

Involve your members in decision making

An online community is a living, breathing entity. It is made up of human members who each have their own opinions and tastes. If you make the decision to change something about your community that your members do not like, it could spell disaster.
There is a way of preventing this - ensure you involve your [...]

Use controversy with caution

Back in April, I wrote about how you can use suspense to promote interaction within your community. Another technique that I am seeing more often is the use of deliberate controversy.
Controversy can be a great way of encouraging interaction amongst your community members, however it can be a dangerous method to employ.
Why controversy can encourage [...]

Choosing a name for your forum categories

As I have said before, you should only ensure you have a large number of categories if your community can support them; there is nothing worse than visiting a forum for the first time to see empty categories.
That being said, if you are confident that new categories will be used, you should go ahead and [...]

Using polls to understand your members

One way of understanding your members, particularly if you run a forum, is through the use of polls. This article will discuss the pros and cons of forum polls, and determine whether they are a good way of obtaining the opinions and thoughts of your members.
What are forum polls?
All the popular pieces of forum software [...]

When to stay quiet and when to get personal

I have previously written about the importance of being personal and why you should ensure your site has personal appeal. Some may question just how far they should share their opinions with their community - particularly when it comes to areas that traditionally raise emotions.
Should you share your political opinions with your community members, for [...]

When members request new forum categories

At the beginning of June, I wrote an article entitled ‘Cut down on the forum categories‘. In the article, I wrote about why there is nothing worse than having too many forum categories if they are not going to be used.
I argued that you should keep forum categories to a minimum and only add more [...]

Always customise your forum design

So you have finally chosen what forum software best suits your needs, chosen a great domain name, found a reliable web host and gone ahead and installed your forum. What do you do next? I would always suggest your very next step should be customisation.
Why customisation is important
Your forum needs to stand out from the [...]

Can general interest forums succeed?

Everyone and their dog (including myself) harps on about how important it is to differentiate your community from others. Some feel that because of this, if they have a ‘general’ forum without a specific focus or niche they cannot succeed.
General forums can succeed - you are catering to a huge audience by not restricting your [...]

Are forum post exchanges beneficial?

I have seen many administrators talk about forum post exchanges, so thought I would write an article discussing the advantages and disadvantages of using this approach to generate activity and content for your community.
What are forum post exchanges?
The basic premise of a forum post exchange is as follows: you post on someone’s forum and in [...]

How to effectively moderate forums

As regular readers will be aware, I have often written about the importance of moderation. Articles I have already written on this subject include ‘The importance of speedy moderation‘, ‘Responding to a community revolt‘ and ‘Personal advice - abusive members‘.
In this article I want to be a little more specific and write about the [...]

Avoid standardised forum rank titles

Back in April, I wrote about how to use forum ranks to make members feel valued. In the article, I detailed how you can strengthen your community and give your site personal appeal through the use of custom forum title ranks.
In this article, I want to talk about the potential dangers of forum ranks and [...]

Online communities: What is content?

Regular readers of this blog will know how I often talk about the importance of creating content on your site if your online community is to succeed - this is particularly important during those early days when you are trying to get your community off the ground.
Build it and they will come
This is one saying [...]