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

By: Tom

Tom — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 05:00:33 +0000

This is the one thing that worries me. Things going wrong with the forum.

My phpBB boards were recently hacked. A malicious code was injected into the .php pages and it took the entire site down, I lost everything.

I’ve re-installed and started again, this time I’m not installing any hacks/mods, which I have now learnt the hard way that they simply leave back doors open for malicious injections.

I’m considering upgrading to v3 of phpBB. I’m still a phpBB2 dinosaur because I really honestly don’t like phpBB3. It’s complicated, it’s too vBulletin-ish, and worst of all, it’s bloody impossible to customize! PhpBB2 is fantastic to customize. You can customize it from top to bottom. PhpBB3 is just awful in that area.

But there won’t be any more security upgrades for v2 which will obviously cause problems in the future. However, I have found a site of phpBB2 enthusiasts who are making their own security upgrades, so it all depends whether I wish to put the future of my forums in the hands of non-official coders!

By: JL

JL — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 16:08:28 +0000

One of the most important things to make sure of is that whatever host you put your forum on must be able to handle the kind of traffic you’re looking to generate. If your forum is slow, or constantly down, no one is going to bother with your boards. The same goes for any sort of technical issues.. stay on top of any bug reports/complaints.

By: Edward

Edward — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 14:40:43 +0000

Great article. I hate having to play the “it’s a free forum and we make the rules” card, but sometimes you have to.

By: Safety Protection Technology

Safety Protection Technology — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 12:34:05 +0000

I visit many sites, forums and blogs daily. I can see thousand forums are being setup daily but majority of them disappeared. I think forums are difficult to manage and handled, instead webmasters can go for blogs. Forums have their own charm and I caught in that fever. I am managing 2-3 forums which keep me busy a lot but it is just alike passion.

By: Robert Irizarry

Robert Irizarry — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 19:02:44 +0000

I’m very new to community building through forums but have run a blog for over 2 years now.

I had been considering forums as a way to provide the passionate bunch of folks around my blog the means to interact directly and pose questions to each other. However, I still had some reservations until I read this article. I particularly found the early bumps on the way to successful forums inspirational. Thanks for the article.

By: Melodiccolor

Melodiccolor — Thu, 29 May 2008 04:49:00 +0000

A group of us have just started our first forum. It is only a few weeks old and still being constructed. And yet with only 18 members and no links yet, it is very active; more active than many larger forums I visit.

This article and many of the others on this site has been very useful, in letting me know what we need to pay attention to and what we are doing right. We have been guessing, but it seems we’re off to a good start.

Thank you for the encouragement on getting a tiny forum to grow. I will be watching for ideas on that, especially in the first year.

One of the things we’re doing is letting the core members help design the forum; make suggestions in setting up the rules, choosing a name and a few other things. In the end though, our admins are actually doing the writing and the members are voting on the results. But they feel like they are a part of the forum and have a vested interest in it. We know it’s a different approach to setting up a forum. I’ll let you know in about a year how the experiment worked. (We probably won’t really know until then.)

By: Dan

Dan — Fri, 09 May 2008 22:55:33 +0000

Yeah – moderator team is crucial! I’ve read so many posts at other community based sites that either didn’t stress this too much or even almost ignored this idea. But it’s so much necessary to grow the forum! – and it also frees our hands as often the mods are the most dedicated and motivated folks on the site (sometime even more than the super-mod, who might have been through his/her burn-out periods )

By: Mr Woc

Mr Woc — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 12:13:56 +0000

Hi there

Your post did make me snigger and i can relate to a lot of what you have said for example the 3 revolts comment, I have had a few myself lol.

I agree it can take an awful lot of work to get your forum moving, i think its a case of finding a good 10-15 people who can post regularly, then your forum will slowly grow, my forum is no where near where i want it to be, but its going in the right direction and its fun thats the main thing.

You are right if somone kicks off and starts to cause problems, dont panic, dont argue with them (thats what they want you to do), state your points clearly and why you are not happy with them, if your not getting anywhere ban them, simple really !

I always say to my chatters tongue in cheek its not a democracy its a dictatorship lol, i do try to be as fair as i possibly can, but ultimately its your forum take control of it and dont let people push you around, cos once they think they can, they will take advantage of this !

Woc

By: Gregor Boèiè - Guest Writer

Gregor Boèiè - Guest Writer — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 15:55:25 +0000

I reward myy users with special ranks (just like I wrote – 2006 audio chap) or a similar perk…

I can’t recommend a contest since I don’t have any experience with ‘hysical’ prizes, although I think it depends on your forum ‘topic’.

Cheers

By: Finance Forums

Finance Forums — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 12:08:14 +0000

Thanks for the tips on building a moderator team. I have a few people in mind already.

What do you think about a Forum Promo Contest? and How do I distribute prizes as credits?