10 Tips to Make a Forum Team Successful

[compuXP]

In light of recent events, I’ve decided to write up a list of 10 ways you can have a more successful and cooperating forum staff team. Don’t ask me what they are, I won’t tell you, but I’ve seen it happen on so many forums - first person and as a spectator.

A cooperating moderation/administration team is vital to the success of a forum. Too many forum owners disregard this and hire the first 3 people that sign up to be moderators - without even knowing their history or attitude. Bad idea. As more members sign up, they’ll think, “Oh, the first three are moderators…” and later, find out that the staff is less mature than the members - and the members will leave!

For example, a forum of which I will not directly name - which I do love and would suffer without (as for my business) - has a rule I do not support entirely. It is that you cannot promote a similar or competing forum. They have a great reason to do this, but some of the other aspects of the forum confuse me.

They have an Incentives board where members PAY others to go and post at other, maybe even competing, forums. They have a Clicks system, where you get paid forum-dollars to click links and visit - even competing - sites for 20 seconds. They also have a link exchange request board, so you can exchange LINKS with competing forums, perhaps, and they also have an advertising board. PLUS the paid ads at the top of each of their pages to advertise competing sites. (Not to mention signatures where you can link to anything you want almost. People click sig links a lot.)

So you can see why I don’t support the rule entirely, it’s bound to happen - people with similar interests join that forum because they run similar sites, usually. And the forum I’m talking about is the largest of its type with over 25,000 members and nearly 1,000,000 posts. Again, I do love that forum but this one rule just bothers me a bit. Their “no spam”, “no degrading remarks”, and “no flaming” rules should be plenty to keep members and actions under control.

So finally - the feature presentation of this entry - the 10 rules to leading a successful forum staff team - is below.

1. At the start of a forum, don’t have more than 1 mod and 1 admin. When people join a new forum, they don’t want an evil, dictitorial admin empire to trample their every post and action. A new forum - and its members - demand freedom. Yeah, make some rules, but make them simple and keep the list of rules proportionate to the size of the forum.

2. Take hints from members. If a member, or a group of members, seem to be going out against the rules, even with warnings, then maybe you should take a hint and re-evaluate your rules… after all, moderators/admins aren’t always right. Sometimes the members see something that you don’t or can’t. Talk to the member(s) and let him/her/them offer suggestions.

3. Be diplomatic. Don’t be strictly rigid in your standing, let members negotiate with you, and maybe even try or take their advice. Members should run a forum and you should be happy that they’re there - without them, your forum couldn’t really do anything or exist even. Just remember that each member is important.

4. Keep in good communication. It’s very important that your staff team is in constant communication, especially when the forum gets larger. You may have times where you have to work overtime locking threads, moving posts, warning members, replying to PMs, and on top of that, buying your wife some flowers on the way home. Be sure you know what the other staff is doing.

5. Let members choose staff. This one you may be scared to try, but it really works. Let the members choose the staff on your forum, unless, of course, they all choose themselves. Trust me on this one - it will make your members a whole lot happier. But, obviously, don’t hire them if they have a bad history or record.

6. Always be supportive. Never post degrading remarks like “…instead of wasting everybody’s time?” or “Just because YOU want to …” - the members of your forum will NOT appreciate this, I guarantee it. Moderators/admins should be there to enhance the quality of the forum, not offend members. Even if a member is out of place, be supportive.

7. Staff should stand out from the members. Unless you want an undercover moderator or administrator, and will stay undercover, you should still only have 1 for this reason. Members want to feel safe when posting, knowing that if something happens to their thread they can report it to a moderator or administrator because they see a special icon, or bold lettering, proudly displaying “Staff” or something similar on their posts or profile.

8. Don’t be discriminatory. This one’s obvious, but I’ve seen situations where moderators have actually deleted posts or banned members because they were Buddhist, or - in my case - Mormon. Those forums aren’t worth beans then anyway. Your members won’t appreciate this.

9. Keep conflicts private. If trouble breaks out with a member or group of members, don’t lecture or warn them publically when possible, use a private messaging system or email to send them a little - and friendly - line to get their act together. If a member starts a public “cry”, then simply lock the thread and take matters to the PM system or email.

10. Lock; don’t delete. Unless a thread is explicitly against rules regarding pornography, mass discrimination, or otherwise very, very bad, don’t delete it. Locked threads are best to keep in the database if ever needed, and, if you want - though this could seem cruel - to let other members see it and thus show that at least 1 person on the forum is immature. Locked threads get a lot more views than normal open ones on average, and are generally best to stay there. If you don't want your forum to get messy with locked threads, move them to a special board, public or staff-only: your choice.

Your comments on these items are always welcome, I’m interested in reading them.

[all4cost]

My comment is - Read all site rules to ANY Forum when you sign up. You are supposed to anyways .... And Adhere to them. It's called Forum etiquette.

I'd say the best way to Keep a new Forum from collapsing Is :

1) Do not let Immature whiners on the staff
2) Avoid allowing people in already known to "Shill bid" on other forums
3) Avoid allowing people in already known to commit Fraud at TDNAM and other sites



and BTW :

They have an Incentives board where members PAY others to go and post at other, maybe even competing, forums. They have a Clicks system, where you get paid forum-dollars to click links and visit - even competing - sites for 20 seconds. They also have a link exchange request board, so you can exchange LINKS with competing forums, perhaps, and they also have an advertising board. PLUS the paid ads at the top of each of their pages to advertise competing sites. (Not to mention signatures where you can link to anything you want almost. People click sig links a lot.)

Advertising or Defacing competing forums is NOT allowed in those sections either. - And last I checked , Most all Major Domain Forums go by this same rule. It Works well at preventing Spam ....

[compuXP]

My comment is - Read all site rules to ANY Forum when you sign up. You are supposed to anyways .... And Adhere to them. It's called Forum etiquette.

Perhaps I should say "Look who's talkin'"... but in a kind way.

Compuxp - I'm sure you've heard more complaints than a dozen .... After all - You are on staff at a site that looks like a Who's Who of banned members from here and the other Domain Forums

Banned members that come back here and Send out 60+ Spam PM's trying to gain more members over there .... (If you got one of those - Sorry folks - But be careful of people you do business with over there - I see several shill bidders on the front page everytime I look)

Mark is obviously referring to iWEBTOOL Talk. This is grounds for a lawsuit if any potential buyers at iWEBTOOL read this and the sellers lost business. This is a critical generalization. You are calling nearly all members there scammers and banned people.

The rules of NamePros specifically state:

As a forum Staff, our primary focus is building and nurturing the Namepros community. We respect that every forum has their own unique qualities of good and bad, however we ask that you do not use NamePros or WebDesignTalk to promote, OR conversely, to depreciate other domain/web design related discussion forums.

Ironically enough, Mark later says in the exact same post:

We see reason to when peeps constantly Break the rules and lack Ethics overall IMO -

It's not "unjust" or a "power trip" when the rules are there for all to read ...

Try taking a look in the mirror...

As for:

1) Do not let Immature whiners on the staff

I agree, but here you go contradicting yourself again. Let me quote this:

Ban complete assholes like CompuXP, *****ing like a little girl

This guy's a chatroom moderator at NP...

It Works well at preventing Spam ....

Well it obviously didn't keep you from replying to my article to carry over a NamePros dispute because you want to keep trying to "win" even though you KNOW I've already pointed out the corruption in staff over there.

What relavence does your reply have to my article? You're quoting something I said about NamePros' advertising rules when my article is talking about a successful forum moderator/admin team.

[Version2]

Ban complete assholes like CompuXP, *****ing like a little girl

This guy's a chatroom moderator at NP...

Since when?

Thought I'd point out you're wrong Get your facts straight before posting something.

BTW: Keep it up Matt. You may have folks fooled into thinking you're the "good guy" in everything. Too bad they can't see what went on behind the scenes

[compuXP]

They can't see because I didn't do anything behind the scenes.

Sinfully Wicked IS - or was when I was there - a chat room moderator - his name was yellow every time I was in chat, and I've seen him kick/silence/ban people from chat. What kind of lies are you going to kick up this time?

[Version2]

Umm..no he wasn't. 'tis ok though, think whatever you want. I won't reply here anymore - if someone disagrees with you, or says something about you that you don't like.. they are lying I could point out quite a few things Matt. Meh, not worth it though.


Peace

[compuXP]

Apparently, every time you hear my name ... "my IQ drops 10 points" as from the NP chatroom. Now is that any way a moderator should act?

[fkrule]

am i missing something guys ps i like you 10 ruley things

[compuXP]

Fkrule: Yeah you missed something. And thank you

[biggedon]

seems like this thread was started as a result of animosity from another forum.

[compuXP]

No, this thread was posted before the animosity even began. They just decided to bring it all the way to DNF.

[fkrule]

Fkrule: Yeah you missed something. And thank you

what?

[compuXP]

This might enlighten you: http://blog.mattsprojects.net/rants/...ve-been-exiled

[fkrule]

oh i see

[Spydey]

great tips!

[myst woman]

Hints 1 and 2 are genius. i have been banned from boards after 5,000 posts by new owners who thought they ruled the world and hadn't read more than 5 posts. Then after a few months they send you 10 newsletters day begging for users.

And subsequent poster do take hints from other users, landing all over user number 23456 for something they observed in a thread is unfair and shows an unenlightended admin/mod team.

And please all forum owners reading this, getting angry at users ecause they don;t use the search function to build your adsense is terrible.

It's even worse if the mods interpret three words in one new thread to mean the same as five word they saw in another thread 5 years ago and write nastygrams about "how dare you post this as discussed in the dinosaur days".

[Banned: Preoccupy]

I like your great tips and infos!

[IvanVideoPlayer]

i think all your ideas are good and they have sense for me, but it's also important to post in forums, i hope my little tip helps you a little.

http://www.articledepot.co.uk

[editionblog]

great tips thanks

[weblord]

thanks for the tips, wow compuXP you're very famous here. keep it up!