Top Ten Lessons I’ve Learned About Managing an Online Forum
Over the past several years, I’ve had the opportunity to participate in the management of two online forums; a few years as a designer and occasional participant at Vince Gill’s online fan club and as a co-founder here at SEOrefugee.
The contrasts between the two forums are huge:
- Vince Gill’s audience was not particularly tech savvy while the folks here are constantly helping me figure out how to make things work.
- VG was supported by membership fees, SEOR is free.
- A lot of people bought Vince Gill t-shirts, not too many bought the SEOR shirt.
- The fan club was a relatively homogenous group demographically. SEOR has members of all ages from around the world and, while they share an interest in search engine optimization, that’s about all they share.
Despite these differences, the experience of managing the forums was, with a few exceptions, strikingly similar. Which leads me to believe that potential forum owners, no matter what their interests and audience, might be able to benefit from my list of the
Top Ten Lessons I’ve Learned About Managing an Online Forum
10. Plan for success even if you don’t expect it.
Missed opportunities rarely come again. Make sure your server, software and moderation system can handle the load on the off chance you get noticed. A mention on the front page of Digg can land you over 10,000 visitors but doesn’t do a bit of good if your server collapses under the load. And 10,000 members won’t stay members long if they can’t log in.
9. Controversy is good.
There’s nothing like a good argument to inspire interest among members and to attract attention (and even links) from people with similar interests.
8. Controversy is bad.
As much as people enjoy a good fight, they hate a bad one even more. If you want to drive people away, let an argument fester. Here are some bad controversies:
- Any argument unrelated to your site topic. Politics and religion can be particularly nasty (although unavoidable if you run a religious or political forum). An exception might be made for arguments about sports, music or other general interest topics as long as they are segregated in their own category so members can easily choose to avoid them.
- Personal attacks. Even if a person you like is attacking someone you can’t stand, don’t allow it.
- Libel, slander and unsubstantiated accusations.
- A discussion dominated by one person simply restating his opinion over and over.
At SEOR we started out trying to run things wide open but soon realized the need for rules. By eliminating the noise you allow more of the conversation to be heard.
7. Be visible.
I’m convinced that forum operators need to be active members of their online communities even if, as was the case with me, they are not particularly knowledgeable about the topic. People are more likely to help, forgive and defend their friends than strangers. At some point – when you crash the server, offend someone or pull some other stupid stunt – you’re going to need all the friends you can get. You gain friends by interacting with your members.
6. Customization can make your life hell.
Every time you add a feature or customize your forum you risk breaking something. Even if everything goes well, it will complicate the update process when the time comes (and it comes far too often). Worse case scenario, members come to expect a feature only to have it disappear when it’s incompatible with an upgrade.
And, by the way, when you do add a feature, backup first and document the process. Oh how I wish I’d done that!
5. Members go off their meds.
Seriously, it happens. A fun-loving, energetic and knowledgeable contributor can suddenly turn toxic. If a member becomes disruptive or begins to require too much of your time to monitor, ask them to leave or ban them (temporarily or permanently) for the sake of the forum and your own sanity.
4. Be honest.
When things go bad – and they will occasionally – let your members know what happened and take responsibility. Keep these phrases handy:
- I was working on xxxxxxx and crashed the server.
- I didn’t even know that was possible, it won’t happen again.
- I’m sorry that happened again.
If you’re honest and have a good relationship with your members, they’ll forgive a lot.
3. It’s a good thing we don’t pay our moderators. We couldn’t afford them.
A good mod is a combination playground monitor, priest, big brother/sister, psychiatrist, professor and more. They perform those functions not just for the members but for you as well. There will be times when you are ready to toss the server off the roof and follow it. It takes the support of a good team to talk you down.
2. Your forum exists by the grace of others.
Value your members. No matter how much you have to offer and no matter how valuable the information you distribute, your forum can’t exist without its members. Treat them well, don’t exploit them, keep them informed and try not to surprise them.
And the number one lesson I’ve learned about managing an online forum:
1. Start a forum for love, not money.
Starting a forum is a lot of work and the financial rewards come slowly and irregularly if at all. During the lean times, your passion is what will sustain you. Actually, it doesn’t even have to be YOUR passion. Both of my forums were someone else’s idea. Initially I was just along for the ride. It was their commitment that dragged me (and the forums) through the tough times. Eventually, as I became part of the communities, I was able to develop and contribute some passion of my own.
Update: If you’d like Tips on Promoting Your Forum we’ve got 10 of them for you!
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I don’t agree much with 7 and 6 but everything else is spot on.
I think #2 is the most important. Without the members you have nothing. And a site is only as good as its members.
You know, I can’t agree more with #1. A lot of people I know have started forums looking for immediate cash flow, but you really have to be in it because you like the subject.
I run/ran a large forum for a bit, it still exists although neglected. The members were very much a community and helped run the system, much of the success was in part because there were no obvious hierarchies of power. If you make it obvious and keep reminding users that there is a moderator censoring them, they will surely not like the atmosphere and will be less likely to post and involve themselves.
You need to maintain a friendly environment, while ensuring that you keep the riffraff out. And believe me there’s a lot of riff raff – seo spammers, malicious users.
Thanks for posting this. I am part of a startup that’s launching a website soon & I just implemented the forum functionality for the site. I’m sure what you posted here will come in handy shortly.
May I suggest another point, that many readers of your lesson might be interested in?
With hundreds of hours of work, I have built my own news website during the last 2 years. I would like to add a forum. Is there any software, that would make it not too difficult to do that? I have tried two, but unsuccessfully, so far. (I just could find a way to get the software to work.
So, if you have a recommendation, I’m sure that many website owners would like to read it with great interest.
Best regards from Los Angeles,
Armin Berlin
Armin,
vBulletin is most likely your best bet.
What do you do when a forum that started out hyper, slows right down till it’s barely got a pulse?
Armin,
Simple Machines Forum is great, and its FREE!
http://www.simplemachines.org
Hey Armin, I suggest you use SMF.(simplemachines.org) It’s a relatively new forum software, but its got a great support community and, so far, its been pretty reliable and hasn’t come up with any errors for me.Plus its free unlike vBulletin. :) Vbulletin is your best bet though. If your willing to pay for it that is.
Lol, my server crashed last night.. just in time for this article.
So I have a question, I just opened a new forum concerning children and divorce.
Any tips or ideas on how to go about promoting it?
The forum I used to go to daily had an owner that broke your rules #1 and 2.
He sold us out for $4,200 and revealed our IP addresses.
Armin,
phpbb is another one to look into (phpbb.com)
Fantastic advice! I think I’ve had to deal with every point mentioned, including wanting to jump off the roof with the server.
In response to David’s question about a forum slowing down to nothing, my main suggestion is to just keep on going. Start posting interesting topics that encourage user participation. You might even go so far as to create alias posters that reply to your own topic. As people stop by to see what is going on there is nothing worse than finding absolutely no posts. Even a few active, recent tops will get them coming back again and again and eventually a few will stick around or come back.
Great assessment! I have just spent the last week living through some of the finer points of your Top Ten. I am a refugee from a board that closed almost a year ago. We had lost a large part of our community and had nearly regrouped when calamity hit one more time. Lucky for me, I’ve found a board where the owner has brought together all the good and does his best to negate the bad – all the while respecting my right to free speech. It’s hard to find a decent board out there
Suntory and Albtertine,
I’ve edited out both mentions of your “new forum.” This is not the place to link drop for your forum. As I was approving Suntory’s comment I noticed Albertine’s contained the same exact link drop. If you wish to include a URL for your forum, do so in the field provided.
I have been growing http://www.westcoastbikers.com now for awhile its a job but its worth it if you love your topic.
Pretty cool article. I started my forum about 15 months ago. It still struggles. Sometimes I think the community has made it, and then the next week it is nearly dead again. It seams that the forum just has a lot of inertia…it doesn’t speed up or slow down too quickly. I’m going to keep on going and maybe in another year or two, it can sort keep itself going…although I really do posting on it (I just don’t like being the ONLY guy posting).
Having said that, I’ve had no problem with the forum generating enough revenue to pay for itself with Adsense.
I switched to vBulletin from SMF. If you knoow you are serious about your forum, just start out with vBulletin. If you are not so serious about the forum, go with SMF.
I’ve noticed a huge difference in search engine traffic when using vBulletin vs SMF.
Brandon Drury
Yuku.com is another forum service, if you want something hosted, customizable and free.
Skittzo,
Sorry about that. Did not mean to step on any toes.
Cheers!
Thank you for this input. My partner and I were super mods on another forum and put ours together after a disagreement with the admins of our previous place. It has been a learning experience, to be sure. Luckily, between us we have managed to figure out the nuts and bolts of it, and to some degree, the members!
We are coming up on our first year and going strong. Your insights are most helpful, Thanks again
No worries Suntory, just wanted to clarify why I edited.
Cheers!
I run an automotive type board with many regular members and several mods. I find this article interesting as we have tried to attend to these same basic premises.
Good topic. I ran an Anime Club forum for 2 years off of a 1000mhz Duron on my cable modem. Just switched it over to Dreamhost.com.
Starting and running a forum is a struggle. For the anime club, we tried to use the forums as a place where we would plan and meetings as the place we would do what we already planned. So many members still don’t visit the forums, even though we’re telling them that we need them to so that we can plan events better.
Sometimes you wanna give up. But then you look @ other sites and remember why you’re doing it. Because they aren’t.
The 2 forums I helped build have a traffic of maybe 10 people total. The most powerfull surge of traffic we ever had was from a picture gallery showing costumers. (Uploaded about a gig per hour).
I wish it would get bigger, but hey, you gota realize that most people will go for mass media stuff.
These are some great points. Thanks!
This is very simple stuff, but 100% true. I run a car enthusiast forum, and live this stuff daily. I built it for love, and just hope that I can pay the bills (or close to it) so I don’t always have to fund it out of pocket. Mostly, though, we use whatever money we make to support members in need (e.g. one with Cancer, one in a horrible accident and hasn’t walked in 2 years, etc).
I built another forum thinking that it might have some more cash flow, and it never took off, despite having a better reason for being (tool for an existing community that was asking for such a forum). You have to go for the love or to serve people’s needs, not for the money. If you go for love/service, money probably will come (not a ton, but enough to keep it going), but you’ll earn so much more watching the thing flourish. If you get money hungry along the way, I promise you, the place will die.
Great, straightforward piece. Keep it up.
#6 is absolutely true. I am locked into a very old version of my software now because of all the customizations I made. At the time I felt they were “have to haves” but now I regret every one of them.
Barbara, if you join the forum, that this forum was created by those, who didn’t like another SEO forum and thought (and do) they could build a better one. So I guess it is quite natural to startup like this, eh?
Great List! I run a business forum and I found it very helpful. I only partially agree with #6 though. Standard 3rd party supported customizations are usually okay. Especially if they have been around for a few years or more. (Its the “hacks” you want to avoid if possible) But as you said backup and document before installing anything.
Excellent lessons and I will take them to heart! Visibility is not an easy thing to do and I’m finding it is going to take a lot of time :)
Thanks for sharing!
Customization is no good when update time comes.
keeping and interacting with your members for me is the most important
Great Tips – Thank You!
Any thoughts on properly launching a new forum from a current and successful web site….
-Ted
I want to start a forum out of love-very serious, been thinking about it for years-
1)What are the expenses, hosting? Is that where all the bills come in? What other bills could I expect?
2)Also, I am assuming people make money through advertising, but I have no idea how that works?
3) How can you monitor it 24/7 -If people are posting live comments how do you keep up