Resources on managing and building a large forum

[Espen Espelund]

I'm a bit new on the forum management side. Can someone point me in the right direction for good posts/resources on managing a growing community.

We're currently at 8000+ posts a week and growing rapidly. The forum has been up for almost 4 months. So far everyone seems happy and the quality of posts are pretty decent, but I'm somewhat worried about stuff getting out of hand when we get 3-5x the amount of activity.

Obviously I'm also interested in anything about growing the forum even faster.

http://forum.fitnessbloggen.no/

Thanks

 

[Slavik]

Most of it comes down to experience. My top 3 points would be:

1) Hosting - Plan for the future, are you on a low end VPS? plan on more activity in the future? Look at a High end VPS or dedicated server + an admin capable of managing it.

2) Moderators - Find reliable, helpful and trustworthy members to help you moderate content and posts.

3) Costs and profits - Look at aproaching some advertisers to put some non-obtrusive ads or member upgrades in to help subsadise your running costs and allow you to run some competitions!

 

[Allan]

Offtopic, One question, which hach you use for add image from file attach on index ?

 

[Espen Espelund]

Offtopic, One question, which hach you use for add image from file attach on index ?

Custom. Going to release it as soon as I get the time to fix some stuff

 

[Digital Doctor]

Custom. Going to release it as soon as I get the time to fix some stuff

That is an EXCELLENT tweak.
I love how it takes you to the exact post in the thread.
It works really well.
Did you do it yourself ?

ANYONE: was there ever something like this for vB ?

Here is a screenshot:

 

[Digital Doctor]

Espen: Is there a way to track how many signups you get from just those images alone ?
When I couldn't read what the red T-shirts said .... I was going to sign up just to read them !!!!

 

[Espen Espelund]

Thanks I rewrote this addon and cleaned it up a bit: http://xenforo.com/community/threads/xf-lightboxed-attachments-on-forumhome.12009/

Not exactly sure about the signups, but it sure helps for keeping members engaged. We get 6-10% increase in post per week each week. Since the forum is based around a blog it's kinda hard to tell how it will affect signups on regular forums.

Theres a few things I need to get done before I release it. Like adding some options for choosing the number of pictures. Also it doesn't play nice with fluid width yet since it doesn't use tables like the other mod.

 

[Digital Doctor]

Does it somehow filter image attachments or just displays consecutive ones ? ... or does the admin manually choose them ?

 

[Espen Espelund]

Latest attachments from posts. Added an option for excluding a specific private forum, since it won't check permissions for the nodes

 

[Digital Doctor]

Might be cool to allow some arrows to see more images
Just like they do in Google News.

 

[iTuN3r]

Thanks I rewrote this addon and cleaned it up a bit: http://xenforo.com/community/threads/xf-lightboxed-attachments-on-forumhome.12009/

Not exactly sure about the signups, but it sure helps for keeping members engaged. We get 6-10% increase in post per week each week. Since the forum is based around a blog it's kinda hard to tell how it will affect signups on regular forums.

Theres a few things I need to get done before I release it. Like adding some options for choosing the number of pictures. Also it doesn't play nice with fluid width yet since it doesn't use tables like the other mod.

Well for that purpose make a option to have it on sidebar People with Fluid width can use it on sidebar instead on top of forums.

 

[Digital Doctor]

Of course, an obvious tweak would be that INDIVIDUAL forums would display the images from that forum.
Could be useful for sites that tend to get more images.
SLRuser.com ?
gaming sites that have lots of screenshots ?
etc.

 

[iTuN3r]

Of course, an obvious tweak would be that INDIVIDUAL forums would display the images from that forum.
Could be useful for sites that tend to get more images.
SLRuser.com ?
gaming sites that have lots of screenshots ?
etc.

It will be useful many sites which contains many pictures like fishing site , movies site (they usually post tons of posters) , Artists Fans sites etc . This is one of the best features many sites can use if they are kept upto date with updates and supports.

Even he can workaround and make it work with Xenporta - jaxel's add-on that's another plus point .

 

[Digital Doctor]

Of course the images, could have text in them ....

Maybe the whole thing could be AJAX'd and people could [close] the images they aren't interested in.
Probably would add too many queries ?
As I mention in the mockup ... if you could close the images ... it might make them a duplicate of Notices.
Q: Would it be useful to have this entire gallery triggered as a NOTICE ? If you didn't like it ... you could close it off entirely ?

 

[Digital Doctor]

Hey Espen:
I know what'll make your site go viral.

Change the Node icons:

http://xenforo.com/community/threads/squared-node-icon-spritesheet-1-1.19761/
http://xenforo.com/community/threads/node-icon-spritesheet-1-1.19751/
http://xenforo.com/community/threads/xenforo-styled-forum-status-icons.7744/
or maybe custom ones.
http://xenforo.com/community/threads/custom-forum-icons.11074/

OK. not viral. but it will look 4% better.


Actually, to non-xenforo admins, the Node icons probably look awesome. Shelley pointed out alot of people were using the blue/orange node icons and they should change them. Now when I see the default icons on different colour schemes it ruins it for me. Probably just me !

 

[Divinum Fiat]

I'm a bit new on the forum management side...

Although most of us don't speak Norwegian, it is obvious that you have built an amazing site! I know this is not a 'show and tell' thread but kudos need to be said. Well done!

 

[Espen Espelund]

Might be cool to allow some arrows to see more images
Just like they do in Google News.

View attachment 22889

I like the idea, and it's fairly easy to code, but somewhat time consuming. I'll be sure to allow others to contribute code.

Of course, an obvious tweak would be that INDIVIDUAL forums would display the images from that forum.
Could be useful for sites that tend to get more images.
SLRuser.com ?
gaming sites that have lots of screenshots ?
etc.

Agreed. Would also be nice to display a users latest images on their profilepage. Atleast on a fitness site like mine.

Hey Espen:
I know what'll make your site go viral.

Change the Node icons:

http://xenforo.com/community/threads/squared-node-icon-spritesheet-1-1.19761/
http://xenforo.com/community/threads/node-icon-spritesheet-1-1.19751/
http://xenforo.com/community/threads/xenforo-styled-forum-status-icons.7744/
or maybe custom ones.
http://xenforo.com/community/threads/custom-forum-icons.11074/

OK. not viral. but it will look 4% better.


Actually, to non-xenforo admins, the Node icons probably look awesome. Shelley pointed out alot of people were using the blue/orange node icons and they should change them. Now when I see the default icons on different colour schemes it ruins it for me. Probably just me !

Thanks. Switched them to some green ones. I should create some custom icons for all the nodes when I get the time.

Although most of us don't speak Norwegian, it is obvious that you have built an amazing site! I know this is not a 'show and tell' thread but kudos need to be said. Well done!

Thanks

 

[Divinum Fiat]

Espen, whose wordpress bridge are you using?

 

[Espen Espelund]

Espen, whose wordpress bridge are you using?

Custom. It only lists latest posts. Would love to have a full integration with threads instead of regular comments and such

 

[Divinum Fiat]

Have you looked at http://xenscripts.com/? It's a fully integrated WP bridge from what I understand. I haven't taken the plunge yet because I have a gazillion plugins and was a bit scared that some of them might conflict. But I will try it out nonetheless, can let you know how it goes if you want.