What I wish I knew before running a forum

[Hotfix]

In this thread I ask you gals/guys What you wish you'd known before starting your own forum.

Were you too strict or lenient with the trolls?
Did you add a new feature such too late or soon?
Did you mod the wrong type of people?
etc.

I'm very eager to hear the wisdom y'all have to share.

Personally, I think I was too strict with the trolls. Having trolls isn't necessarily a bad thing.
First off, they keep the forum very active and alive – plus, they bond the better behaving members of the forum.

Every community needs a little bit of chaos to be entertaining. Otherwise it becomes boring and less engaging.

 

[Hotfix]

Bad advise and false information:

Having members who give bad advise and false information may seem like catastrophe, but it actually isn't.

If everyone knew everything and were correct all the time, we wouldn't have to have conversations.

Having a forum with lots of "bad opinions" is a chance for other people to contribute by correcting it;
this means that the forum gets high quality content ie. "good opinions".

Let there be some false information and watch your community try their best to debunk it.

People love to debate and show the world that they are right and the people with "bad opinions" are wrong.

Give the information on your forum a chance to multiply by not trying to stop people from being wrong.

 

[Faust]

I wish i knew How much work requires a forum, especially in my niche. Cost, effort and time consuming. If i knew that, i wouldn't opened any.

Old forums which are well established, they can survive in social media era, new forums, they must be more than just a forum.

And it's really stressful as well growing a forum, guessing, should I leave it ot close it... To much to discuss....

 

[Hotfix]

I wish i knew How much work requires a forum, especially in my niche. Cost, effort and time consuming. If i knew that, i wouldn't opened any.

Old forums which are well established, they can survive in social media era, new forums, they must be more than just a forum.

And it's really stressful as well growing a forum, guessing, should I leave it ot close it... To much to discuss....

Yes, it's a hit or miss. The success of a new forum depends on so many things and some of them are out of our control.

Luck, timing, competition, randomness, individuals, trolls etc.

If my first forum fails – which I think is very likely – I'm probably going to start a new one.

Growing a community is expensive; it consumes a lot of time and brain power, but it's also very exciting and I'm having so much fun now.

 

[Faust]

Yes, it's a hit or miss. The success of a new forum depends on so many things and some of them are out of our control.

Luck, timing, competition, randomness, individuals, trolls etc. If my first forum fails – which I think is very likely – I'm probably going to start a new one. Growing a community is expensive, it consumes a lot of time and brain power, but it's also very exciting and I'm having so much fun now.

It is a lot of time consuming. You probably could learn and study something and save money on something else.

There is only one forum on my niche so far, but over hundreds in general niche. There are a lot of features which i believe must be in core. But you want just a simple forum, then chance to succeed is below 1%, unless you are company and want to provide a forum for your customers.

I already have over 120 addons installed on my forum, and i think i still need couple more....

 

[DigNap15]

As an older guy I find there is far too much techncial stuff to learn
Especially when it comes to web hosts and email servers - its a mine field, as everyone has a different ideas.

Word Press you just buy it and it runs! (I think)
But I still like forums and XF

 

[whynot]

Word Press you just buy it and it runs! (I think)

It's free.

 

[Gregory Lynn]

I wish I knew that shared hosting was so restrictive and you really need a VPS to run your forums. And I know that you can get away with shared hosting but if you ask me ist not worth it you're better off with a VPS!

 

[Faust]

I wish I knew that shared hosting was so restrictive and you really need a VPS to run your forums. And I know that you can get away with shared hosting but if you ask me ist not worth it you're better off with a VPS!

I'm still on shared hosting, no reason to pay extra if your forum isn't big or at least successful.

 

[Kleazy]

Were you too strict or lenient with the trolls?

I was too strict on day one.
Authority vs. Discipline.
In both cases there is a set of rules. Authority means an external entity wrote them and enforces them. Discipline means self wrote them, and self enforces them.

Authority is valid and needed. Too much is a totalitarian system (North Korea/Nazi Germany I am looking at you).

Its possible to transmute authority into discipline..... Once you do that... you users enforce their own rules with are the same as the forums rules.

Did you add a new feature such too late or soon?

Yes...if the new features come too quick people reject them.
Humans for the majority are entities that follow comfort and familiarity. Thats why people don't change much and hardly ever get out of bad habits. Same for new features....if they come too quick and too hard there will be rejection.

Best to announce what comes next beforehand. However once you do that be firm and don't let the nay-sayers derail you. Find the balance of progressions vs. conservative thinking.

Did you mod the wrong type of people?

Not sure if that means did I invite the wrong people to be moderators. Yes.
Can be undone with a few clicks.

Personally, I think I was too strict with the trolls. Having trolls isn't necessarily a bad thing.
First off, they keep the forum very active and alive – plus, they bond the better behaving members of the forum.

Every community needs a little bit of chaos to be entertaining. Otherwise it becomes boring and less engaging.

Yes trolls are fun. Thats why a king entertained a joker in the court. A king doesn't let the joker into the decision chamber or wont let the joker scare the guests of honor.

 

[Gregory Lynn]

I'm still on shared hosting, no reason to pay extra if your forum isn't big or at least successful.

I have 5 websites and 3 forums and 2 blogs and shared reseller hosting is $20 a month and a VPS is $20 a month and you get a lot more resources with a VPS.

 

[motowebmaster]

The balance between what you are passionate about, versus what others are passionate about, can be what makes/breaks a new forum - if your site is standalone (forum only).

I'm very bad at writing content. Have a blog, but haven't put anything in it in years. My most-active forum (that I no longer own) used to cost more than my mortgage, and made me debt-free with money to spare.

All of my projects, going back as far as my bulletin-board efforts in the 1980's took time and patience to get going. My remaining forum is a small community but still makes money in this time of uncertainty.

In all of these decades, the most common reason for participation impact (and growth) has been the usual suspects; war, famine, economic, civil unrest, and disease. The social-networking phenomenon has had it's influence, but not as much as the old-school stuff.

There is a scene in HBO's Westworld where a young executive is making a pitch about grand set of projects/attractions, and afterward Anthony Hopkins' character unceremoniously shuts him down stating that all of that glitz represents only what the executive wants - not what the customer wants.

That being said I do make things difficult for certain types of users. My site looks good on mobile, and pleasant for casual users, but isn't as attractive to the user who wants to quickly share their disdain for others or today's times. I've killed half my traffic in recent months as a result, but my site is still on-topic - not about the five suspects previously mentioned.

Hope this helps

 

[Mendalla]

I have 5 websites and 3 forums and 2 blogs and shared reseller hosting is $20 a month and a VPS is $20 a month and you get a lot more resources with a VPS.

Any host that I have looked at, VPS usually started around or just above their highest shared tier.

Aside from cost, though, shared takes care of a lot of work (eg. my host runs daily automated backups of my site and dbs). For our size and activity level, I couldn't justify the time I would put in on setting up and maintaining a virtual server.

If I ever have the time to build my dream site ( a writing site and board focussed on speculative fiction), then sure. I would put that on VPS in a heartbeat.

 

[Mendalla]

As for what I wish I knew, how to motivate moderators to actually moderate without me prompting them. We have at least one member who I think should be kicked but since I am an admin for a community owned site, not a site owner, it is risky for me to act unilaterally.

 

[Mr Lucky]

nd I know that you can get away with shared hosting but if you ask me ist not worth it you're better off with a VPS!

I have learned that some shared hosting is better than some VPS.

 

[Mendalla]

isn't as attractive to the user who wants to quickly share their disdain for others or today's times.

You might want to write a blog on how to accomplish this. Some of us might be interested.

 

[Kleazy]

As for what I wish I knew, how to motivate moderators to actually moderate without me prompting them. We have at least one member who I think should be kicked but since I am an admin for a community owned site, not a site owner, it is risky for me to act unilaterally.

Think of motivation as something that has momentum. Not the same as incentive.
A flywheel when standing still has zero momentum...when spinning is hard to slow down.

One can not wake up in the morning before the task and wish for motivation.
It takes discipline.
Discipline comes from ownership and leads to freedom.

Moderators need leadership. There are no bad moderators only bad leaders.

Good news is that discipline is a muscle that can be developed.

Book to read: Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink

/unsolicited advise

 

[Hotfix]

I wish I knew that in the modern era, you should have a community BEFORE starting your own forums.

You don't have to be the leader of the community you're building a forum for.

And you don't own a community just because you're the master of the platform.
They can start their own forums or migrate to somewhere else if they aren't satisfied.

And they can start a new platform with a few clicks of a mouse – so, beware and don't piss off the community.

 

[Faust]

I wish I knew that in the modern era, you should have a community BEFORE starting your own forums.

You don't have to be the leader of the community you're building a forum for.

And you don't own a community just because you're the master of the platform.
They can start their own forums or migrate to somewhere else if they aren't satisfied.

And they can start a new platform with a few clicks of a mouse – so, beware and don't piss off the community.

Not only couple of clicks. You can actually start a new forum. But also depends how much you piss of the community in order them to open an other one.

 

[Hotfix]

Not only couple of clicks. You can actually start a new forum. But also depends how much you piss of the community in order them to open an other one.

Yeah.

A platform like XenForo is expensive, takes some time to set up, and you can customize it – although it can be difficult the first time.

Discord is free, takes no time to set up, but there's little you can do to customize a Discord server.