What is your #1 problem running a forum?

It requires one page with all new (relevant) content, in an organized layout, with refreshing. 'Whats new' unfortunately doesn't come close. What we need is something that looks like new-posts, showing any content type of relevance. In XF1 I use a modified recent-activity with auto-refresh and lots of events hidden in there. Which helps somewhat. But it also shows unread content and its not visible to guests. In XF2 we can make it visible to guests which is a step forward.

You mean a combination of all the different content types on the forum. Somewhat like a facebook news feed?

It doesnt just relate to forums, but addon content is just as important. I think that addon content will become dominant over forum content in coming years. I am already seeing a shift on my big board.
Whats the addon content that is starting to dominate on your forum now?

You cannot link to a specific user upgrade.
There needs to be different upgrades for single payment, recurring, and one for each term. In reality its just the same upgrade. This makes any upgrade page messy. if you have 4 upgrades, available as single payment and recurrent and in 6 terms, then you have 48 upgrades on a page instead of just 4.
A user upgrade cannot be upgraded to a higher one. Lets say a member has a $5 a month upgrade subscription and they want to change that to $10, then this is not possible. They will need to cancel the first one.
This is why you will often end up with 48 upgrades, so that users can see the different options they have.

Wow thats a lot! This was one of the reasons for using WHMCS instead of XenForo Subscription service for ForumApps. The more options we present to the buyer, the more confusing it gets and therefore higher rate of cart abandonment.
Have you tried modifying the row id of the user upgrade and focusing on that with the help of a query parameter in the URL to highlight the upgrade user should buy. Query parameters are
Code:
https://forum.com/index.php?upgrade=24
This would help you scroll to that particular upgrade on that page and highlight it when the user opens that page from a dedicated link. Will this help?
 
You mean a combination of all the different content types on the forum. Somewhat like a facebook news feed?
Facebook feed is messy in layout and can cater to a limited amount of content. This is the general idea, but more organized.
Whats the addon content that is starting to dominate on your forum now?
In general I can see that non-forum content have become more important now. Previously 95% of our activity was in forum. Now we can see activity rising in other content. Especially in User Blog System and on profiles. Articles and comments have also become important. I am certain that our new reviews system will become even more active than User Blog System. Its already getting a lot of attention. I am hoping for XFMG and XFRM to get some major upgrades or if someone would release alternatives so it can be at a similar level as Bob's amazing addons. Then I am sure that media discussion and downloads discussion would also take off.
This would help you scroll to that particular upgrade on that page and highlight it when the user opens that page from a dedicated link. Will this help?
Im not sure if it would. The account upgrades pages is simply too confusing. We also have various upgrades for other purposes. So we end up have many more. People get lost.
 
I really disagree with that. On a busy forum you should not need a mass of moderators j

I have a number of forums, one of them is a large, 2.5m posts with thousands of subscribers, not one single moderator. Moderators have killed more forums than facebook. Don't go there, they are not needed.
 
I have a number of forums, one of them is a large, 2.5m posts with thousands of subscribers, not one single moderator. Moderators have killed more forums than facebook. Don't go there, they are not needed.
How do you handle SPAM?
 
New User Moderation is important. I automated a lot of it, because 90% of new registrations can be automatically approved or denied.
Crowd moderation is important. I( use my reputation system and Xon's report addons which has crowd moderation built in. My reputation system also helps restricting bad members.
@JamesBrown do you have any addons for managing registrations?
For spam the addon stophumanspam and anyapi are also important.
 
This isn't too big a deal, however so many of my members quote everything, and I mean everything. It's rather annoying. Just this morning I sent 4 of them a Conversation outlining how to quote, when to quote, etc.
 
Thats because they want to reply. The reply link inserts a quote to the post. Its really hard to explain that to people. Try changing the phrase 'reply' to 'quote'. And 'Quote' to 'MultiQuote'
 
OK, and what percentage of this crowd moderation's use is for spam, versus other things?

I've no idea, something objectionable is posted if it's reported by enough people of good standing then it's removed from view. I don't keep stats on that, why would I? It would mean nothing anyway, all communities are different. You will need to try crowd modding and see if it works for you. My experiences will no doubt be different to yours. My members are for the most part mature, responsible adults so that helps.
 
Does anyone ever abuse this to suppress non-spam they disagree with or dislike?
To a minor degree yes. I publicly announced that members can help moderate the forum by reporting problematic posts. This resulted in a few members teaming up and reporting the same together. This was possible because I did set the threshold very low. I then upped the required number of reports and the problem was gone.

I only allow adults on my site. Members are promoted due to reputation and trophies earned. And conversely demoted due to negative reputation earned. Reputation may only be given for post quality. Which means that usergroups reflect the post quality and contributions of the member. Based on that I have defined a low weight to the reports of low ranking members and a high weight to the reports of high ranking members.

What is missing here is that members cannot select the specific rule breach. If they would be able to select 'spam' 'hate speech' etc and the report queue would display this then those reports for serious offences would be handled first by moderators.
Classification of reports would also allow for automated actions.
 
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Definitely member retention. A few more others but retention is an issue. Mobile is the way and I believe it would help tremendously. I know there's some solutions out there right now but they're not close to what we need. It will happen I think. That and slightly overzealous moderators.
 
Getting active users or what people call the sticky users! This is the number #1 problem I face running a forum.

What is your #1 problem running a forum that you wish never existed?

We have a nice, solid core of "Sticky users" (including yours truly). What we need is some growth. We have drivebys from time to time and the odd visitor from the board that we replaced, but no one that really stays to become part of that core.
 
We have a nice, solid core of "Sticky users" (including yours truly). What we need is some growth. We have drivebys from time to time and the odd visitor from the board that we replaced, but no one that really stays to become part of that core.
Is the problem converting visitors and driveways to a more regular audience?
 
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