Must Haves

Shagy · Joined: 19 Apr 2006 Posts: 5

I think the thing that is most important about starting a forum is getting enough people interested in wanting to view your message board. Before even starting to build the page get people interested in what you will have in it firs. Get others talking, and soon the word will spread. Another factor that I think is important is to always keep it update and once in awhile change the layout, because before long people will become board with the design and no longer be interested in visiting your forum.

JPike · Joined: 20 Apr 2006 Posts: 8

I also find it really helps if you get some sort of flashy/cool logo, and then put a huge Coming Soon! sign up on your domain. I don't know why, but it sort of strikes at people's curiosity in a way and makes them anticipate the forums arrival even more. Because, truth be told, nobody joins a forum with a few members, but lots of people would be willing to join "that hot new forum that everyone is talking about".

About changing the layout/skin, I find that if you really want to keep your forum alive, you should make some sort of contest or poll where several layouts and designs are presented and the forumers can chose what they like best.

Another way to go is to have alot of different layouts in a "Skin Selector". This means that whenever the forumers get bored of the skin they've been using, they can easily change it.

But these are just add-ons to your ideas, so it's safe to say that I agree with you Razz

simplicity · Joined: 21 Apr 2006 Posts: 5 Location: UK

The most important 'must have' for me is a Home Page without any typos! Maybe it's because I'm a proofreader (yeah, ok - PROBABLY because I'm a proofreader), but I turn away from so many forums simply because I can't be bothered to look at the contents if the hosts can't be bothered to check the first message that everybody reads! Makes me mad!

simplicity

Ritu · Joined: 21 Apr 2006 Posts: 6 Location: India

For me the must to get your forums run is activities.

Social topics & Informative topics are the best to bring more members in to discussion and chat. For a forum to have chit-chat place is must but even important is to have a place of humour. Coz we all need a time to relax with a bit of humour.

Polls are important too and as per my experience a graphical certifiates are also good.

Next and the most best thing to bring traffic to my site is Awards. When I created an award section for the recognisation of sites. I never thought it would give me this much response. The ratio of people searching for 'Award' and coming to my site is a bout 60% and out of which I am getting 25% of dedicated members.

Guest · Posted: Sun Apr 23, 2006 5:02 pm Post subject:

Avatars and signatures must be allowed. A person needs to customize themself, and please do have more than one skin. We all have our own way of doing things.

Paula · Joined: 26 May 2006 Posts: 6

Jacob · Joined: 28 May 2006 Posts: 8

I think there is a balanace between everything when it comes to creating a good forum. If you have a little more than anything else, then you will be off balance and people might not want to stick around. If you don't have enough of something else, the same problem could occur. I feel that the following are rather important when it comes to creating a successful forum:

1) A slow build up of what is going to happen on the site. If you are building a forum about sports, start mentioning some things that will occur. "There will be random games on the site. If you can guess the winner of this game, you win a prize." These prizes could just be random trophies or maybe you get a cool rank. "Sports Champion" or something. If people realize that there is going to be fun things to do other than just talk about sports, then they will grow more excited. Then they will start to think about what they want. One thing I learned was that people always said what they hoped to find when you told them just a little about the actual forum. Then, you can start adding different ideas that you might not have added before which could maximize your membership.

2) Free will. Allow the members to be themselves. Allow them to have a nice signature with nothing offensive, but at the same time, still their rights to their own expression. Allow a certain sized avatar and keep it that way. I've found a lot of people go for 100x80 or something like that for avatars and it's a pretty decent size, but it seems sometimes too small. I think taht there needs to be a set size for avatars but at the same time nothing that doesn't allow the member to become their own individual person on the forum. Just because it's the internet does not mean you cannot still be an individual, you know?

3) Many skins. Skins really are not all that hard to make once you've created a general set up. Change the header and that's about it. Alter the colors a little bit and voila, you have something new for people to look at. Create five or six and allow people to use different ones. They'll feel like more of an original having that. Furthermore, download quite a few different fonts for people to use so that they can further become their own writer. A lot of forums is about the member feeling unique and at the same time feeling part of the community. It's a tough balanace but it can be done.

4) Activity...Activity...Activity. For most people, they want to join the site that has the most members. From personal experience, I look at what ever sites seems more exciting, and not from an activity point of view. But to most people, activity is an important part of a site and that makes for an importance for the forum owner. If you are not active, people will go to the more active forum. If for some reason your forums are not getting activity, you can either make many posts in them or combine them with other forums. People seeing that there are only two or three topics in a forum with fifty posts is not as great as people seeing there are six topics with one hundred posts. That always looks better, even though that, too, is not that much.

These are just a few tips that I've learned over my time as a forum owner, forum administrator, forum moderator and then just someone that writes on the forums. If you disagree with anything I've said, please let me know. I like knowing other people's opinions on something. It allows for fun conversation and allows for interesting debates.

-Jacob

CarrieGee · Joined: 23 Jun 2006 Posts: 20 Location: Canada

Do you all think that changing the skin/layout is something that should be done regularly?

I was an admin at one site that I absolutely loved, but the webmaster changed things around quite often - just cosmetic changes really - and that drove me nuts. I found that once I had settled in, the place felt like home and I wanted to be able to go there and know what to expect.

At my own site, I've had the same template for the last two years. I've changed things around here and there to keep it updated, but the overall look and feel is still the same. But now I'm wondering if it might not be time for a bigger change, after reading this thread.

deelip · Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 7

case sensitive image verification is not good to registrants. So that should be removed. Quick registration will also help to make some new users.

rattitude · Joined: 30 Jun 2006 Posts: 196

As a very active forum user and admin of a popular forum I think forum skins are really very unimportant. The skin should be easy to use and allow text to be seen clearly. A degree of choice is nice as some people hate white letters on dark bacgrounds and others hate the reverse. But the only thing that really matters is haveing a good niche and active membership IMHO.

sir_jamed28 · Joined: 16 Aug 2006 Posts: 9 Location: Sta. Cruz, Laguna

I think we should also consider that people are basically getting interested in viewing or particiipating in forum if they can get something in return. Like for example, a forum have downlodable files; it provides good ideas, suggestions, or any related/important informations they can get like ads; it can evfen make them laugh, smile or even cry.

MariannaG · Joined: 18 Sep 2006 Posts: 5

I think an important factor is level of interest in the topic, as well as the number and depth of existing forums. Research that, and you will have a good start on creating a new forum. You can then easily advertise the existence of your forum on existing forums. It helps if you have been reading and posting on those forums on a regular basis. You also need to figure out what it is about your forum that will differentiate itself from those that are already out there

If you are starting a forum on a topic for which there is no existing forum, at least that you can find, then try to find related topics and take it from there. At least in terms of finding your audience and letting people know that your forum is out there.

kisna · Joined: 21 Sep 2006 Posts: 14

Additional components like shoutboxes are also makes forum good. I assume a forum should have this compulsarily. Beside this good colour combination of forum, good skin and a eye catching logo is other must have component for forum.

scalamedia · Joined: 16 Oct 2006 Posts: 11

Friendliness!

The board must seem approachable to even the newest of newbies. People must feel it is "okay" to make an error or two here and there. If a question has been asked a million times there should be gentle and friendly direction to the answer and suggestions of how to get the most out of the board.

There is one large forum community that makes use of "community leaders" to ensure the forum remains a welcoming and open environment ( for those who use it appropriately). As a former community leader my role was to make sure every post received a response and when issues arose to remind members of community rules and intervene as necessary.

People will gravitate to where they feel they "belong" and it is the duty of those with a stake in the success of the forum to make sure users have that sense of belonging.
Laughing