Matthew

Welcome to Administrata, Mark! It’s great having you on board. What brings you here?

Website administration, specifically forums, allow genuine interaction to occur between humans around a topic. We all know that humans interacting doesn’t always result in positive outcomes. As a forum owner or moderator, we have a duty to protect our members. What is your approach to balancing freedom to engage while also keeping your forum clean? To what extent do you control the flow of conversation? Do you prefer blanket deletion policies? Editing specific parts of a post? How do you avoid alienating well meaning members?

Happy almost Monday everyone! What’s everyone got planned for the week?

Hello Michael, Welcome to Administrata! For your AMA: what is your leadership style? I look forward to seeing you around and please reach out if you need anything!

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This is an awesome initiative! I think this will provide a dynamic incentive for posting. I bet it’s going to draw out some of the competitive folks on here for sure!

I think general discussion forums are probably the easiest to start for many of the reasons mentioned above. However, I feel that the generalized nature of a general discussion forum also leads towards difficulty in maintaining momentum and creating a long-lasting project that retains community engagement. General boards also go up against social media a lot harder due to the conversational nature of the genre.

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Hi Guy! Nice to meet you. If you need anything, please reach out and I’ll be happy to help you! Looking forward to chatting with you!

Personally, I'm not against old content being revived if new discussion ensues. I'm also not against an old thread being linked in a new thread to continue a previously concluded discussion. Either method is fine but I doubt I'd implement a rule in either direction so as to not alienate solid discussion from continuing. My issue is if the necroposting is an obvious attempt at spam. At that point, I'd handle it on a case by case basis.

[mention=46]Uptrendfinancialsignal[/mention] [mention=50]Flower[/mention] [mention=141]1stop[/mention] [mention=202]King Belieal[/mention] I see that you each have parts that haven't been started. The owner is needing this done and it's been open since December. Please reply letting me know when you plan to complete your part. Otherwise, I'll jump in and take some spots to help get this package completed.

Great article. I think your recommendations are spot on. Today, there are so many additional tools to help generate content ideas as well. What trends are popping up in your industry? What major events are occurring that you know will draw in discussion? With the increasing popularity of AI, forum owners basically have assistants at the ready to offer up topic ideas to help with this content generation. Of course, you have to have original content but this AI assistance can definitely speed up the research!

Awesome group of sites! Good luck to all and may the odds be ever in your favor!

I consider this a type of market research and it's absolutely important. Innovation is driven by a need and needs can often be garnered from what you feel is lacking with a competitor. This creates a cyclical effect where in theory, innovation should continue on both ends. Given how small the forum space is now a days, you are often fighting for the same audiences as well. If a forum isn't meeting my needs, I'm going to look elsewhere. Chances are, someone on one project has a project elsewhere that may meet my needs.

With the direction AI is moving and the integration of AI into search engines, I can't imagine how blocking these crawlers would be a good idea. Content that I don't want displayed publicly will be locked down. Building on fdk's remarks, I think our responsibility as admins is even greater than simply allowing crawlers to crawl. Our responsibility is to ensure quality content so AI learns correctly (or as correctly as possible.) I can imagine how damaging it would be if AI attributed misinformation to your project.

Welcome aboard!

Interesting concept. I've done something similar on forums before by having a private forum as my "office." How do you plan to help users find their content if the board gets large? Are replies and discussion allowed?

Neat! I love doing this on Discord. Friends and I will take fun pictures of us together and make them emotes. Great idea for engagement!

I'm a huge proponent of team builders and icebreakers. It's likely my teaching/student affairs background combined with my HR self. However, there is something to be said about using these to build a team and to get to know people. A particular favorite of mine is two truths and a lie. If you've never played this one, you tell two facts about you and a lie. Others get to guess the lie. I'll start: 1) I placed third place in a rock climbing contest. 2) I have 3 cats and 2 dogs. 3) I have a Flo from Progressive Bobblehead. Share your truths and lies below while trying to guess which one of mine is the lie!

I'd like to join! This sounds like a great opportunity for some solid advertisement. Love the entry amount too, 1 a day should definitely be doable for everyone!

Happy Valentine's Day everyone! My wife and I celebrated last weekend with a weekend getaway. This weekend will be about the kids!

Good discussion is good discussion. I personally don’t mind it if the new posts adds to and encourages further discussion especially if the old threads are visible on the first or second page.

A last minute Valentine’s Day trip to Target for the wifey and daughter.

I love your tip that focuses on perception. I think this is often overlooked and it can be damaging. On the opposite side, it can drive traffic to you. The question is whether it’s the kind of traffic you want? I also used AI to help generate ideas. I fed it concepts, ideas, and parameters which helped come up with an idea I liked. This let me get some feedback prior to settling without risking someone taking the domains. Great article and talking points!