Shawn Gossman

That's pretty expensive, but great that your income exceeded it. I'm paying around $200 a month for my VPS but my blogs are paying for it and also giving me profit. Your strategy is best, if you can earn more than you're paying to be online, you're on the right strategy.

What does that even mean? lol

If I were to make money with a forum, I might consider "performance bonuses" for staff members. But we'd need to make enough to let the forum pay for itself and then some. In the past, though, I've given gift cards out and even bought and sent things to my staff around the holidays. I think anything you can do, to go out of your way to do, will be reflected on by your staff members. :)

I don't practice this. I think it's a great way to encourage retaliation, gossip, slander, and potentially more abuse. It's a good way to turn your forum into a toxic environment and get other people mad at you. I think all disciplinary action, for the most part, should be done in private.

I do quite a bit. I think it's my excuse to read a little bit. I love writing. I write every day. But I never make time to read, and I need to do that more. Subtitles allow me a little time to read :)

I think merging is a great idea, as well. It's way more positive than hitting the lock button. If I made a post and it got locked, I'd almost feel embarrassed by it, and that might scare me away from posting in the future.

How so? How could it backfire?

When I was a teenager, I smoked weed before it was legal. :P

In my experience of running Off Topic Forum thus far, I do agree that running niche forums are better and more fun! However, I have been enjoying OTF. I usually have about a dozen posts a day on there from different members. It's nice to talk about everything, but not always as easy to post new topics about everything. Like you said [mention=79]Arantor[/mention], I do kind of welcome the quieter pace and mood versus social media. I have a FB group with 46,000+ members. It's very noisy and while it's a great group, it's easy to get lost and forget some good discussions because so much is happening.

I bought shawn.bike, which Name Cheap listed as a premium domain name. I paid about $60 for it, I think, $40 or $60... My .com's are about $10. I still prefer a .com but I'm liking a few of the new TLDs like .bike and .blog

Do you know why? Hopefully, backlash caused an activity drop, and they realized it was a bad idea. That's what needs to happen on forums that do stuff like that, IMO.

AAF Updates: https://www.anotheradminforum.com/ 1. Forum of the Month #2 is ongoing with great prizes. 2. The decoration contest is still going on and accepting entries. 3. We have tons of new topics to start posting to. Hope to see you on AAF, folks!

That is one of my biggest pet peeves on big forums. I'll usually quit visiting when I see BS like that.

I think they can be helpful or complimentary for some niches. I wouldn't want to add one to my general forum. I feel like the chat could steal from it. Maybe that would be a feature for premium members.

What's the last domain name you purchased, and what do you plan to use it for? OffTopicForums.com was mine. I bought it to use as a redirect to my off topic forum.

Do you think a shoutbox, chat box, or chat room feature is a good way to kill a forum? Many times these features are said to take away from forums. Do you agree with this? Vote and reply!

Post exchanges are a great way to get new content and member engagement on a forum. The question isn't about whether you do them or not; it's more geared toward those who already do post-exchanges. Do you like to do them? Or do you try to focus on getting them done so that you can be done with it?

Good route! I finally did some traveling myself this year. Got married the day before my birthday (big 40) and then drove several hundred miles to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, where we had our honeymoon I really wanted to see a bear in the wild. I saw 16 of them!

How do you feel about members necroposting? Necroposting is when a member replies to an old topic. These topics typically haven't had a post in over a long period, like a year or more. Do you allow something like this? If you don't allow it, how do you justify not allowing it? What does it hurt?

For those of you who manage or have managed a general forum, how do you stay focused on keeping it active and engaged? I just started my own off topic forum this year. It's been growing fairly well, and we have daily discussions, but sometimes, I lack the motivation to keep each section active with content simply because some of the sections aren't in my passion circle. General and off topic forums are often broad and nicheless in ways. I'd love to hear from those of you who do off topic forums :)

Yeah, or you'll end up like this guy :P

I think I remember that. IIRC, it was a jeep trip around the desert, right?

If I could share user information with their local law enforcement as a way to respond to suicide threats, that's what I would do. Maybe I saved their life? Maybe I got them taught a lesson if they were faking it.

Great community :) I've been a member there since 2013!

Giant City State Park here in Southern Illinois