fdk

I always mainly used PayPal to accept payments for all of my websites and forums in the past. I also had a period on my largest forum where I accepted Skrill (previously Moneybookers) and crypto-currency payments, however this was during a time when crypto was still its infancy adoption period so we didn't actually take many crypto payments at the time. I had a few issues on occasions with PayPal disputes for members purchasing forum currency, but I quickly developed T&Cs to cover this after a couple of losses and developed a system of responding to the disputes where PayPal always seemed to uphold in my favour, so that was ideal. I know others have faced issues with PayPal disputes, sometimes a while after the transaction date, which can cause cash flow problems for small websites especially if they invest income quickly.

I love the original version of this song, and this cover version is absolutely incredible!

Absolutely avoid spamming your link or breaking the rules/guidelines of a site by posting your website link there if it's not allowed. You absolutely do not want to get a reputation as a website owner for being a spammer. It's fine to advertise - but when you're doing it, do it as humanly as possible, don't advertise like a robot, and try to engage people in your advertising. Make sure you issue a call to action or a task to be completed! Social media is great for driving some initial traffic to a new website and also for getting feedback from friends/family or whoever you may have on your social media who'll be willing to help. It's amazing sometimes how you can overlook something you think seems quite simple, but to an outsider is rather confusing... Always assume anyone using the internet or your website(s) has a vastly reduced knowledge about technology and the internet than you. Of course, this won't always be true, but by adopting this position at the beginning, you're much more likely to keep considering new features and designs that are more user-friendly when adding updates/changes to your site in the future. Finally, don't spend so much time advertising that you lose focus on the basics like ensuring there is enough up-to-date and relevant content on your website. The most important thing is having content for members to engage with when they finally do land on your website - if a visitor arrives and there's little or nothing for them to engage with, your whole efforts in advertising will likely be wasted anyway as they'll navigate away quickly after realising what they came for isn't available.

I don't think it's a sensible idea for smaller communities or forums to attempt to take on "big players" in the space. Simply put, you're risking "poking a bear" essentially and causing problems for yourself. This was relatively common 10-15 years ago among admin/webmaster forums, so much so that some sites began banning the advertising of competing sites... it got to a ridiculous situation, honestly! Rather than attempting to compete with forums/websites that are far outside of your activity levels, I'd focus on producing more quality content for your own site, to hopefully engage new members and make them more likely to stick around into the future. Running a forum, or any kind of website really, is a long game - it's very rare for a website or forum to explode and be massively popular from day one. It takes a lot of effort, a lot of time, a lot of relationship building and a keen eye for details that others miss - so obviously, it's not for everyone. But running your own successful forum is an extremely rewarding experience for sure. :)

It's important to have a good blend of content when launching a new site, but it's also important to ensure that the majority of the content initially posted is in the main areas of the forum. I'm still shocked at how many new forums I visit where they have only 100 posts in their main topic categories but 500+ posts in their off-topic areas. For me, in a way, this is a little off-putting. It signals that there's a lot of members present who aren't interested in the topic of forum, and as a regular member, that makes me question why those people are there in the first place.

I absolutely don't think that it's necessary for a forum owner to be an "expert" in the subject matter of the forum, but they should probably have at the very minimum a basic understanding of the topic and ideally at least an intermediate level of knowledge and be able to answer/create basic topics on the forum about the subject. It's important also to have some kind of interest in the area... running a forum that caters for a subject you don't have a particular interest in can of course become tedious and feel like a chore, which is not normally conducive to running a prosperous community.

I tried my hand at running a blog once. It didn't last for more than a month or two. I also was an admin (although I didn't own it) on a text-based game for a while as a teenager. Other than that, I've had a couple of static websites, and a gaming website that I was running as a referral site to a semi-popular game with paid upgrades that I made a few hundred dollars from years ago. Other than these, it's been all forums for me.

Still looking for anyone who might be interested in this, if you've got some free time in the holidays and want some bonus credits to spend on a package or something else on Administrata this might be the ideal thing for you!

I hope everyone's had a great day! Everything has quietened down for me over the last hour or so, going to take an hour or two soon to relax and play a game or two of Football Manager and then have a browse around the forum and see what's been going on today. Would love it if somebody made a presents thread and shared some images of any gifts they got today! I may get around to posting some of mine tomorrow at some point as I don't have an awful lot planned atm. :)

Hope everybody at Administrata has had a fantastic Christmas day! I'm just heading out for the evening to spend some time with extended family, will be around later tonight and tomorrow. Take the rest of y'alls days easy! (yeah I know you thought that in an American accent)

Merry Christmas Administrata! Hope everyone has a great day. Remember Christmas is about the kids so spoil them and spend time with 'em, Administrata can wait for a day. :) Take care all!

This is a great guide, [mention=5]Cpvr[/mention] ! One of the biggest challenges in my view is getting lurkers to overcome that hurdle of becoming involved in one topic of conversation or one thread. If they have a good experience with that interaction, they're of course much more likely to come back and contribute again in the future. It's really how you get these members to make that first post or first meaningful contribution that is the primary issue and some of your tips are great ideas for that exact purpose. One of my own favourite techniques was to offer a small competition or something that required a member to make a post in a thread outlining a recent experience they had - in my particular case it was simply asking them to share a short paragraph about the last football match they went to watch live. This was a great way from my memory of getting lurkers to contribute for the first time - many immediately went back to lurking, but several developed into regular contributors to our community.

Sleek theme, I really like the simple feel of the design. Any plans for a logo though? [mention=13]Phillip[/mention] Best of luck with the forum! :)

I always liked Justin Bieber when I was a teenager (whilst on the outside I pretended to hate him to be like the cool kids) but I don't respect him much nowadays after seeing the way he treats some of his fans at events and signings and stuff. He seems very obnoxious. I try to understand and empathise that he's dealt with life in the public spotlight for pretty much his whole life, but at the same time, it's not hard to have some common decency as a human being in my view, which sometimes he seems to severely lack.

Hi [mention=69]Hulk[/mention] just fyi I've completed my part of this order! We're just waiting on [mention=50]Flower[/mention] to complete their part of your package, I expect they are taking a short break over the holidays but I'm sure they will be with you soon. If you'd prefer myself or another Content Team member to finish up the package if you'd like it done sooner, please feel free to send one of us a PM and we'll see what we can do for you. :) fdk

In the spirit of Christmas!

Happy Christmas to all at Administrata! Wishing you all the very best for the Christmas period and hopefully 2025 will bring continued and renewed success for all of your websites and life in general :) fdk

Good morning Administrata, and happy Christmas Eve morning! :D I'm having a lazy day today. Got nephews and nieces popping over for an hour this afternoon and have some gift wrapping to finish up this evening, but other than that, just planning to play some games, browse the webs and chill for the day. Have a good one y'all!

It really depends on the quality of the posting. Many years ago as a teenager I did a lot of paid posting work, my work wasn't the best but was certainly at least as good if not better than the average paid poster of the time. I used to make around $12-15 per 100 posts back then, which was decent as a teenager when I enjoyed posting on forums anyway. Sometimes if I had orders with forums with niche topics I could make upto $30 for 100 posts which was great. Nowadays it doesn't seem like paid posting services are in demand as much as they once were. I mainly post now as a hobby and to help contribute to forums that I like and think have potential. The small extra renumeration is an added bonus and well appreciated, but doesn't amount to more than $0.10 a post, and given I rarely put anything less than a couple of minutes into a post and nothing less than 5 minutes into creating a thread, it's not exactly big bucks. Like I said though, for me, it's more about the fun and enjoyment of being part of a community. :)

Does anyone here at Administrata play any sports? I play football (European football) at an amateur level and I also play rugby for a semi-professional side... interested to hear if anybody else is involved in any sports or is a part of any teams!

Back around 10 years ago, MyBB was probably the most common free forum software that was used for new forums, and I believe the main reason was the multitude of high quality plugins that were available, mostly for free (but some very good ones on a paid basis) that made MyBB forums a really great free option. Having recently looked into MyBB a little, I was astonished at how few plugins were available for the latest versions, how poorly supported they were compared to how they were 10 years ago, and just generally how the overall quality or usefulness of the plugins has reduced. What are your thoughts about this if you've used MyBB recently or in the past?

This is a great take and almost exactly what I have myself done in the past too. I always used to instruct my moderators to issue very short (sometimes as short as 1-2 hours) bans if they felt a situation was escalating (this sometimes happened during football matches when our forum was most active) and this generally worked well and allowed people to cool down before doing/saying something that could've potentially needed a much more serious punishment. Usually in these situations a simple 1 hour ban with the reason "Cool down" would be sufficient for the person to chill out and come back an hour or two later with a clear head. Sometimes they'd apologise, sometimes they wouldn't, and that was OK by me. It was quite rare for somebody to come back ranting or continuing their previous course of conduct however, and in those cases further action would be taken sometimes needing a slightly longer ban of a few days. But those were rare times for a forum of thousands of members. :)

Hey [mention=482]Daniel[/mention] , welcome to Administrata, glad to have you around! Reading your introduction was very interesting - a bit of shameless promotion from myself here, but I've been working on a project developing a text-based game and if I'm honestly I'm completing out of my depth with it and was considering hiring somebody to develop the game for me and possibly help run it. Maybe you'd be interested in checking out the thread for an idea of my vision and letting me know if you'd be interested in something like that. :) Either way, I hope to see you around the forum often and engage in some discussions with you :) fdk

Hey, welcome to Administrata, glad to have you around! :) Looking forward to seeing you around the forum from time to time!