Forums Part 2

Forums Part 2 (Full Version)

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Brandon -> Forums Part 2 (11/8/2005 13:54:00)
This I guess you can say this is a follow up to my original post awhile back. http://www.frontpagewebmaster.com/m-269483/tm.htm My forum seems to be growing slowly, but growing. My concerns are now on managing people. What is the best way to police your users? Should you post the rules and regulations? If someone is acting up do you warn them? Should you ban someone? Has banning anyone ever backed fire on you? Also do you think you ever have to worry about getting sued if you ban someone? If someone gets off topic how do you get them back on track? How do you keep people from spamming your site? I'm just looking for suggestions here...I want to get a hold of some of these problems that can accrue before they do...

Spooky -> RE: Forums Part 2 (11/8/2005 14:03:53)
I would consider one of the more important tools to be email authentication. If you dont authenticate email and allow users direct access, you are inviting spam. Generally a smaller number of people will go to the effort of using a valid email just to spam you. You need to have people you can trust moderating the boards, unless you want to be awake 24/7! To help them out, youll want to have fairly clear guidelines that can be refered to as to what is acceptable. Its often a fine line, but youve got to err on the side of tollerance.

womble -> RE: Forums Part 2 (11/8/2005 15:21:29)
Apart from my own private forums where I rule the roost and what I say goes, and no-one gets their hands on my admin control panel, I’d say have two admins (someone you trust implicitly - that way you get to go on holiday in peace) If your forum’s international, make sure you have mods in different time zones. Rules and regs for me haven’t been generally necessary - perhaps a gentle general reminder announcement may be appropriate if any problems do arise. Same for off-topic (or if it’s off topic but still relevant to the forum, split a topic where necessary) Spamming – be vigilant and delete spammers on sight. It’s always going to be a problem, which is why you need a pack of well trained mods.

Brandon -> RE: Forums Part 2 (11/10/2005 13:18:11)
thanks guys...also just a comment but I notice that people register but then they don't post....Do you guys run into this also?

Spooky -> RE: Forums Part 2 (11/10/2005 13:57:35)
Yes, it happens - perhaps they find the search button whilst registering? [;)] Perhpas (like us) you have content only available to registered users - its hard to tell what some people are thinking when they register :)

jaybee -> RE: Forums Part 2 (11/10/2005 14:03:55)
I swear some of them register just because it's free. I've got a load of them on my forum. I reckon others register, get sidetracked and then when they come back can't remember their login details and are too embarrassed to email and ask. I know I've forgotten on occasion what my ID was so I can't click the forgotten password bit.

womble -> RE: Forums Part 2 (11/10/2005 16:10:59)
Probably for both reasons Spooky and Jaybee suggested. I know in my case on a phpBB board I admin probably about a third of the members have never posted. I know some of them are old members (we lost the db a couple of years ago and had to do a fresh install and everyone had to re-register). They probably don't 'need' the forum in the way they once did but still check in ocassionally to see what's going on. As for the rest, probably a combination of the above. It's just a pity a lot of the existing members haven't learnt where 'search' is...sigh

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