If you’re running an online community, you know how satisfying, fun and exciting it can be, especially if you’re in charge of a popular site where people come to discuss their favorite hobbies, movies, music and news. But you also know that there’s a flip side to being the gatekeeper of a discussion board. Difficult users, legal constraints, spammers, and technical issues can turn the excitement of running an online community into total chaos. With the right guidance, however, running forums can be a pleasure. Patrick O’Keefe has spent years developing and managing online communities. Now, he shows you how to make the right decisions about every aspect of your site. Managing Online Forums is the first comprehensive book to cover everything you need to know to launch and run a community forum, including:
conceptualizing the community and launching it • attracting people to the community • choosing a name and domain name • picking the right software • deciding on user options like avatars and private messaging • setting guidelines and dealing with violators • ensuring that posts stay on topic • settling online disputes among users • involving your users and keeping the site interesting
Unique, lively, and timely, Managing Online Forums is the one book that shows you how to create a safe and entertaining community that users will return to again and again.
“O’Keefe provides an impressively insightful, comprehensive, and cogent blueprint for building a loyal and responsive community online.”
--Ryan Leslie, Founder, NextSelection Lifestyle Group, recording artist,producer, and online video pioneer.
“Patrick is one of the true leaders in online community building, and his knowledge isn’t just theoretical, it is based on “in the trenches” experience—and those experiences will prove invaluable as you look to leverage community in your endeavors.”
--Jeremy Wright, CEO, b5media,and author, Blog Marketing
Online forums make up the very foundation of the social web. Unfortunately, there are few resources for the growing number of people who work behind the scenes to make them successful. In this comprehensive book, Patrick O'Keefe brings his real world experiences to bear in the form of strategies, tactics and ideas that fill a knowledge gap that has begged to be filled for too long.
-- Lee LeFever, Common Craft
Patrick O’Keefe is the founder and owner of the iFroggy Network (ifroggy.com), an internet network featuring content, community and e-commerce sites. He also manages 7 communities, including SportsForums.net, KarateForums.com, phpBBHacks.com, CommunityAdmins.com and PhotoshopForums.com,. He blogs about community management at ManagingCommunities.com and has written articles and editorials for several websites, including YanksBlog.com and BadBoyBlog.com. He lives in Harbinger, NC
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments xvii
Foreword xxi
Introduction: Is This Book for You? 1
How This Book Is Organized 2
Communities, Forums, and Boards 4
Book Website 4
After You’ve Read the Book 5
Chapter 1. Laying the Groundwork 7
Fundamental Decisions 7
What Will Your Community Cover? 7
Whom Do You Want to Attract? 8
What Will the Benefits of Your Community Be? 9
How Will You Support the Community Financially? 9
What Is Your Situation? 10
Create a Brand-New Stand-Alone Community 10
Launch a Brand-New Community and Content Site at the Same Time 10
Launch a Brand-New Community as an Addition to an Existing Content Site 12
Purchase or Take Over an Existing Community 13
What Skills and Characteristics Do You Need to Have? 14
Conclusion 16
Chapter 2. Developing Your Community 17
Choosing a Name and a Domain Name 17
Communities for New or Existing Content Sites 18
Naming a Stand-Alone Community 18
Extensions • Dashes and Numbers • Spell It Correctly! • Length • Prefixes •
Don’t Curse!
Domain Name Registrars 21
Web Hosting 22
Choosing Your Community Software 23
vBulletin 23
phpBB 24
Basic Options 24
Software Options 25
Requiring Registration to Participate • Smilies • Flood Controls • Word Censors • Post Counts •
Old Posts • Purging Accounts
User Options 29
Signatures and Avatars • Username Changing • User Titles and Ranks • Ignore
List • Private Messaging • Allowing Users to Be ‘‘Invisible’’
Setup Options 33
What Guests See • How Many Forums Should I Have? • Advertising Forums •
Private Forums • Other Forums • Why You Don’t Want a Feedback-and-
Suggestions Forum
Starting with Staff 48
Design, Layout, and Customization 48
Don’t Just Install a Ready-Made Template 49
Designing for a Community 49
Stick to One Look 50
Customizing Your Community 50
Improve the Usability • Add an Important Feature • Add a Requested Feature •
Make Your Job Easier
Be Smart, Be Safe 53
Follow the Instructions and Recommendations 53
Check Your File and Folder Permissions 53
Protect Your Admin Areas with .htaccess 54
Have Separate Passwords for Everything 54
Create a Separate Database Account for Each Database 55
Backup Your Database—Constantly! 55
Keep Your Community Software Updated 57
Conclusion 57
Chapter 3. Developing Guidelines 59
Guideline Ideas 60
What Do They Apply To? 61
Cross-Posting, Duplicate Threads, Etc. 61
Post-Count Boosting and Bumping 62
Styles of Communication (No CAPS!) 62
Advertising 63
Affiliate Links 65
Copyright 65
Illegal Activities 67
Hotlinking and Bandwidth Theft 67
Legal Advice, Medical Advice, Suicide Threats, Etc. 68
Personal, Real-Life Information and Privacy 69
English Only, Please 69
Respect 69
Obstructing the Flow of Discussion 70
Vulgar Language and Offensive Material 70
Freedom of Speech 71
Multiple Accounts 71
Automated Account Creation, Participation, and Scraping 72
Signatures 73
Avatars 73
Privilege Restrictions 73
Deleting Accounts and/or Posts in the Future (Leaving Your Community) 73
Who’s the Boss? 74
If You Break the Guidelines, There Are Consequences 75
The Guidelines Are Not All-Inclusive 75
We Can’t Watch It All! 75
Have Fun! And, If You Need Help, Let Us Know! 76
Real-Life Examples 76
The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (C.O.P.P.A.) 87
Privacy Policy 88
Get Them Out There! 88
Conclusion 89
Chapter 4. Promoting Your Community 91
You 91
What Is Not Considered Promotional Can Be Promotional 92
Preparing Your Community for Search Engines 93
Make Your Community Spiderable 94
Descriptive Page Titles 95
Welcome Messages 96
Before You Launch 97
Directories 98
Partnerships 98
What Can You Offer a Partner? 99
What Can a Partner Offer You? 100
Buying Advertising 100
Link Exchanges 107
Contests and Giveaways 108
Post Exchanges and Paying People to Post 110
Offline Promotion 111
Let Your Users Promote You! 113
What Not to Do 114
Conclusion 115
Chapter 5. Managing Your Staff 117
How Should You Lead? 117
Communicating with Your Staff 120
Staff Forums 121
Talking Things to Death 121
Staff Leaks 122
The Chain of Command 122
Regular Users Who Think They Are Staff 123
Moderators Policing Moderators 124
Only One True Admin, Please 124
Moderation: The Process 125
Step #1: Recognizing Violations 125
Step #2: Removing Violations 125
Step #3: Documenting Violations and the Action Taken 126
Step #4: Contacting Users 129
Responses to Guideline Violation Warnings 139
Process Summary 142
Old Violations 142
Staff Guidelines 142
Staff Guideline Ideas 143
Job Duties • Behavior • Use of ‘‘Powers’’ • Documenting Violations and Related
Issues and Notifying Members • Discussing Site-Related Issues with Members
• Avoiding Controversial Discussions • Staff Forums • Interacting with Other
Levels of Staff • Choosing New Staff Members • Saying Thanks and Being
Available
Example Staff Guidelines 147
Situations Guide 160
Make Your Staff Stand Out 168
Staff Member Benefits 169
Choosing Your Staff 171
When Is It Time for a Staff Member to Move On? 173
Inactive Staff Members 174
Resignation in Good Standing 175
Resignation After Disagreement 175
Wow, I Let This Person onto My Staff? 176
Conclusion 179
Chapter 6. Banning Users and Dealing with Chaos 181
Real People, Real Cases 182
The Bad 182
Forum Spam Bots • That Doesn’t Look Like Spam . . . • Introtisements and
Adverquestions • Violations in Private Messages • I’m Locked out of My
Account! • Why Use of ‘‘Micro$oft/M$’’ Is Bad • Content Thieves and Scrapers
• The Reply-to-Every-Post Guy • ‘‘Freedom of Speech’’ • Me vs. You • ‘‘You Are
So Biased’’ • ‘‘I’m Creating My Own YourSite.com !’’ • When Users Say
Good-Bye • Threats ( . . . or I’mLeaving!)
. . . And the Worst 198
‘‘Remove All of My Posts and Delete My Account!’’ • ‘‘Hate Him, My Minions!
Hate Him!’’ • Admin to Users: ‘‘Attack!’’ • The Grand Delusion • Personal
Crusades: What It All Comes Down To
Persistent Idiots 203
Solutions 204
Post Reporting System 204
Turning Negatives into Positives 205
Helpful Notices 205
Innovative Tools 205
Banning 207
Give Every User a Chance 208
Public Humiliation 208
When Should You Ban? 208
Responding to Banned Users • Lifting a Ban
Banning Methods 211
Banning Usernames • Temporary Bans • Banning IPs • Users Who Use the
Same IP • Doesn’t That Look Like . . . ? • Get Creative • The System Is Down •
Make It So That Only They Can See Their Posts (Global Ignore) • Simulated
Downtime • Automated Banning and Point-Based Systems
Banning URLs 216
Contacting a User’s ISP 217
Conclusion 218
Chapter 7. Creating a Good Environment 219
Respect Is Everything 219
Welcoming New Users 220
Be Human, Be Fun, Be Involved 220
Answering Questions 221
Don’t Have an Attitude of Expected Knowledge 221
Don’t Link Users to General, Unhelpful Sites 221
Don’t Tell Users to Search 221
If a Question Has Been Asked Before 222
Make Your Users Feel Involved 222
Ask Users for Input 222
Announce Changes 223
Share Your Successes 223
Customer Service 224
When a Problem Occurs, Apologize and Explain 224
Responding to Bad or Rude Suggestions 224
How to Handle Private Contact with Users 225
Don’t Take It Personally 225
Allow All Wrath to Be Directed at You, Not Your Staff 226
Politics, Religion, and Other Very Controversial Discussions 227
Conclusion 228
Chapter 8. Keeping It Interesting 229
New Features 229
Newsletters and Mailing Lists 230
RSS Feeds and Syndication 235
Bots 236
Posting Games 237
Arcade Games 239
Contests and Giveaways 240
Member of the Month 240
Articles and Content 241
Chat Rooms 241
Awards Programs 242
Conclusion 244
Chapter 9. Making Money 245
Advertising 245
Displaying (Some) Ads to Guests Only 247
Start with Ads 247
Advertising Networks 248
CPM and CPC Networks • CPA Networks and Affiliate Programs
Selling Advertising 251
Other Ads 252
Ad Threads • Classifieds • Sponsorships • What Else . . . ?
Merchandise 253
Paid Memberships 259
Donations 260
Conclusion 260
End Note 261
Appendix A. Online Resources 263
Appendix B. Blank General Templates 265
User Guidelines 265
Staff Member Guidelines 270
Contact Templates 274
Appendix C. Glossary 283
Index 289
About the Author 297