When answering a technical question on a forum, I always do research on Google. Even a quick search will usually turn up an answer. And, even if the post is not very long, the answer is sufficient to help the member ou...
On some forums where I'm active, I get random private messages. Some are just spam with links, others are just invasive and personal. Do you ever encounter these situations on forums? Also as an admin or forum owner h...
My own personal forum is general chat. I started the forum when my favorite general chat forum shut down. It was fun having a place for me and my friends to talk about just anything. What's your forum about and why di...
On every forum, there will always be a massive amount of noobie type questions from people just starting out in the niche. This is especially true of webmaster/SEO and admin forums where people ask the same questions fr...
When hiring an admin, do you recruit from within your current mod staff? Or, do you ask for admin applications on other sites, such as recruiting from outside your current staff? What are the advantages or disadvantage...
Private messages can be used by forum members as a tool to talk with friends on forum but also for bad reasons such as spamming. And, this makes the private message system an area where you constantly need to monitor ac...
If you are a forum owner or admin, do you post under your own name? Or, do you choose a pseudonym or fake name to protect your own identity? What are some of the advantages of posting under your own name versus a fake ...
It's only natural that staff members can become frustrated, especially when over worked or dealing with a trolling member. How do you deal with forum staff when they are frustrated? What are some of the things you can ...
With a new forum, you'll have fewer threads and posts to moderate, so you might not need many moderators. However, it would be useful to have at least one admin to help manage the behind the scenes aspects of your forum...
If you are relying on your admin and mod staff to run your forum, it can be very damaging if the staff just decided not to show up and moderate or post. Has your forum ever been damaged by inactive staff?
What are the advantages of requiring new members to post an introduction before they are allowed to post in any other area of your forum? Are there disadvantages to requiring this?
What are some of the reasons you would fire a forum admin or mod? What could they do that was so bad you did not want them on forum anymore?
I'd love to find a great new source for forum smilies. Where do you find your best forum smilies? Please provide a link.
At one time, forums were a great place to meet others with similar interests and have great conversations. Now you can get the same experience on Facebook. And, almost everything you can do on a forum can be done on ...
With the Vanilla forums, you'll pay around $99 a month, which seems very expensive for a hosted cloud based forum. Are there any specific advantages to using the cloud version of Vanilla forums? Or, would you simply d...
One of the most popular admin forums focus only on specific software, such as Xenforo/vBulletin, with all other software being compiled into a catch all generic subforum. And, considering there are so many more software...
What are your thoughts about self promotion on your forum? Do you tolerate any kind of link promotion? Do you let members occasionally mention (or blatantly refer to) their own sites and links? Not specifically talking...
So I have ran a few posting competitions on my forum, and im just about to start another one in the next week or so. I am just wanting some replies with tips I should keep in mind for running it, and also some new rules ...
Do you have any member inspired subforums, such as special sections on your forum which were suggested by members? And, how are these areas working out?
I like it when forum members take the time to use an avatar as it makes the forum seem like a more friendly place. What's your thoughts on forum avatars?
How much time will you invest into your forum to make it a success, either daily, monthly or yearly? And, do yo ever get paid back for the time invested?
There are just too many gamer and gaming forums online and most not even focusing on one specific platform or game, but more generic gaming niche. Why do people still try to compete with such a large niche? And, any ad...
Is there a super easy forum niche to dominate, both with traffic, members and SEO? What would that niche be?
Do you think of your forum in the same way as an online business, similar to how a site owner who sells products would? Does it help to treat a forum like a business?
If someone has been making bullying type comments on your forum, can you temporarily mute them so they can browse the forum but not post?
Have you noticed how some sites have lots and lots of spam? Maybe spam activity just brings more spam, so spammers who show up and see the spam know that site is not moderated well and drop links and spam everywhere. ...
This seems to be a very common thing with hackers now, trying to bruteforce or guess passwords multiple times. How do you protect your forum or site from this type of hacking?
What are your best tips for staying safe on a forum to protect yourself from harassment, hackers or stalkers?
It might seem like a good thing to have forum members actively clicking on your Adsense ads. But, this could also be perceived as suspicious clicks by Adsense, resulting in your account being suspended or shut down. So...
Some bots are necessary such as the ones used by Google search to crawl and index your forum. But are there some types of bots that can be invasive or cause damage to your forum software? If so, how do you prevent thes...
Let's say you hired a really good admin or mod and they did a good job for awhile but one day started bullying the members. How would you handle the situation? Would you fire the person right away or try to resolve the...
If a member spammed your forum heavily or threatened other members, would you report their IP to their internet service provider for legal action?
On some forums where I sign up, they have questions that have to be answered before registration is allowed. But, usually the questions are way too easy and could easily be cracked or anticipated by a forum spammer soft...
Do you have it set up so that your forum won't accept sign ups from members whose IP is from a specific country such as Russia or China or other areas of the world? Or, is there a specific country that you have banned...
Most spammers use a certain domain for their email, such as hotmail or aol.com or other temporary addresses. Is it possible to ban or prohibit all email addresses coming from that site when registering at a forum?
One of the ways I make my forum members feel welcome is by quoting what they've said and making a comment or adding to their thoughts. This lets the person know their post was noticed and usually brings them back to the...
I have a Xbox gaming forum (phpBB software) and I want a script / mod so that my members can add their Xbox GamerTag into a field in their profile settings and this fetches their Xbox Gamer Profiles Stats such as their G...
Can someone please recommend to me a good Mod to install on my phpBB forum so that my members can Like each others topics and replies?
Do you periodically archive old threads and place them in a read only forum (where threads can be read but not responded to)? Do you think this is good for SEO? What are the benefits or disadvantages of archiving threa...
One of the worst reasons I've seen for closing a discussion is when the admin poses a topic or question and others don't seem to agree with his point of view. Have you seen this happening on other forums? And, what do ...
