If you ran a successful forum

[Nick]

Let's say you ran a really successful forum with a large member-base and posts being made every minute of the day. How would you run that forum? Would decisions be made solely on your decision, or are they made by you and a group of people? Would you have a moderating team? Would you have a moderating team like the team we have here with most of them only modding one forum, or would every mod be able to mod any forum? Would there be any notable rules, or no rules at all? Would the way you run the forum be any different if it was a smaller forum? Anything else you'd like to add?!?!

 

[champagnepapi]

This thread probably isn't going to get a lot of replies, due to the fact that every detail of a forum is hard to fit into one post and a few members are probably reluctant to say. Needless, to say it'd be p. cool if I had a 'successful forum'; I'd probably make the majority of decisions about how the forum is set up and have the final say in most decisions, although I'd let other staff members get input on forum changes/issues. I would have a moderating team, but I'd also set up a community member system similar to the one Smogon has, so that members feel rewarded for their contributions and don't bust their ass trying to get mod like on some forums [sounded sort of snarky but it wasn't intended to be lol]. The amount of forums a mod is in charge of would depend on activity, there'd be 1 or 2 for each if activity was similar to PC's and as for the rules, it would just be the usual stuff, no disrespecting members, trolling, spamming, etc, although I'd probably set up a section with a more lax posting atmosphere that wouldn't constitute trolling or spamming, but would be more tolerant than the main board. I'd try and make nice skins for the boards as well; I'm decent with photoshop but vB's ACP still confuses me quite a bit. Not sure what else to add lol, maybe lots of competitions? Having a competitive atmosphere can keep forums exciting. I'd probably shy away from blogs, css and all that fancy stuff, just because I think it isn't really needed, even though I love to use CSS [maybe I'll set it so only admins can use it?]. Here's a mockup thingy lol

 

[Overlord Drakow]

If I really had a successful forum, I would probably have a staff team to do the dirty work for me. Basically the staff team would essentially run the forum on my behalf, for the most part. I reserve the right to have a final say on any matter that arises but otherwise I'd just be chilling. Pretty much, I'd just be a figurehead for the most part. I think the staff heir-achy would be like this;

[1] Supreme Overlord Drakow
[1] Emissary of Darkness
[X] Administrators.
[X] Moderators.

The Emissary is basically my right hand man. Board meetings would consist of the Administrators and the Emissary. The Emissary would take the minutes of the meeting and pass that onto me. If something urgent crops up, then I would probably weigh the details myself privately and reach a conclusion and present that to the table of debate in a new meeting. I wouldn't expect that to happen too often though as a solid staff team should be able to handle most issues sufficiently without me feeling the need to intervene.

I think each of my moderators would moderate a section or two of their general expertise, like Pokecommunity for the most part. As far as the rules are concerned, I'd probably be quite lax about it. You can swear, you can flame, you can troll but keep it in moderation and don't be too malicious about it and it's fine with me. Of course, it all comes down to the individual staff member to judge what is acceptable and not.

I used to be an admin of a small forum and naturally, I wasn't able to take a laid back approach to things, as I was essentially a key pillar which held the forum together. It was me and a global moderator who put in a lot of effort to keep things flowing smoothly. There was another admin and global moderator but the admin was often really busy with university stuff so she wasn't able to contribute as much and the other global moderator was more suited to focus on one or two specific things rather than help manage the entire board.

I might add more to this post later, but I'm feeling a bit tired and out of ideas right now.

 

[Rogue planet]

I'd just make an admin team of people I trust to run the place, I'd leave them to do everything except for major changes/fixes and anyone they want to make a moderator they have to run it by me first; apart from that only step in if I get people complaining to me or if it's a ~srs issue~.

I'd probably have a polling system as well. If someone suggests a new idea that is plausible, I'd put it to vote and then implement it if a lot of people support it. If it's no good, can just remove it.

 

[Saryka]

I would be supreme leader with a small team of staff to enforce my rules. Each staff member is in charge of a certain section of the forum and are carefully handpicked by me. They are given no option - if they log in and see they have been modded, they must begin work immediately. Failure is not an option. Rules are strict and constantly subject to change as I see fit. One toe out of line and, boom, permaban. I run a tight ship. No one crosses me. No one.

I hope you all know I'm joking and I honestly have no idea how I would run a forum of this size lol. I guess I'd be a pretty chill admin and have a group of chill staff that run the forum in a sort of laid-back-ish fashion. Laid back, but fair. So basically the opposite of the paragraph above.

 

[Shining Raichu]

^ Bahahahaha

For me, I think as things get bigger they have to become more formal and structured, or else chaos would ensue and that's all your hard work down the drain. So if I ran a forum, I think I'd be pretty easy-going about it at first, not really make up much in the way of rules and just trust the common sense of the memberbase. Maybe I'd have a mod or two just in case people get a little over-the-top. As the forum got more popular and became bigger, I'd hire more moderators, and begin to make more binding and formal rules just so that I could keep everything in check. I think I'd promote some mods and form an h-staff that could help me make decisions and get some other people who know how to do coding (because in this hypothetical universe, I am amazing at coding myself) to help fix bugs and whatnot.

 

[TwiDragon]

I was a co-admin on a somewhat large forum (about 1,200 members) The site shut down due to hackers, but it was fun.

I wouldn't have it be super strict on censorship.

I would have a moderation team that is laidback, non-elitist, and that are as active as I can be.

I would want a chatbox active at all times.

Those are my esstentaisl I have.

 

[PlatinumDude]

I was a mod in a couple forums, but got demoted for not doing my work.

Back on topic, if I actually ran a forum, I wouldn't base anything on my decisions; I'd talk about it with the co-admins and mods first.

 

[Nakuzami]

I would be supreme leader with a small team of staff to enforce my rules. Each staff member is in charge of a certain section of the forum and are carefully handpicked by me. They are given no option - if they log in and see they have been modded, they must begin work immediately. Failure is not an option. Rules are strict and constantly subject to change as I see fit. One toe out of line and, boom, permaban. I run a tight ship. No one crosses me. No one.

LE GASP!!! :O
Not joining that, lol xD

I'd probably just mimic the Pokecommunity, to an extent. I don't really trust myself with power, but then again I've never had it, but . . . well, I'd probably just sit back and oversee everything, handpicking moderators for each of the forums and make sure that they do their job fair and well. Other than that, I'd . . . hey, I'm going to make a few of you people that know what you're doing my underlings, that way I wouldn't have to be too worried! xD
But you never really know what to do and how to do it correctly until the situation arises, and then you have the experience to handle it. I don't, so I'm just going in blind here, lol.

 

[Eliminator Jr.]

If I was running a forum the size of PC, I'd probably have a similar staff set-up to what PC has now, but merge the Staff Administrators and Assistant Administrators and reduce their numbers to two or so. I'd be the one to ultimately approve all moderators, however I'd be acting based on the advice of the higher staff nominating that member.

I'd like to say the rules would be pretty relaxed, but with a forum the size of PC there's bound to be people with no common sense, so they'd have to be more formal. Personally I'd be pretty lax with rules and leave enforcing them up to the staff.

 

[Ho-Oh]

I once ran a small-ish forum. It sucked. But now? I'd definitely run it differently. Like back then I just had four or so people @ admin and it was basically like all of us did whatever and spammed anyway publically and it was basically just like "we're not PC but we sure like to discuss PC a lot" lol :x

Either way, what I WOULD do, is ensure that people are doing the work they're meant to, and the deserving people get the deserving positions. For example, even if there were like 6 people at the rank above moderator, I'd still let someone else go there if they were truly deserving, or if I felt someone else didn't deserve their position (if they're higher - because I assume I'd only really demote the ones that are really inactive). I'd just move them down and let them mod the forum of the choice. They can't ask for modship at first, but once they are a mod, then they can ask for another forum if they feel they deserve it, are active enough and help out enough there. Everyone at every rank would do what they're meant to do, basically - I'd probably be the main one in control to enforce this. There would be basically like three ranks, where it's like admins, aka co-admins, so maybe two others, then there would be something above moderators, similar to smods here, but powers would be a little different, as in everyone at any rank can make decisions for the forum and bring them up, and everyone at every rank can bring up who should be modded etc, and it would be voted on democratically. However, I'd get the final say if someone wasn't pulling their weight and didn't deserve their position. Yeah, I'd run it this way no matter the size, really.

As for rules... the things PC has I guess, though a lot would be down to what the moderator thinks, for example, there would be no four word rule, but rather a "do not spam" judged on what the moderator says. Oh, and fair. Not to disrespect people would be important, and I'd imagine everything else would be similar to PC, really. I'd just want everything on this forum to be as fair as it could really I guess.

 

[Impo]

If I ran a forum I'd make Topless Tuesdays

...not really, ew. I'd probably just be super friendly and stuff