what makes a good forum?

Started by Ascaris August 14th, 2011 6:21 AM
  • 822 views
  • 17 replies
Age 28
In the Medium
Seen August 11th, 2016
Posted August 15th, 2011
381 posts
14.9 Years
the question is a simple one. im sure that a lot of you visit internet forums other than pc so what do you consider a good forum? a forum which has strict standards of posting and brutal moderation or one that is very lax with rules? a forum with an overflowing staff team or the bare minimum of moderators? a bustling forum with a large memberbase and tremendous activity or a smaller, cozier atmosphere with a few regulars who know each other very well?
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Overlord Drakow

Banned

Down Under
Seen November 6th, 2019
Posted November 5th, 2019
3,654 posts
15.6 Years

I think the main thing that is needed is a good community. You can have an amazing forum, amazing staff and so on, but if the community isn't engaging and just boring, then it makes it ... boring.

The converse is also true Captain. Having a fantastic community but a forum which has little to offer, is equally pathetic.

I have been on both large forums and smaller ones and both have their perks. I don't think forum size is such an issue. I am in agreement with Miles in regards to moderators.

I think a forum which specializes in something but also offers diversity for people who do not necessarily have a significant interest in the aforementioned specialty, will have good success, as long as the memberbase isn't full of trolls such as myself >=D

Captain Hobo.

Posting King

Male
Seen September 4th, 2011
Posted September 3rd, 2011
3,871 posts
14 Years
Lax moderation and a medium size nice happy member. I like things you can joke about with other members. I hate forums were everyone is so serious.
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Xyrin

WOW REMEMBER THIS??

Age 24
Male
purdue
Seen September 17th, 2022
Posted October 17th, 2013
1,065 posts
15 Years
Well what makes a good forum is pretty much a good community, a good administrator who knows what he's doing, a good skin, a good staff team should be small if community is small and so on, and small forums should stay away from preparing to be big before they're even medium. A lot of new forums do that, people just think. ":D I'm gonna make a forum! Let's get 25 members of staff and then we can sit and wait for members! :DDD" and the staff team is way too large. When I first start out 3 admins is the max for me. You need to have that amount at first, or smaller.

Then once things start to get out of hand you hire an S-Mod or possibly another admin. Don't hire mods until your H-Staff have problems keeping everything together. Then you pretty much start hiring mods for the big forums.

Some people also make tons of forums without first getting members. I've seen forums that are completely empty with as many forums as PC. You should start small and grow.

Furret


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Her

Age 29
Seen 5 Hours Ago
Posted 4 Days Ago
Like what everyone else said here, there needs to be a decent community in order for me to like it. I don't mind strict rules, just as long as they're not Serebii-like and suck the fun out of the forum. But the community is the most important part of the forum. Without good community, what is the point of posting?

Alex

what will it be next?

Seen December 30th, 2022
Posted December 26th, 2022
6,407 posts
16.4 Years
I would say an ideal forum would be one with lax moderation. Of course ban/infract members who are just dicking around and purposely insulting members, but if a message seems offtopic, don't be so quick to delete it. Posting in a forum should be like real life conversation, only organized. Instead of having topics come to you, you can in fact choose what topics to discuss. And just like any real life conversation, some posts may be considered offtopic because they stretch out onto a tangent. That should be fine.

The staff needs to be serious about its job. A lot of places that require positions of power without any actual compensation for responsibility results in carelessness and a corrupted (to put it extremely) staff that goes against its own rules behind the backs of regular members and ultimately try to improve the forum for what best suits their personal interests before the ones of its members. The staff needs to be built of people dedicated and passionate about the forum's main topic (in this case Pokemon and Pokemon-related events) and keep the forum interesting. The beauty of forums especially is that it's the community that provides its own entertainment: the staff can sit back and let the members interact via various topics within various subjects. A good example of proactivity by the staff would be the PokeCommunity's annual Get-Together event.

I think a good forum is one with a large memberbase. More members means more topics, more posts, more thoughts, more insights. More members means the demand for more to be done or to be included. Our Culture & Media forum, for example, is fairly new to the forum when you consider how long PC's actually been running. Only with a large community will things progress and improve. A small, tight-knit community may want more to be done, but not as much or as in high demand as a large group of people. And it's within these large communities that smaller groups form through similar interests.

This should be PotW.

Dent

taste the café m o c h a ♥

Male
With Satoshi
Seen October 21st, 2015
Posted August 25th, 2011
30 posts
12.4 Years
What appeals to me is a large, nice-looking forum with an easy-to-navigate layout. The forum should have enough competent and fair active staff members to ensure things run smoothly and that the rule- which are for the most part very common-sense-like- are enforced. The members as a whole should be diverse and fairly nice.

Er so basically what I'm saying is PC has spoiled me and I expect every forum to be up to its standard. Which generally results in mild disappointment when that standard is not met.

King Gumball

Haven't been here for ages...

Male
Sydney
Seen April 8th, 2013
Posted April 8th, 2013
2,178 posts
12.8 Years
Well I think that a good community of people make a good forum, usually influenced by moderators that actually care about it's member, keep strict guidelines but are rather lax and easy going. I think the reason why this forum is so good is because of it's approachable staff team, lots of members and it's organized board. Not like Serebii which imo is in shambles and I don't think I will be going there ever again.
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