Forums, forums, forums...

[Dragon]

I've been a lot of forums lately, which some are different than others, and some had a lot more people. But still, let me ask you, what do you think a website that has a forum generally needs to have in order for it to be a 'good and successful forum', no matter what it represents? Think about staff, some user essentials that members of the forum might want, as well as other things you can think of!

 

[Alexander Nicholi]

I've seen forums where the staff is basically an in-crowd where everyone runs willy-nilly, going to lengths of extreme elitism and even international legalities. PC's obviously not that case :p

Still, as I've had a little experience running a small-scale forum, I'd say—with activity granted, of course—it's important to have staff that are sharp intellectually and are overall good souls (and show it), which, believe me, is a rarity nowadays :P. I also think it's important to have a solid structure for rules regarding the behavior of not only members, but the actions of staff as well. From what I see, forums lacking that have moderators that way overstep their boundaries—both managerially and even socially. Obviously, that's a problem.

Overall, if good people run things, they tend to hire more good people. If bad people run things… you get the idea. Sociality is the very core of any forum, is it not?

 

[stell]

well you need to kind of just ride the line between being busy and active and being way too busy and active. it's kind of strange for me to realise i've been administrating, moderating, and using message boards for about ten years. and how much embarrassing things i've said have been preserved and archived.

that said, a lot of forums end up being slightly dead, clustered by a friend group of a dozen to two dozen people. but if a forum is too big, it's way more difficult to engender a proper sense of community. it's scary when you're still essentially anonymous after months of posting and it's scary when every single topic has too many people giving one off opinions instead of a collaborative discussion.

looking pretty is a benefit to drawing people in, too, haha.

 

[starseed galaxy auticorn]

I think a forum needs to have a good supportive community. Like someone here said. I don't like forums that promote the bullying of others, especially if they mention they are disabled unless they are using that disability for sympathy or attention. I like forums that look fun and have a lot of anime and gaming support, since I'm a gamer and otaku.

I don't have that much expectations on forums as long as they try to be active and hold together.

 

[Tsutarja]

I'd say a forum needs to have a good-sized community of fans interested, good leadership (meaning admins and other lower staff with enough dedication to running the site), and constant activity to keep a forum good. I've seen forums die simply from the administrators simply not logging in or just not frequently posting.

 

[Hiatus]

I'd say a forum needs to have a good-sized community of fans interested, good leadership (meaning admins and other lower staff with enough dedication to running the site), and constant activity to keep a forum good. I've seen forums die simply from the administrators simply not logging in or just not frequently posting.

I don't think admins can do anything about that, unfortunately. If a forum's dying, it's going to die, anyway, regardless if they actively post or not. I feel that an admin's job is to mainly do behind-the-scenes work, such as looking after staff, helping the forum reach out to new groups of people, make sure that it's running nice and smoothly, and stuff like that. :p Anyway, yeah, I have to agree with everyone else here; for a forum to actually be successful, it definitely needs a good, dedicated member-base.

 

[Puddle]

A forum needs a good, active members base as well as staff members who aren't corrupt and are always fair. A forum is only as good as the people who run it.

 

[Kikaito plush]

A forum should have an fair number of member and staff that give people the same treatment.

 

[Raine]

Before joining PC, I've been a part of several forums in the past, which was probably almost 10 years ago. Lately, I've been lurking around certain ones as they didn't seem active enough or the members would just focus on post count and not create discussions. Comparing PC to other forums, I certainly feel the communal environment. Members are actively conversing between each other in the DCC, VM, threads, etc. It feels great to know that there are people actually reading your messages and replies to them instead of posting just for the sake of posting. So an active member base is definitely a priority, as previous posters have mentioned.

 

[donavannj]

At the very essence of a successful forum is a welcoming community atmosphere. Second to that is a wealth of quality discussion. Third is great interaction amongst the members. Fourth is a staff team that upholds the previous three standards. Another thing that helps is some great, quality content, but that's not totally necessary.

 

[AoTora]

Well I've been on a lot of forums ~ some better and some worse- I must say that PC is one of my favourite ones - mainly because each section is modified by a different mod and staff here is really nice~ I've been on forums where people tend to yell at you for having different opinion ~even admins - so they can basically gang on you and it can pretty much turn you away. On some forums admins and mods lose their nerves really fast and yell at you for asking a simple question or call you names which is even worse. I've also been on forums where people tend to bring their drama with them and spam it all over forum ~ those are forums I usually don't want to be on. When I look for a certain forum I want to join I usually see the design first ~ I'd join if the skin is nice and if forum is at least somewhat neatly organized - like this one for example- If it has all topics in one subforum only or if it has a ton of topics mixed up together that I probably won't join ~ Same goes for colors ~ if colors on it are too bright I probably won't join either. As for members - they should respect staff and thay shall receive respect back.