Requests, Thoughts, Ideas, etc.

So I'm on the verge of pushing this project to the top of my priority list and moving forward full-force.

Before I do so I'd like to ask if those of you who frequent the site have any requests, ideas, etc. Anything you find that doesn't work or that you think can be improved upon is extremely welcome.

I'm also on the lookout for anybody who'd be interested in assisting with this project in terms of promoting off-site, producing content, keeping the site fairly active. Please PM me if you are in any way interested. (This will be a permanent position - not just something for while we get back on our feet)

 

How about some services where we can promote our forums more instead of just showing them off... like a post exchange or something? Then that way it'll help us gain an active member or two on our own forum?

 

Thank you for the input, Ashley!

I've just added the forum, "AdminAddict Connect".

 

Thanks, Nick!

 

What exactly is "this project?" I assume this forum, but what are your goals for this forum?

ex. -
content
users (how many, who are they, why do they come)
forum size - lots of users & content, smaller focused content & user #, lots of content but small group of users and vice versa

What do you envision will be different about the world because this forum exists?

That would give people an idea of where you see this going. And if they want to be further involved.

If this information is already posted somewhere on your site you could just link it.

 

"This project" = this site - AdminAddict.

Our About page has a bit of the information you seem to be seeking. However, I guess I could elaborate on that page? What do you think?

 

Now why don't more people read the About of every forum? :lol I guess I never go to the home page.

Two suggestions to broaden the usefulness of your forum ...

- Add a technical section where members can help each other with things like coding html, specific questions about using forum and content management software, and the like. I just posted such a question in what I hope was the right forum. Hope that question is ok.

- Consider expanding the target audience beyond the highest level of forum management, down to specific roles such as moderators. With a section dedicated to those roles so they know specifically where to go for their interest. Re the discussion on keeping mods, I'm thinking of moderators who manage members and move threads and such, and don't manage technical aspects of the forum. Mods could use a place to go to share with mods from other forums, without wading through things like 'how to use adsense.' There might be a fair number of boots-on-the-ground moderators not involved in administration who'd be interested.

If you do that I'd suggest opt-in membership groups that show 'unread posts' only from subscribed forums, not all forums. Actually that would be nice to have right now.

Just some thoughts ... I think your forum has a great start.

 

Members can ask techinical questions related to specific forum solutions (i.e. vBulletin, IPB, MyBB, etc.) in the Forum Software forum - like you did. We used to have a sub-forum for each script, but have combined it into a single forum until the growth of the community dictates expansion.

I really like your idea of catering to moderators and other lower-level management positions. This would be truly unique and is something that other community-admin forums do not offer. I don't see any that even have a section just for this.

As for limiting the "Unread Posts" feature to certain forums, I am searching for a modification which will allow you to exclude forums (of your choice) from New Posts, Todays Posts and from general view on the homepage.
If you don't want to completely ignore certain forums, then the only alternative I can recommend is subscribing to the forums you do want to keep up with and viewing updates via your UserCP.

Thanks for the recommendations.

 

I recently shared some moderating ideas from this forum and vB with some of my own moderators, re a discussion on handling our own problem children. Their first reaction was 'thank goodness we aren't the only ones.' Human behavior seems to crop up just everywhere.

I think you could go even further with the concept of the human part of forums. It seems forum-forums and forum-oriented sites, including ezine, focus on everything but how members actually interact on the forum. Perhaps because people who run forums tend to be more technically oriented.

I see a huge gap in cross-forum discussion and information on what to expect of members, and how to encourage interesting exchanges. Those are threads that can go on for a long time, and have members returning to see the next posts. And avoiding threads that are simply a string of statements where no one is paying much attention to others ... those quickly peter out. (They are also troll-magnets - trolls see no one is really supporting anyone else.) On my forum we are discussing how to set an interactive tone.

Just imo, and I'm not widely experienced, but my eyes cross seeing one article after another on attracting people to ping the forum, and almost none on what keeps them there. Any business will tell you it's far easier and less costly to keep steady customers than have to refresh the customer base over and over. People who ping the first time are not going to hang around a forum based on the wishful thinking of the forum owner, and not even just on the content (which they can read in a couple of hours max,) but on how they interact with each other. That's what I see. Your forum is nicely positioned to offer a place to grow an information base on that part of forum-keeping.

imo

 

Mary, I think I'm going to take your advice and add expand the Planning and Creating Interest forum to also specifically include member interactivity discussions. How does that sound?

Also and update on forum exclusion: You can now select what forums you'd like to exclude from view, searching and New Posts by navigating to your UserCP -> Edit Options and then scroll down to "Forums To Exclude From View" to make your selections.