11 My recent experience

I’ve just started a new website with a forum, and I one of the philosofies I’ve followed is put on “Building Communities with Software” [http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/BuildingCommunitieswithSo.html], from Joel Spolsky.

There are a lot of good tips for people starting a community oriented website. Low entry-barrier, easiness of posting, entice users to come back. There’re a couple misdirected jabs at Slashdot that I disagree, specially the quality of replies (at least when you factor in the moderation points, browse at +3 and /. is a knowledge pool).

John, if you let me, I would like to add another tip: Some websites don’t generate enough traffic to kick-start a forum growth, the first 50 posts in a small period of time. My advice for webmasters in this position is to form alliances with other webmasters on your niche, and have a single, shared forum.

It’s easier to bring traffic, and everyone has a greater chance of succeding. Plus, there will be a healthy (I hope) competition between the webmasters to see who posts the news first and who gives the best / fastest answer.

posted at 04:00 pm on October 25, 2006 by Julio Nobrega

12 From forums to wikis?

Thanks for the advice, very helpful indeed. I’m in a similar position to the imagined person in the article.

However, for the kind of content I’m looking to foster (shared experiences and best practice), I’ve been looking more towards starting a wiki than a forum. Does anyone have any extra advice or tips that they can share?

posted at 12:09 pm on October 26, 2006 by James Brown

13 Anonymity and Trolls

I’ve run a magazine for science fiction writers (Speculations, at speculations.com) since 1995; its online forum just celebrated its tenth anniversary. We’ve survived spammers, flamers, bots, and trolls with anonymous posting intact; most recently I instituted a Plonk option, so registered users may ignore posts from certain accounts if they like.

Things I’ve learned from doing Speculations:

1) The ability to just wade right in and post anonymously is very important. Requiring registration is a huge barrier to entry.

2) Authors who care enough to sign in should get something extra. Ours receive the ability to submit positive and negative feedback, which will quickly hide off-topic messages, and a sort of X-ray vision, so they can see origin IP addresses and detect whether they’re reading posts from sock-puppet accounts created by the same person or agency.

3) The presence of trolls is a good sign. It means that the community is generating more than enough energy; somebody thinks that the attention of these people is worth trying for.

One mistake I made was attaching emotionally-significant identifiers (like “nutburger” or “flame”) to certain negative feedback options, which tended to encourage trolling. I am presently thinking about abstracting out the verbiage into a separate layer of tags that has no significance towards moderation, and condensing all feedback options into a simple +1 / -1.

posted at 08:02 pm on October 27, 2006 by Kent Brewster

14 Advices about wikis

James, I’m sure that you’ll find MeatBall and CommunityWiki great sources of knowledge about wikis. If you’re looking for something more condensed, then try WikiOhana.

posted at 09:37 am on October 28, 2006 by Radomir Dopieralski

15 Forum versus a Social Networking/Bookmarking Site

This is a great article for starting a forum and I’m sure many of the strategies translate over to starting a social networking or social bookmarking site as well. I’d love to see an article that specifically addresses this point though.

posted at 06:48 am on October 29, 2006 by Ryan Knowles

17 All starts with something visitors need.

I agree that if someone visits an empty forum they will automatically leave. But I beleive that in order to get visitors to come and stay you need some kind of information that they want or need. Once they find information they really want that will help a great deal. Of course then the rest is up to you in order to keep the information fresh, interesting, and up to date.

posted at 02:12 am on October 30, 2006 by andy t

18 Untitled

Thanks Radomir, I’ll take a look.

posted at 01:42 pm on October 30, 2006 by James Brown

19 Define Forum?

I think this article would have been well-served to define, exactly, what the term “forum” actually means in this context. It is actually a really broad term that, in my experience, confuses a lot of people.

A “forum” can encompass everything from a usenet group, a blog that allows comments, or (what I assume you mean by forum in this article) the “traditional” phpBB-style, hierarchical, topic-based site. Mailing lists can also be considered forums. Any time you are using software that facilitates a discussion, that’s a forum (on the web).

By using the generic term “forum”, and not distinguishing between the types of forums, I think this article is likely to contribute to the confusion that exists out there, and end up cost us web developers even more time explaining the concept to the not-so-technically-inclined.

I think an essential question to add to the list of “are you ready?” questions is: What kind of forum do I want? In many cases, the answer to this question will determine whether or not your “forum” is successful or not. Not all sites need a full-blown phpBB topical forum. In my humble opinion, I believe that a good portion of the existing forums of this type are completely useless at building a community (and can actually hinder the process in some cases); whereas, for example, a blog would be much better suited for the type of discussion desired.

Anyhow, as always, a good read from the A List Apart crowd :) Thanks very much.

posted at 01:11 am on November 3, 2006 by Allan Haggett

20 Untitled

Hi, i am i new joinee please tell me how can I create a better blog.

posted at 08:28 am on November 3, 2006 by VINOD PANDEY