I'm sorry if this has been posted already but I was wondering what kind of time frame it has taken for you guys to build up your forums. Obviously everyone's format will be different, therefore growth periods will vary, but I was just curious for a general idividual time frame. We have a fairly small group composed primarily of old friends and our families but a few new people register on occasion. We have never marketed our forum but we are planning new ways to bring it to our customer's attention that we have an online community. How long have you had your forums and how often do new ppl register?

"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy." -- Benjamin Franklin

I'll be fascinated to see the answers on this one...you might also want to check out the Community Management forum for additional insights:

http://community.infopop.net/6/ubb.x?a=frm&s=729094322&f=6830935652

This support community at Infopop is more than five years old, and is the outgrowth of the old Scriptkeeper community plus Rick's wwwthreads community plus our original OpenTopic community! It's been my experience that a growing community is like a snowball running downhill---it takes a while to get steam going, but once it does, it can take off like a rocket.

Rosemary O'Neill
Co-Founder/President, Infopop Corporation

You may find this Community Management topic, The only true way to get members at your board who will keep coming back, to be of interest. It has a lot of great ideas on how to bring more people to your board, since growth sounds like something you may be aspiring for in the future.

Thanks for the replies. That thread was right on the money about a lively community and very helpful. I have been a member of several forums for a long time before I set one up on our site and they have all been very different. One board is up to about 10,000 and others are still anywhere from 300 to 5000. The sense of community is awesome but I notice some of the very large boards seem to get a little too political. We are getting ready for some serious product marketing and in our literature we are going to include info about our forum. I have noticed that several people have stumbled into our board after seeing the domain name in the shirt they bought. That's pretty cool because they already have something to talk about... the trick is obviously maintaining intelligent topics of conversation after that. I have been seeing alot of posts like "cool shirts" followed by 6 or 7 graemlins. I was just trying to get a basic idea of how long it has taken for you guys to get past the senseless posts for the sake of posting, and on to some intelligent conversation.

Thanks for the info. I hope some others join in this thread with some more insight.

"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy." -- Benjamin Franklin

Sounds like you picked the right time to start investigating these questions! You may find that you'd receive more replies in the Community Management forum. Let me know if you'd like me to move this topic there, I'd be glad to!

Thank you Natalia that would be great. I guess I was just thinking of this more along the lines of casual conversation but you are definately right. I am interested to see what people think.

"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy." -- Benjamin Franklin

...a grandparent with pics of his grandkids to share, here's my story.

Phog.net is a sports site, devoted to fans of the University of Kansas. We are two years old (last month), and we hope to add our 5,000th member later on in August.

Our community was built (or really at least started), the old fashioned way - we stole it. Seriously, I was a member of what was already a thriving KU fan community, but the operator of that site made the mistake one day of booting me from his site for the use of a word he apparently didn't like. (The word was "sucks", BTW. Give me a break.)

After being booted, I went from prolific poster (who used to scour the net, posting links to Jayhawk-related sports stories) to a competitor - and a motivated one at that.

I analyzed the weaknesses in the existing site (board script, erratic moderation and slow response to customer requests) and built my own board using UBB - running on a tired old Dell workstation.

Next, I began recruiting posters from the other board, at least the ones that I could locate via e-mail. Posts began to dribble in, and I kept up my efforts in posting links - trying to give others a reason to check my site as often as possible.

At the outset, we capitalized on the script weaknesses of the other board, allowing users to post graphics, use smilies and graemlins - as well as avatars. Our first posters had a blast with those (as they were new to them), and thus to some of the folks on the "old" board, they made fun of our site for looking like Cartoon Network. Remember, any press is good press.

Our board had begun to take hold, and then a key thing happened. The moderator of the old board kicked off his most vocal villains. These guys took positions contrary to most everyone on the old board, and generally kept the place hopping when times were slow. Naturally, they made it to my board and took up residence, and the battles began (and they have not ended to this day - two years later). Disagreement among posters is key to healthy dialogue (IMHO), but keeping the discourse civil can be a major pain in neck.

The next major step in our development was recruiting, but this time on the moderator and webmaster level. I lucked out and have managed to recruit absolutely-positively the most fantastic group of folks to help run (and grow) a site anywhere.

We've got our webmistress, KUAlum, that is not only a talented writer, she's artistic and very skilled at web design. She has done the logos for our site, and she maintains (and keeps stocked with info) our website. There's also another side to her that keeps all the guys coming back to the site to see what she'll say next, but enough on that.

Then, three guys popped up one day and insisted they be made part of the team. They insisted that they could provide recruiting information, humor and make the site grow. Of course, I thought, "yeah, right". They persisted. I gave in. They were right.

Over the last year or so, they have provided information to our users, made them laugh (These guys call themselves "The Monster"), and have now made deals for us with a magazine, have a Phog.net segment on a sports radio station each week, and just yesterday they signed our first real sponsor that should begin advertising on our site September 1!

I wish I could take credit for the rampant growth of our site, but I'm afraid I just got lucky. Whatever, we'll take it.

All I have to do now is sit around and try to make the infrastructure of the site solid enough to withstand the growth, and keep our users supplied with new toys - to help keep things interesting.

I've got a meeting and have to dash. Hope your forehead didn't hit the desk while reading.

Tom

Phog.net: Where the Jayhawks Hold Court!

Tom, thanks for taking the time to put that informative post together.

I run a forum which is 18 months old and now has 3,100 member. So I suppose it's on a similar level to yours. The main difference between your site and ours is that yours is apparently 'for the fans'(?), whereas ours, which was initially aimed 'for the fans' too, has since become 'for the industry participants'.

The problem with this is that it leads to all sorts of political issues. Every poster may have an agenda by which they seek to undermine the livlihood of another poster

We experimented with 'distributing' the moderation role but have now begun to centralise it (to just Admin) again. We did this because (a)we found ourselves disagreeing with the actions of our moderators (though we never openly stated that on the forums), and (b)we had too many complaints about the 'hidden agendas' of our moderators.

You say that, "disagreement among posters is key to healthy dialogue (IMHO), but keeping the discourse civil can be a major pain in neck." I agree with part 1 of that statement but would put part 2 in stronger terms - keeping the discourse civil can me nigh on impossible!!!

So my question to you is how the heck do you do it? How do you deal with the complicated web of internal rivalries and agendas. How do you deal with all the accusations of taking sides? And what process do you have for banning those members with whom you cannot reason? Just ban them right off? Give them a series of warnings? If so, do you give them those warnings 'in public' on the forums?

It's also very interesting that you have taken the position of encouraging (or at least accomodating) more heated discussion/language than your previous forum host. Does that not make it even more difficult to moderate? I find it extraordinary that your 'vocal villians' have been key to 'keeping the place hopping' when we found that giving free reign to our 'villians' seriously disrupted the flow of conversations from our 'civilised' members. So we've actually taken the opposite approach of banning 'vocal villians'!! I suppose it's all about the type of 'show' you wish to produce? And whether you want to be Springer or Oprah, or somewhere in between?

The story of these 'Monster' guys is amazing! And boy did you luck out there Do you mind me asking what kind of a financial deal you work with those guys (not looking for figures, just the overall concept. If it's confidential I'll understand ). I'd LOVE to get similarly motivated partners but how to do so with people you've never met or set eyes on before is a puzzle to me. Did you have to create a formal business arangement or just an informal agreement?

Your experience and willingness to share it is invaluable. Thanks Tom.

...great post, thanks for sharing. I'll try and give my perspective here.

quote:

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"So my question to you is how the heck do you do it? How do you deal with the complicated web of internal rivalries and agendas. How do you deal with all the accusations of taking sides? And what process do you have for banning those members with whom you cannot reason? Just ban them right off? Give them a series of warnings? If so, do you give them those warnings 'in public' on the forums?"

---

First of all, we have a fairly substantial set of User Guidelines for our boards. These guidelines were arrived upon after many bruises, and some interaction with the coaching staff at KU. There are two basic foundations to our guidelines:

1. Thou shalt not attack the players, coaching staff or recruits of the University of Kansas. You can technically criticize an aspect of their game, but if you have nothing more to offer than "he stinks", don't even bring it.
2. Do not personally attack other posters. It's OK to disagree with what they say, but if your response is demeaning, don't bring it either.

That's pretty much it. The villains are not allowed to break the rules (in fact our most ardent villain is now serving a one-month suspension), but they are free to disagree with anyone and everything. It can get complicated, and the villains are darned good at walking the line. (Plus, one of them is a very good D.C. attorney, and when you beat him in an argument, it's a trophy to hang on the wall. )

Sure, moderators will be inconsistent. I may not agree with the tact one of our mods takes on a particular issue, but to me it is no different than being in business and having managers as direct reports to you. Put someone you trust in place, then support them on the decisions they make. Take any significant decisions they make that are contrary to policy off-line. But in general, if you put good folks in place that have the best interest of the board in mind, the little bumps in the road are just that - little. It's the same way I try to manage at the office - I'm not a micro-manager. It seems to work for me, anyway. Overall, you'll be able to tell if what your doing is right - the stats won't lie.

Oh, one more thing. We have a "Board Room" where the site moderators (and admins) hang out. We air our dirty laundry in there, and we also bounce policy questions off of each other. It doesn't make the Admins sound like such tyrants, and the mods really, really, really have great ideas on future direction. I would encourage every site to have a private forum for their staff.

Regarding banishments - I used to have public executions, but after the 10,000th free-speech debate after banishing someone, I now do it in private. I let the board e-mail the suspended (or banned) individual with the explanatory text the admin fills in when he/she bans someone. If the individual banned wants to discuss it, we do it via e-mail and not on the board. It just works better for us.

One caveat: We have a "VIP Lounge" set aside for those that contribute $$$ to the site's operation. This forum is not "premium content", but it's where we give them technology previews, board stats, and in general discuss board policy and activity. I now keep the VIPs up to date on who has been suspended/banned. However, I don't do it on the public boards.

quote:

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"It's also very interesting that you have taken the position of encouraging (or at least accomodating) more heated discussion/language than your previous forum host. Does that not make it even more difficult to moderate? I find it extraordinary that your 'vocal villians' have been key to 'keeping the place hopping' when we found that giving free reign to our 'villians' seriously disrupted the flow of conversations from our 'civilised' members. So we've actually taken the opposite approach of banning 'vocal villians'!! I suppose it's all about the type of 'show' you wish to produce? And whether you want to be Springer or Oprah, or somewhere in between?"

---

Yes, it makes it much more difficult to moderate, partly because a forum in which differing opinions are encouraged will get more traffic than one in which those with differing opinions are ushered out. It seems to me that our goal is to encourage discussion, as long as those that disagree are not run off in the process. Moderation is really an art, and good mods are indeed hard to find.

quote:

---

"The story of these 'Monster' guys is amazing! And boy did you luck out there Do you mind me asking what kind of a financial deal you work with those guys (not looking for figures, just the overall concept. If it's confidential I'll understand ). I'd LOVE to get similarly motivated partners but how to do so with people you've never met or set eyes on before is a puzzle to me. Did you have to create a formal business arangement or just an informal agreement?

---

Yes, I indeed lucked out. The Monster is comprised of a professional fundraiser, an attorney and a true basketball junkie. However, regarding compensating them, I promise the minute this site actually turns a profit, I'll be happy to! Right now, they wouldn't touch the financial statement of Phog.net with a ten foot pole.

If we could just keep Ted to keep from buying those new Mercedes every year, he'd just give this product away and we could all make some money.

Tom

Phog.net: Where the Jayhawks Hold Court!

I don't think I could have found a more informative post about growth anywhere on the net. It is very interesting to see how you maintain and moderate your boards. I have noticed a few other forums that offer a "VIP" section with a minimal cost to help offset bandwidth expenses. We have a long way to go before bandwidth becomes a concern but the more info before that happens the better. Thank you for taking the time to put that post together. I look forward to being in the same boat someday.

"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy." -- Benjamin Franklin

<flattery>
I agree - that posting by Tom contains more wisdom and experiences bottled into a few paragraphs than you'd possibly find in a book on the topic!

I'm still digesting it all but I've got a favour to ask Tom; would you mind if I duplicated your TOS/Rules onto our site? It's of the best, most concise and humorous examples I've ever seen.
</flattery>