Which unique user groups have you created for your own forum? Please talk about the user group/names that reflect the distinctive personality of your forum or the forums you visit.
Once I tried to login to my forum and could not as my login did not work. I tried to recover via email and it didn't recognize my email address. A few days later, I was able to login. I don't know why my login was not ...
Does your forum software allow for image hotlinking from other websites? Or, do you require your forum members to upload photos?
Do you use the same forum avatar on your own forum as you do when you are backlinking or posting on other forums? Do you find it to be useful to do so?
Is it relevant that a forum is updated daily with new content? Or, like a blog, can it be updated a few times a week and still rank well in Google?
How long do you require a person to wait between forum posts? And, does a waiting period help deter spammers?
Do you think it's OK to have the same admin on your forum for many years? Or, do you try to change up your staff and retire admins and mods occasionally so you can bring in new staff members?
What inspired you to start your forum? And, what motivated you to move from idea stage to actual forum creation and community building?
I don't let new members have forum signatures on the forums that I manage as that only encourages link spammers to sign up. However, if someone sticks around for awhile and contributes in a meaningful way to the forum, ...
I am an administrator of my own forum yet I can't post in my announcement section. I see this error: You have insufficient privileges to post here. I made all of the forums a long time ago but I verified that administra...
At what point would you lock a thread? For instance, do you lock a thread after a certain number of responses or leave it open infinitely?
How can you go about changing your forum name? Do you change the domain name or keep it the same?
Is it necessary to have a general chat or off topic subforum on every forum? Most forums that I've posted on have an off topic section and this lets the members have a place to relax and talk about other things. What a...
How many subforums are needed for a forum? For instance, how many would you have on a general chat forum? What about an SEO forum? What names do you give to your subforums?
If a problem member asks for a second chance on your forum and promises to behave, should you give them a second chance? Or, are you asking for trouble?
For instance, have you ever been away from your forum on sick leave or vacation for an extended time? And, if so, who did you leave in charge of your forum to ensure that it kept running?
The idea of building a forum is to have a place for like minded people to meet and talk. And, hopefully the community that you've built would stay together after you sell your forum. But what happens if many long time ...
For instance, would you consider a one word post to be a spam? Or, do you only see blatant advertising as spam?
What's the best way to announce change of ownership with a forum? Also, how do you prepare forum members for the new management (which might include different admins/mods too or other changes on site)?
For instance, let's say you want to install a blog on your home page (of your forum). How do you go about such a big change? For instance, do you shut your forum down for a day or try to get the work done at night? Als...
Do you spend at least an hour on your forum daily, either on the threads reading/responding or behind the scenes tweaking the software, etc? Or, do you take a more laid back hands off approach to forum management?
What type of incentives or prizes do you offer admins or mods to reward them for good work done on your forum?
Does your forum host have daily down time, meaning your forum server is not up and can't be accessed by forum members/guests? If so, does this affect the number of posts you have on forum daily or do forum members just ...
Does your staff (admins/mods) ever argue on forum or behind the scenes? What are some of the reasons for staff disagreements or strife? How do you deal with those situations? For instance, do you always favor your admi...
Do you have any free/paid resources that help you do a better job of forum administration? Which blogs/sites do you refer to when you have a problem?
Did you consult with friends and family or other forum owners before opening your current forum? Did you take their advice?
What would you do differently? Would you make the same decisions? Do you think a fresh start would lead to a better result? Or, are you happy with the current state of your forum?
Are there any warning signs that a forum might be sliding in popularity or have an underlying problem such as spammers or trolls?
What's the most number of users you have ever had on with your current/past forum? (Not referring to unregistered guests). How many average users are on the forum posting/responding or just browsing threads at any one ...
What features do you think are missing from your current forum software? If you could design your own perfect forum software, what features/benefits would be included?
Do you have a specific date or time at which you think you will sell your forum? For instance, maybe you plan to open a forum and then after a year sell it for profit. Please discuss when/why you would shut down or sel...
And, if so, what was the cause and resolution? Was the legal action started by a forum member or related to the technical admin side of forum management (such as forum license, etc)?
What type of contests will stimulate the most amount of new discussions. What contests have you used and prizes offered?
I think my forum was DDOS at some point in the past as it was impossible to access and the site was down. It hasn't happened recently though. Has your forum ever suffered a DDOS attack?
Back in the old days when I first got online, many forums were threaded and you had to sort through threads to get to the latest response. Now they are linear, scrolling down the page. If you want to respond to someone...
For instance, does your forum display differently in Chrome vs Firefox or Internet Explorer? How do you compensate to handle these differences? Or, are you concerned at all about it?
When you look at the number of guests online at a forum, how do you know which ones are reading the threads and which are just bots coming in from search engines?
Once I was part of a really nice myBB based niche forum. And, the forum owner changed to SMF and then Xenforo. I loved the original forum so much, it was difficult to adjust to the change. Almost wish I'd found her fo...
I might like to upgrade my forum from SMF to a paid forum software or move to another host. How can I move my forum databases and save all the discussions that are on my current forum so they will appear on the new foru...
My first starter forum was one of those free forums, most likely phpBB. Not a bad software, though they didn't give full admin access. Since then, I've used myBB and Xenforo and currently SMF.
