Nothing really new really but thought I would share: 10 Mistakes that Will KILL a Forum : SEOrefugee Blog

It sure doesn't apply to all sites. If you provide a place that has good content unique content then you can get away with breaking a few of those rules

Pretty good read

Fights...oh boy do I always see fights on my forum (politics)

If only everyone could get along..haha

Some forums things like that are great though. Especially things that people feel strongly about and will sign up to defend their thoughts

Thanks for posting. I'm new to creating forums and will keep that bit about mods/admin powers in check, in mind when selecting staff members.

Good and practical advice, thanks for sharing the link

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Some good advice there. I know that I wouldn't really like to start a teens forum that discusses things like games, music, videos, etc as that's likely to bring a lot of youngsters and they seem to swear a lot and do so much wrong when it comes to using a forum.

Well that's probably not true for every forum, but that is what I have seen on many of them.

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nicely written article. Very well said.

Don't think all fights are bad some of the best fights(heated politics, religion) really gets members coming. Its something about fighting that people want to read, jump in lol. Its worked on my board. (And no it was a bit more than a debate )

And the clique part, i think it depends on your forum. Some forums are better with "an inviation only entry". I have seen that when you have real value to offer, an invitation only forum gets people to really try hard to get into(even though a similar free forum might exist :P) Everyone wants to see the unknown. Won't work everywhere but it does.


Good points otherwise. I would also add "Not keeping a watch on your competition" to that list. If you are successful, people will copy you and if they offer more than you do, your members might well leave.

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Thats a great read, glad i found it. Right off the bat in one of my forums I had two members name calling each other and being combative in a thread. I inmediatly moved the comments into forum called Off Topic Moderation, that only members see and not guests and explained their fighting was off topic. This diffused the situation immediatly.