Creation of Forum Rules

It's very possible. I know that, at the very least, if I do stick around I won't want to read through pages and pages of rules. It's intimidating, it can be boring, and for people who might be new to forums in general it might seem like an overly strict environment, something they might not want to get mixed up in.

In my view, rules should be there to guide members on what's best to do and not to do. When it starts turning into a thread where members use it as a checklist for every post to make sure they aren't doing anything wrong, it's gone a bit too far. Of course this can also be related to how your staff enforce the rules, but often times I know that if I join and have a novella to read before posting, odds are I won't stick around very long unless it's an utterly fantastic community.

It has been my experience that rules should be reasonable, but not too long. I will read the rules even if they are pages and pages long, and sometimes that is the first thing I will do on joining the forum, but I am put-off by rules that are too strict and abhor all creativity, especially if I feel that the enforcements of the rules is also this strict. And I am especially put off by the hiding of passwords or whatever in size one text in the rules. Also, I don't know if anyone else has noticed this..but some people use such rude language in their rules! As the first thing I'm going to see about your forum, I don't want to be practically scolded when I'm reading your forum rules. Even unintentionally a lot of the rules I read end up sounding extremely rude, and it really puts me off.

Also, I do not join forums without rules. That is too lax, I cannot live with a forum where no one feels it at all essential to have rules. I am also put off when the admin posts some very silly rules, I would generally stick to a few very important rules (like the fact that you can't be under 13) and leaving the rest to a TOS. Things that you should mention are things which you feel may be different, or which you feel your members will not know. Any sensible person knows that you can't troll on a forum. Trolls are hardly even going to read your rules, and they are not going to be deterred by "No trolling allowed." At least, I don't think so. However, putting rules like minimum word count, characters allowed etc. is a good thing since I'm not going to know that otherwise.

Another thing - readability. So many forums have rules that are in small text, span over pages and make my eyes hurt just seeing them. I would recommend breaking them down into two or three sub-headings or even posts. And one thing I do on my forums and which I believe works is to first explain the rule in one-line and put it in bold, then follow up with an explanation in normal text, for someone who just wants to skim through the rules for a quick reference. (For eg. No Flaming: Flaming is defined as posting in ALL CAPS. It is rude and offensive and is literally taken as an internet shout. It can also be defined as deliberately insulting, humiliating or being rude to someone. This is not allowed.) An in-depth explanation is fine for newbies who might not know about flaming, but for people who have been on a hundred forums with the same rules, they might benefit from a quick skim through of the important points, and with a more in-depth reading of things which they feel differ from other things.

All in all, rules are important. Often, they are the first stop for someone new coming into your forum. I would say, make them short, polite, important and interesting as well as readable, and I'm sure that should suffice. Try dividing them into parts. This is my opinion.

My advice is - Put a woman in charge. XD Every great forum that has done well that I've seen has had a female admin. They're just better at keeping everyone in line.

See? Point proven. XD - I'm done now. -shot-

i hate those too... especially when weird thread titles are used.

to point:

I keep a few threads for Rules: General Rules, Special Rules for RP, and Staff Rules.

One thing i hate about some members is, they don't read the rules, which a lot of times piss me off, because i stuff some good info that they need to know.