The "Do Nots" Of Your ProBoard

[kelendria]

It wasn't meant personally & yes it is annoying, I have the same rule of 'no post advertising'.
I got tired of being spammed then people not coming back to take part in the actual forum. One thing I hate is being used
I agree about being compared to competing boards, mine was created because I got sick of the atmosphere on another board.
I had the comparisons too, but the ruder you are on some boards, it seems the more respect you get.
I found that out personally

[HoudiniDerek]

I just feel that not allowing advertising in the signature and profile should be a DO NOT for the admin of any forum. While you want solid members who are active in the forum, you don't want to alienate people from joining based on stringent policies. I know that I am a member of several forums and most are good at realizing that members have other passions aside from this one forum. I think all admins need to be aware of that. Besides, most active members will not go to a new site based off the signature of someone who does NOT post or actively contribute.

[Freckles]

Jan 29, 2008 13:34:53 GMT -8 HoudiniDerek said:

Besides, most active members will not go to a new site based off the signature of someone who does NOT post or actively contribute.

I have to agree with that. If a person posts every two months or something with a link or banner in their sig, they'll probably think they are inactive on their forum, and it's going to become dead very quick, if not already. That may not always be the case, but has a good chance of drawing away guests.

And everyone does have the right to advertise in their sig. There might be a couple exeptions, that limit down to one person, like if their banner stretches the page or has bad words on a no cursing forum, though. (Which is why you should read the rules ) Sure, you don't go posting threads saying "Go to My forum called blahblahblah!) And PMing a bunch of people to go to your forum isn't exactly a swell idea either.

[dynam1te]

-Dont keep giving out staff positions.
-Dont allow excessive rule breaking, ban the member(s)
-Dont give out inappropriate powers to staff, so dont give a moderator the same power as a administrator
-Dont show favouritism

[Enchant]

Feb 3, 2008 9:50:17 GMT -8 @dynam1te said:

-Dont keep giving out staff positions.
-Dont allow excessive rule breaking, ban the member(s)
-Dont give out inappropriate powers to staff, so dont give a moderator the same power as a administrator
-Dont show favouritism

Why? What kind of experiences have you had? Welcome to the discussion, however please make sure in the future that you you back up your comments with personal experiences and /or reasons. This board is for discussions not for comments alone...

[mrcleveland]

I created a proboard page and can you have two at once?

Because I would like to make one for Disney Comics around the world.

[mirium]

I'd add "Do Not Take Yourself Seriously." Go ahead and take your board seriously; just check your ego at the door and put on a sense of humor instead. Deadpan humor is particularly useful, because people get so busy trying to figure out if you really mean what you said that they forget to argue with each other.

For example, I get very annoyed with posters who can't be bothered with spelling, grammar, punctuation and accurate typing. Of course, the posters who do that are often hoping to be provocative and will argue about it as long as anyone else will take the other side. I usually let them go at each other for a couple of posts each, then comment that Typoman's posts don't bother me. You see (I explain), I figure that Typoman knows how much effort his thoughts deserve, and he's obviously decided "not much." So I'll accept his verdict and not spend any more time reading it than he did typing it.

Usually stops the argument cold, and often improves Typoman's language skills. At worst, everyone else on the forum has tacit permission to not bother reading his unintelligible posts.

[:~:Sarapha:~:]

Those are really good tipd on what not to do.. However, there is one of those that I strongly disagree with, and practice on my site.

The 'do not advertize in the siggy' one. At oe point in my site history, I did allow it, and I got massive chaos from it. Signatures were only composed of links, and giant banners. Then there were about half the site who had the same link. My members went from somewhere in the two hundreds down to about 50 because they all left my site for that one, simply because they saw that a lot of people from my site were members there.

Then there were the people that registered, and put up their ads, but they never posted anywhere but the OOC place.

I abolished the advertisement in signatures about 6 months ago, and the site's back to running fine. No, I'm not a neo-Nazi when it comes to a member accidently forgetting that there is a rule on that, I kindly pm them reminding them of the rule, and asking them to take it down.

Edit: I DO, however, have a board for advertisements (so you can post the entire ad), and not only is there allowance of bumping, but I encourage members to post advertisements there.

[{ f a t e. GOTMEHERE;]

TRUE DAT, MEH FRIEND.
You said it all. <3333

[matrix934]

Favoritism
Members are all equal. You could end up liking the newer member more than the member you already have. You never know, you just have to give everyone a chance.

Public Fights
Members come to forums so that they can relax, chat, and discuss there ideas. What's the point if all they're going to do is flame each other.

Rule Crazy
I've been on a forum that has sooooooooooo many rule going on for pages and pages about every little thing that I just said "Forget it, I'm going somewhere else,"

The Warning Meter
I don't have to use the warning meter very often. Some thing should give more warning than others.

Rude to Members
Okay, that's just pretty obvious. Telling a member that their suggestion sucks and that they're idiots isn't exactly going to attract more members.

[miltonsmomelise]

Where is the "Warning Meter"? i have a situation on my board where one member is constantly rude and nasty to other members and i would like to give that person warning. how do i do that?

[Kingrazor]

One thing that'll have me clicking that x button before I even consider joining is a lack of a description. If the only thing I have to go on is the title of the page, I'm not gonna join. I've seen some interesting forums that looked nicely done, but I had no idea what they were about because there was no description anywhere to be found!

[tasia the free spirit !]

These are things I've seen, and I've been a roleplayer longer than I've been an admin, and one thing is shutting out someone's plot ideas in roleplay situations just because that's not how you want it to go. These are the list of things that people have banned me for, some of them I agree with, some of them I absloutely disagree with:

• copying ideas: I totally agreed with this, and I completly regret this discion. The admin asked me to change my board, and I refused to do so due to pride, and it was a lack of error on my part. However, the fact that I took the entire thing down because I didn't want to rework it annoyed me when they refused to let me back.
  
• giving good plot ideas that the admin disagreed with: I was trying to make this a great board that people wanted, and the admins didn't bother to fight me over PM. They fought with me in the Cbox, a place they said not to fight in. This drove members away, and the board eventually vanished three days after I was banned.
  
• fighting with the admins over something stupid: okay, this was instigated by me, but I still refuse to believe that banning me over it was nescessory. I mean it. They banned me before I even joined. I'm sure I wouldn't of mind it there, there was just a miff I had to ask about, but they fought with me instead of telling me the point. They wouldn't even let me talk.
  

Those things ended up costing them in the end. Who was the one who really lost out? Definatly not me. I can find other places where people care about me.

I also find it annoying when people accept someone, seeing the fact they're making a canon dramatic and not how they want them to go. They should've told me to fix it in the first place, I even mentioned where the character was going. But they didn't want it in the end. That's a major "Do Not" because you're giving the person free control of the character after you accept. It doesn't matter what you want the plot to be. It's up to the character's owner how they want their character to turn out.

[charangel]

I agree with the rules in the first post....and on my forums I have added must be g rated and copyright safe....hugs CharAngel

[sinasin]

A questions. I believe that something might have offended someone on my forum forbidnlust18.proboards80.com/index.cgi
it is gone. What do I have to do to get A copy of the archive. or what ever so I can have it reformatted, its for a Server online, and contains a lot of needed information in it.

Thank you please answer thru Private Message. Thank you Sin