What are your favorite parts about running a forum?

[Tommy Huynh]

Some of the least favorites?

My least favorite is the marketing and getting the forum to reach critical mass. Critical mass is when the forum is self-sustaining and you can just sit back and watch your moderation team handle the day-to-day business while you focus on other things.

My favorite part is watching it progress to there! I love watching members creating content, new members joining. It's a good feeling. Went from 0 to 150+ members in a week.

Should be a few hundred within the next few days.

[Pebbles]

Aug 31, 2016 22:09:40 GMT -8 Tommy Huynh said:

Some of the least favorites?

My least favorite is the marketing and getting the forum to reach critical mass. Critical mass is when the forum is self-sustaining and you can just sit back and watch your moderation team handle the day-to-day business while you focus on other things.

My favorite part is watching it progress to there! I love watching members creating content, new members joining. It's a good feeling. Went from 0 to 150+ members in a week.

Should be a few hundred within the next few days.

what's your secret? 

[Tommy Huynh]

Target a niche and specific community.

[Chrissiest Chris]

I love watching new members come in. Since I only have 12 currently. Mainly just being able to talk about the subject of my forum with other people, which is why I created it. But yeah, advertising is the worst. I look like spam if I say "Hey, check out my forum!", and I'm not sure where to do it.

[Former Member]

Sept 1, 2016 11:49:11 GMT -8 Chrissiest Chris said:

I love watching new members come in. Since I only have 12 currently. Mainly just being able to talk about the subject of my forum with other people, which is why I created it. But yeah, advertising is the worst. I look like spam if I say "Hey, check out my forum!", and I'm not sure where to do it.

The part I bolded, that's what I love the most. The forum I'm working on I am creating because I am very fascinated and passionate about the topic. It is a niche kind of forum, but this niche is huge and continues to grow and evolve every year. 

[Dallas]

Basically the two things you've already said. 

My forum is still very small but posting activity has starting going up. I'm still working on the whole "advertising" part with my friend/forum co-owner P4risAndStuff.

Though being a forum owner with a good amount of staff usually means that you, as a forum owner, don't have to do all kinds of work moderating, I actually enjoy being one of the most active staff members running things. I basically oversee everything everyone does. 

[Tommy Huynh]

Sept 4, 2016 11:45:39 GMT -8 Dallas said:

Basically the two things you've already said. 

My forum is still very small but posting activity has starting going up. I'm still working on the whole "advertising" part with my friend/forum co-owner P4risAndStuff .

Though being a forum owner with a good amount of staff usually means that you, as a forum owner, don't have to do all kinds of work moderating, I actually enjoy being one of the most active staff members running things. I basically oversee everything everyone does. 

I enjoy not doing anything. I like being able to focus on back-end duties. I just set up an email server and such for the staff. 

We have two admin groups on my forum, Site Admin (with full powers) and forum admin (with only forum powers). The former focuses on development, creating the site, etc. While the latter focuses on administrating the forum itself. Of course, then you have your moderators.

It's been two weeks and there's over 500 members now. It's gotten way busy for me to personally handle things.  

[Dallas]

Sept 4, 2016 11:57:11 GMT -8 Tommy Huynh said:

Sept 4, 2016 11:45:39 GMT -8 Dallas said:

Basically the two things you've already said. 

My forum is still very small but posting activity has starting going up. I'm still working on the whole "advertising" part with my friend/forum co-owner P4risAndStuff .

Though being a forum owner with a good amount of staff usually means that you, as a forum owner, don't have to do all kinds of work moderating, I actually enjoy being one of the most active staff members running things. I basically oversee everything everyone does. 

I enjoy not doing anything. I like being able to focus on back-end duties. I just set up an email server and such for the staff. 

We have two admin groups on my forum, Site Admin (with full powers) and forum admin (with only forum powers). The former focuses on development, creating the site, etc. While the latter focuses on administrating the forum itself. Of course, then you have your moderators.

It's been two weeks and there's over 500 members now. It's gotten way busy for me to personally handle things.  

I personally don't touch much with development.

Most forums have two to three types of staff. I have four if you count the fact that the "owners" have their own group.

I'm not sure what niche your forum is targeted to, but it definitely sounds like it's prosperous! 500 is pretty good. Especially withinthe time you've achieved. 

My forum is a very "General" forum. I say "very" because it is pretty lengthy in topics/discussions. General forums definitely seem to work out well.

I mostly pay attention to things like how many new posts and threads are made daily.

I have members who are active and post as much as possible. Getting new members and some who'll actually stay is harder.

[Tommy Huynh]

Sept 4, 2016 12:14:37 GMT -8 Dallas said:

Sept 4, 2016 11:57:11 GMT -8 Tommy Huynh said:

I enjoy not doing anything. I like being able to focus on back-end duties. I just set up an email server and such for the staff. 

We have two admin groups on my forum, Site Admin (with full powers) and forum admin (with only forum powers). The former focuses on development, creating the site, etc. While the latter focuses on administrating the forum itself. Of course, then you have your moderators.

It's been two weeks and there's over 500 members now. It's gotten way busy for me to personally handle things.  

I personally don't touch much with development.

Most forums have two to three types of staff. I have four if you count the fact that the "owners" have their own group.

I'm not sure what niche your forum is targeted to, but it definitely sounds like it's prosperous! 500 is pretty good.

My forum is a very "General" forum. I say "very" because it is pretty lengthy in topics/discussions. General forums definitely seem to work out well.

I mostly pay attention to things like how many new posts and threads are made daily.

I have members who are active and post as much as possible. Getting new members and a few who'll stick around to stay is harder.

We're expecting at least 10k active members within the next few weeks if everything goes right. 

IMO, forums excel when it targets a specific community. That's what mine is. Unfortunately, I cannot link it since there's mature content and it's a private forum. 

Sometimes general forums are just that.. general. You have to have something that sets you apart though. 

[nariadreaming]

I think my favorite thing is seeing the good that we can do in the world.

By my calculations, my community has made over $5,000 in charitable donations to several organizations in the last year. And as we continue to grow, so do our opportunities to give back to more groups. Last year we helped two charities. This year so far we have helped 5, and we have two more fundraisers planned

[Alanna 🥀🖤]

Definitely watching it grow and become a community that is beneficial to a large number of individuals.

[Former Member]

The community aspect is the part I'm most excited about seeing develop. I can't wait to see the kinds of people the site will (hopefully) attract and the discussions we'll be able to have. I know it's not good to get your hopes up really high because these forums really are a hit-or-miss thing with activity, but I know with enough dedication, should be able to make something work and very well.

[P4risAndStuff]

I like building a fanbase of people that love to discuss a bunch of stuff on my very own site (well, I'm technically the co-owner of the forum that Dallas owns, but still). I also like improving the site each day to make it perfect. There's always new ideas that come into my head and fulfilling those responsibilities of mine is very satisfying.

[Tommy Huynh]

Sept 5, 2016 21:18:46 GMT -8 @khristian said:

Definitely watching it grow and become a community that is beneficial to a large number of individuals.

I think that's the most rewarding thing. I love watching the members engage with one another.  

[Kami]

I don't like disciplining people. Don't get me wrong: I do, and I do so effectively and efficiently. It's just a very unpleasant task because I think people should understand at the very least how to be decent human beings to their fellow members, and having to reprimand an individual for failing to meet that bare minimum standard is not my idea of a good time. It has to be done, but always wish that it wouldn't be necessary.

I can't decide between two things as my fave, so I'll say both:

1. I love designing the forum theme. Love it. Not just because it makes the forum look nice, but because I have an artist's ego and love to see the responses when members -- or sometimes guests that just pass by to leave a kind word -- see the effort I've put in.

2. I love the cooperation. I mostly do RP forums so people from all over the world, literally, coming together for love of a story and writing so many amazing characters and plots with so much depth. It's like reading novels for free, but with the ability to influence the author as they're writing it. It's phenomenal.