Over the past couple of years I have been involved with running many forums, from small forums to gigantic forums housing thousands of users. These were never business opportunities, only activities for fun because I enjoyed the communities I worked with. Still, over my time working with forums I was able to learn a lot about them, from the code and templating systems behind popular forum scripts like phpBB and vBulletin, to the art of policing a large group of online users. In fact, my passion for running websites came solely from forums and moderating them.

Surprisingly, with the correct parts in play, and the main ingredient, traffic, any forum can become a success with minimal fuss. Here are a few rules I’ve learned over my time developing and running forums.

Create a solid set of Forum Rules

This is probably the most important part of starting up your own forum. When you provide users a way of communicating all manners of hell can break loose. To start off with, here’s a few basics that I would recommend:

Test Forum Rules

1. There will be no flaming or insults on the forum. All instances of abuse will be defined by the moderators of the forum.
2. Please do not post anything illegal on the forum. If you’re unsure whether something is illegal or not be sure to send a Private Message to a Moderator before you post it.
3. Please do not create multiple accounts. One account is more than enough for everyone.
4. No advertising in threads! If you wish to advertise your URL please put it in your signature.
5. No posting to adult content. Children may be able to view this forum and it is not in their best interest to post anything bad. Anything on topic that may not be suitable must contain a NSFW (Not Safe For Work) notice in large letters.
6. Keep all posts on topic.
7. Do not post in threads that haven’t been posted in for 30 days. If you wish to create a new thread when an older topic is there feel free to do so.
8. Before you make a new thread please check the forum to make sure no one else has already created it

Document all violations of the rules

Whilst time-consuming, this is the best way of policing a forum. Once you’ve written a clear and concise rules list all users and posts that break these rules must be placed in a staff-only area of the forum. A good format for this would be:

User [USERNAME] broke rule [RULENUMBER] in post [LINKTOPOST] on [DATE]

“Content of post that has broken the rules”

Action Taken: [WARNING/BAN/ETC]

It’s very easy for problems to fall between the cracks while you’re busy running your website and forum, so documenting every problem that comes up is a great idea. At least this way if a user is to repeatedly offend on your forum you know their history of behaviour and can use it to pass judgement.

Get Staff Members (Moderators)

The second you feel that your website is starting to get the best of you is the time you need to think about hiring moderators. Typically it’ll take a few hundred members before the work becomes too much for most administrators, so by that time you can think of doing one of two things.

1. Hire an outside staff member to moderate the forum
2. Hire an existing community member

I’ve always stuck to existing community members that I know I can trust. At the end of the day all they can do is follow the rules you’ve set down, and if they don’t they’re out on their ass and banned from the forums completely. This leads me onto my next point.

Staff Rules

It may seem excessive to give staff members/moderators their own rules to live by, but it’s required for your grand plans to work out. After all, every person interprets the rules in a different manner, including your own staff members. As far as rules go, this should only really outline what should be done if a user is to offend, and what warnings should be given and when. Also introduce them to your violations thread, and make sure they can post in it and know what format posts should be in.

At the end of the day, they are working for you, on your forum. This doesn’t mean that you cannot be friends with them, but it’s YOUR forum and you should expect nothing but the best from them. A forum is not a democracy. It is a dictatorship, and you have full control over everything.

Install a great and unique forum skin

It’s always been a rule of thumb for me to get a custom forum skin for every forum I run. Obviously on every forum I’ve been assigned as an administrator to I have created my own, but your forum will always be defined on how it looks and feels, and you should strive for only the best. More than anything else, there is one thing you should demand of your custom skin…

What you should demand is originality.

Chances are that most of your members have at least viewed another forum before, and most of them look the same, boring and mundane. Get a designer to create and code you an original design, tailored exactly how you want it. Whilst some templating systems are hard to develop for many of them are fairly easy to customise in any way you wish, so if a designer tells you that it cannot be done ask them to come up with similar alternatives, along with an explanation as to why it cannot be done. Chances are some designers won’t take on an extremely difficult task without some pushing, so give them a nudge and tell them what you want. If they cannot do it then go elsewhere.

Of course if you can make it yourself then go right ahead!

Give your forum some personality!

This is something many administrators never really think of unless they have almost expert knowledge of their forum script. On top of creating an original skin for your forums something you should really look to do is personalise any messages that users will interact with. For example, all email templates that are used to send registration and notification emails to your users could use sprucing up! Find out how to do this in your chosen forum script and write your own personalised one!

Also, small automated areas of your web page, like when a user is unable to access a part of the forum, as well as FAQ’s and Search templates can all use some remodelling and rewriting. It won’t take more than an hour to write some new content for your automated messages and emails. If you wish to personalise your forum a bit more get your designer to create some customised templates for these areas for you. If you’re getting a forum skin then you should milk it for everything you can (under the given contract).

Start with few categories/forums

Much like with Blogs, no one will go to a forum if it is empty. You need to create the illusion that there are many posts there, and the only way to do that is to start with less than three forums. That’s right, never start with more than three because you simply do not need them. Once you have users regularly posting in your one forum find out what the most popular topics are and create a new forum for that. Keep repeating that until you have your forum structure!

Believe it or not, but this is the main reason a lot of forums die. I’ve made this mistake a number of times, and have paid the price on more than one occasion. Once I started off with twenty forums as I had planned out the forum structure days before the forum was even up, and through excitement I kept it as that. Even though I managed to get a reasonably large number of members to join the forum never really looked that popular, and growth eventually grinded to a halt.

Give your Forum a sense of purpose!

This is the final bit of advice I can give you, and that is to make users feel that your forum is there for a reason. I’m guessing that if you’re running a forum you’re also running a site (if not you’ve got a hell of a task on your hands!), so be sure to promote the forums as much as possible throughout parts of your website. If you’ve written a popular news article create a thread about it in the forums and link to it on your website. People will need a reason to join your forum and if you don’t have a thriving community that members wish to join you need to use it as a form of interactive contact for your website.

If you wish to, you can also use forums to power some of your content. If you were writing an article on horses, and a forum member brought up a fantastic fact on breeding horses, with permission I’m sure the member would be very happy to be included on your website! In essense, try to link your website and forum together!

As much as I would like to give you an exact guide on how to create a great forum it’s impossible to do so. A forum needs the right content and backing to become successful, but one way you can help is by making your forum run as smoothly as possible and enjoyable for your users. I hope this article has been useful for you!