Keeping a forum

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Previously I blog about how to start a forum. Today I would like to continue the part 2 of the entry, how to keep to forum. As I mentioned, I personally didn’t want to start a forum anymore. It’s all because I see quite a lot of failure and my first problem was the socializing skill. But some of my friends who started forum and has a great socializing skill also failed all because

1, Right attitude!
Very important, a lot of forum admin came to me and I leave them in the end of the day. Because all they want is me to register on their forum. Then whatever feedback they get, they put it in the trash because they think they’re the admin, who are you to tell them what to do. Members giving feedback because they think they can be one of the significant member in the forum, serve them right. Explain why not and why it’s good - Learn to explain, not just thanking.

2, Keep bringing the thread.
Since you created this forum, you should have the idea what thread to be created. Do it one by one (Will explain on next point). Don’t try too hard to create a thread and ended up nobody both to reply. Be clear of the forum vision, what you want your forum to be. If it’s about relationship, pretend you are a master in it. Well, if you have the right attitude, you’ll know if it is the right thread.

3, Don’t rush, slow and steady.
After discuss with me, my friend went on and created a forum (Wrong attitude), and he used all the plugin available for the forum script, ended up he came back to me and say “Those members not even bother to feedback.”. Well my friend, you have all the plugin and nice theme etc, why bother to feedback? This is the trick, create a plain forum with nothing much there (You can install the plugin but don’t activate it yet), improve (Activate) from time to time. By this you can email all your members to remind them about your new forum. Same goes to thread creating, don’t create a bunch of thread and sit there dreaming about reply, slow and steady.

It’s not easy to maintain a forum of course. You’ll need to implement all these 3 aspect (All I know, there’s maybe more). However, if you really love to see your forum grow, I think this is no biggie right?

Is forum a risk?

A lot of my friends they wanted to start a forum, but is it a good idea to do so? I’ve been developing a few forum that failed eventually. However, from there I learnt a lot though. Being a webmaster you need to test thing out yourself in order to give people advice, no pain no gain. As for now, I don’t create forum anymore. Here are my-whys.

1, I’m a freaking internet freak (Maybe you too?).
I’m not a socialize person, I spend a lot of time at home online and doing my homework. By this I mean, I couldn’t know more friends beside those from college and from the past. Forum require members, and these members shouldn’t be your friends. Friends come to your forum just for a little support, and it doesn’t do good for long run.

2, Members first then only content.
If you wanted to create a forum, make sure you can have 50 to 100 members (Not friends) ready. With this amount of members, your forum will have it content. Just a reminder, forum content is very depending on the members.

3, Forum is not money making machine.
I’m totally doomed when my friends told me that he wanted to create a forum and earn money. When I asked how can he do that, he kept silent. Why would I have this perspective? We need to get back to the core of forum. Forum is a place where people discuss about a certain thing, it’s a support and fun thing, it’s not making money thing. Well, unless the forum is all over the internet with tons of members, by that time advertiser will come to you instead. As for starter, let’s not think about money from your forum.

Above 3 are my ideas on why I think creating a forum is a risk, but you might be different though. However, creating forum is not risking, but it requires a lot of your time, energy, some socializing skills and attitude towards the forum. I see a lot forum administrators seems to be caring themselves more than the members. Last advice “Every websites you create is a service; serve right”.

P/S: Those who always complaint about this service is not good, that service sucks and etc, try not to create any forum.

Does validating matter?

A lot of people talking about validated CSS and XHTML, I didn’t care that even now, however, according to most webmasters, validated CSS and XHTML is very useful, hence every web that you built must be valid. When I asked why is it useful and how it useful to a webmaster, the answers were uncertain, and I assume these webmasters just wanna be cool like teenagers who smoke.

Validating a web by putting these buttons on it are just like people claiming themselves as genius but the fact is unknown. I’m not talking about you know it is valid, rather you know it’s a web. Let’s put a more simplicity question, “What is the job for CSS and XHTML?“.

The main objective for XHTML is to structure a web and CSS is to beautify the web. Jobs done! However, some people claim that in order to make sure all the browser will show out same, validating is needed. Trust me, if it works on FireFox, it works on most browser, try to forget about Internet Explorer. IE is a total pain in the ass, apparently Microsoft still want to be unique even on coding a web for IE

For me, as a webmaster for sometimes now, I think validating is not important. I’m a Mac user, so IE is a problem for me, however, I tried to make sure that all my web working fine in FireFox and Safari, it will reduce the risk of having the web shows out messily on IE. SimplyWP.net is valid CSS and XHTML, but will I continue maintain it as valid? Definitely no, because I really don’t give a damn, just my two cent