From the advent of the Internet, web browsers have enjoyed sharing thoughts via email, chat rooms, message boards, instant messaging, and a good old forum. It can be a lot of fun actually.

It also lends itself to being able to send a quick announcement, or a thought you have in the middle of the night that you don’t want to forget, but you can’t very well call someone and wake them with your sudden thought at 3am. But these communication applications are very useful in many other ways.

For our discussion in this installment we want to take a brief look at a forum, particularly managing a forum. What is a forum again for you new among us?

It is simply a community page set up by topics in which anyone can subscribe to and offer a thought or reply to any or all of the subjects posted. One continued topic discussion is called a thread. You of course have the option to just read the threads without commenting or participating in them.

With this in mind, let’s take a gander at running a forum. As owner of a forum you have the ability to draw people to your forum to enjoy a lively interchange and also provide appropriate ads for visitors to explore if they wish. In turn the owner of the web forum will have the potential revenue generated by the advertisement coming his or her way.

Starting a forum is relatively easy. The design of the page is usually pretty straightforward and simplistic. Of course if you are completely new to web design you may consider soliciting help. Or you can most certainly learn how to build a forum.

The beauty of a forum for the manager is that most of your content is provided by your visitors and those who create threads and/or contribute to them. Nevertheless there is work to do for the forum master.

For one thing you have to continue to monitor the variety and freshness of the topics. Usually forums are broken down into themes and categories. What does the monitor need to do then?

Whether you personally handle the monitoring yourself or recruit some help there are a few things you need to do:

• What kind of language do you want to be present on your forum? Someone needs to oversee the posts so that they do not contain abusive speech if you do not want it present on your forum.
• An administrator may need to remind subscribers of your policies. You may even have to block or ban members who disregard your method of operation. Fairness would be in order here. Try warning them first and explaining your goals and purpose of your forum.
• You may have to referee some heated debates between members. Again let cooler heads prevail if possible.
• You need to be on spam alert at all times. That includes availing yourself of the programs available to help in this regard.
• You want to try and dissuade some from monopolizing the forum. Encourage open discussion and sensible manners to be shown toward all. Even the newbie’s joining in.
• Try and keep your ads relevant and current.
• You also must spend ample time marketing your site.

While much of this can be tedious and time consuming the rewards can be worth the time and effort. At some point you may benefit from paying others to assist you. And most of us find a good forum to be refreshing, informative, and engaging.

So why shouldn’t it be your forum?

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