Are admin forums deader than disco?

I delete all zero posters on my website after a few days if they are from a foreign country and I am going to delete the rest of the zero posters after 3 months.

Greg

 

Do you have something (add-on) that does this?

Scott

 

As a political admin I always wondered why Political Forums we're not a bigger thing. Everyone has a stake in politics. It's not like gaming, or movies, or TV - you can afford to ignore those things if you want and can even never bother with them. Politics is something that will directly effect you offline. Becoming a smart debater and being active with the political discussion forum only seems smart to me. How many politicians or movements started because of forums ( I doubt we'll ever know because none will ever admit it ). On the side of Facebook and social movements in my niche I always believed the anonymous interaction provided by forums was an asset. Posting politics on FB is fine...until your friends and family agree/disagree with you, until the friends of your friends take note and judge you, and until people connected to offline communities (like your job) can gape at you (it seems having an opinion hurts you these days). So I never understood why in all cases forums are failing.

Let me tell you...I'm trying to get my board up and going. It looks better than any other forum in it's niche. It runs better than most the forum's in it's niche. Getting people to post and use it is like pulling teeth though!

In my opinion...with the ever expanding of technology into your lives and into your personal business....forums will make a come back in the next 10 years. Not because of the technology they provide, or the looks that they give off, but because of the anonymity users can enjoy. I think the time of everyone being up in everyone else's business is wearing off personally...anyone agree or object to this??

 

Politics is a really hard topic to do well in a forum. I think it is because it isn't really a topic, where people can be "community like" with each other.

Scott

 

Depends how your run it honestly. You can definitely get a community feeling on a politics forum. I'm on several that have that feeling. The problem with political boards is the moderators eventually become biased and abuse their power. You'll find that's the biggest gripe on any political big board. You have to constantly remind moderation that they are the same as any other user and to be responsible - if you do that you can do good lol.

 

I am a moderator on an American Political forum and it is a very difficult line to walk between the two parties and remain objective and try to keep the discussions civil

 

Didn't read the whole thread, but I noticed some people saying AA peaked because it allowed the xF vs. vB talk, and that got me thinking.

Some of you say that admin forums are dead. Some say that they don't provide anything special. And for those with highly successful forums, there may not be much to learn from sites like this regardless of what's here.

How could this site possibly be made different and interesting? Perhaps focus more on everything BUT running a forum. Everyone here has at least one common interest (running forums). But that's old news now. More interesting to me is what someone who runs a 500,000 post forum does as a day job, for fun, and what they drive. What is their taste in sexy women and who do they [****][****][****][****]ing hate?

I think it'd be cool to see this site go down the route of becoming more of an "off-topic forum" FOR forum owners. I'm not saying get rid of the on-topic forums, but maybe condense them a little bit. Have laid-back moderation and allow the uncensored arguments and forum software bashing. Feed off that stuff and be THE admin forum that forum owners can go to knowing they can be real.

This is kind of but not really inspired by a webmaster website I used to like back in the day. http://www.wickedfire.com

Idk, I think it'd be cool to see that as opposed to another boring admin forum with its main focus on "how do I find good moderators" and "do you use .com or .net" topics. "I just slept with this new girl that I really dig (details inside) and I think I already want to buy her engagement ring but I don't know if I should pay for the ring or for my forum's hosting for the next 6 months, so I might need to find someone to take over for me." sounds a lot more interesting!

Oh shit, McDonald's is getting sued because they locked their dumpsters so the homeless guy living back there can't get free chow to survive anymore? As forum owners, let's talk about that!

 

There is nothing wrong with having a spirited discussion but when it descends into a slanging match then it is a pointless exercise, which happens to often at the the other place, nothing wrong with your ideas @Tyler but that is what the off topic area is for, and to be frank if you want that sort of chat you are in the wrong place try TAZ they seam to specialize in fluff and waffle

 

TAZ is awful.

 

I agree. And for someone that's perfectly content with the software they're using, how often are they really going to feel the need to post anything about it?

That person might be more interested in finding out more about their new bulldog puppy. But rather than join a completely new forum for it and have to feel like a newbie all over again, they could try here first where there's a bunch of familiar faces. (You could do that now in the off-topic forum but I think most people just come here for on-topic stuff or don't come at all).

The other thing about forum admin forums is that they pretty much always have the same members. There are forum owners that never have and never will be members on these kinds of forums and then there's the ones like us that probably have an account on most of them, favor one or two of them, and know everyone else because we've all had the same usernames since 2006.

TAZ is a much bigger than this site. For that reason, it might be much easier to get the on-topic help or discussion someone needs (not saying there isn't great content here). But it also takes any simple post that Howard doesn't agree with to get yourself banned.

TAZ is more like the office where you need to stay working because your boss is watching over you and this site can be more of a break room (or coffee shop down the road) where everyone in the office goes for lunch and talks about whatever they want with some "btw, I'm gonna need your help when we get back to work" in the mix.

 

I second this GREAT suggestion.

That's one thing I don't think I've ever found that would be very welcome in today's times....instead of a webmasters forum why not a webmasters lounge? Being a webmaster is like 5% of my personality and being. A community that addresses it all while still being intellectually catered to webmasters would be welcoming and engaging.

 

But it would be a big coincidence, if that admin interested in a bulldog puppy would find anyone authoritative on the subject on an admin forum. You might get a general discussion going and a lot of opinions, but nothing really particular or factual in detail. If you want more in-depth information about bulldogs, then the trip to a bulldog forum is unavoidable and I am really happy it is that way. That exchange of knowledge is what makes forums the real positive power on the Internet.

Scott

 

Howard is one PARANOID individual when it comes to forum owners, never known such a control freak like him. All those mods he installs to try and control what his members can do (as much as he can). He's a clown! I joined his forum other day using Dark Matter to prove a point, that he doesn't have as much control their as he thinks he does. All the anti-spam measures he uses proved useless, even registered a second account after he started deleting all posts on Dark Matter one to prove it again (all in good fun though).

Used to think he seemed like a good forum owner before first joining TAZ. How wrong was I on that score, he is so paranoid and just wants to control everyone on his forum as much as he possibly can. The guy won't even leave TAZ to post on another admin forum, have you ever seen him post as Howard on another one? Because I never have, he's all "me, me, me". I've also never known anyone to be so paranoid about links leading away from TAZ, he even installed a mod that only shows a members signature once in a thread (no matter how many posts they have in it). Says it all about him really, the way he is.

Tell you what as well, since TAZ moved to XenForo it really now has become another XF fan site. The forum was actually doing better on vB3 if you ask me (even though things had gone a lot more quiet), now it's died a lot more since using XF and mainly staff and the XF users are keeping it going. A lot of the neutrals have spotted the change and cleared off.

 

I agree with this 100%. My bulldog example was probably poorly worded. I was thinking more along the lines of having forum owners feel compelled to post here about their new puppy and perhaps ask for some basic advice on training it. Not necessarily an in-depth discussion of the breed and its health issues. Plus, you never know - someone here could have been thinking about creating a bulldog forum, saw the post about someone else's new pup, and together they decide to team up and launch the forum. Boom - shooting the shit with other forum owners lead to something productive for the admin side of things!

But it's this exact concept that I've been trying to get at. Unless you're doing this stuff for a living, and even then, there's so much more that we could talk about here, while keeping the "we run forums" atmosphere.

I'm just saying I don't see this place becoming any more alive than disco as-is. We don't need another serious admin site. Who gives a shit what software someone prefers to use anymore, really? Those kinds of topics were much more interesting back in the prime days of forums.

Also, to me there's 3 types of forum owners:

-Those that never have and never will join a site like this

-Those that we all know because they've been on every admin forum with the same username for years and are still here to this day

-The newer guys that did a Google search because they need some genuine help with their forum, so they most likely found TAZ, and are getting what they need there (until they get banned a day later and then we scoop them up over here)

The second one, who are basically all of "us", is where the potential is it. No one gets anything out of the first group and the last group is kind of what drizzles out of TAZ and probably doesn't stick around after they got what they needed (until they have to come back for another generic question).

Idk, I'm just trying to think of how this place could become a very worthy and unique contender in this niche, especially since there's really only one other serious competing site to worry about.

 

Pretty much an impossible task I think, forums have declined so much in certain niches now, that it's not really worth putting the effort in trying to revive them. That's a matter of opinion of course! I wouldn't read too much in TAZ being this much more active forum either, they do a lot of things their to make it appear that way to a novice forum user. Howard obviously has a lot more free time and dedication on his hands than Bob to sit on his forum doing stuff, along with ordering his staff to post fluff topics.

 

Ya, I can say we've experienced a slight decline since the mid 2000's when we running vBulletin 3, got hacked three times from the years 2007-2010 and it was by someone we trusted to be our server admin, so we downhill and back uphill after awhile. Back in those years, we'd average 50-80 members online and over 200 guests. Now we see about 30-50 members online with 100-150 guests. We actually have way more backlinks this time around and more posts about us on various social networking sites, but our numbers have yet to go over 50 members online. So, I'd say you're 100% right about this.

So, really, unless you really want to see higher growth, then you have to try paid advertising instead of just promoting on social networks, gaining backlinks, blog posts and etc. What I think could help a lot of forums grow though is if they got people to write reviews about their forum on their blogs or forum because the more publicity that you receive, the more growth you may run into.

 

All well and fine... but do you think your average forum owner running a board for fun or a hobby is going to pay for advertising? And isn't the web itself supposed to be a "free form" of advertising people can use. I bet very few pay for advertising to drive traffic into their forum, unless they're something like a registered business running a forum linked with it.