How do you administrate your site(s)

Since i have owned my site, i told myself i didn't want to be like every other site and rule with a heavy hand (automotive). I noticed from an early time that people at sites always tell people that ask a question to use the search button, or if they say something when they are having a bad day, they find themselves banned.

At my site, the only rule i have is "no rule". My philosophy is that if given freedom, most people won't take advantage of it and will post decently. Those that tend to post offensively, usually only do so out of frustration, whether it is something that happened at work, a fight with the spouse, etc...So i sit back and let the post's control themselves. In 5 years, i have never had to ban a member, close a thread or force a thread to take a different direction. My site is not a business, it is only a place for enthusiasts to come together and share their cars, experiences and knowledge with others. I do not make people search for answers, i try to answer each member's question to the best of my abilities and i have found that just telling a member to use the search button to be unfriendly and more then likely cause that member to go else where for their answer. My site currently has over 2300 members.

So what is your philosophy?

 

I should ad that i do ban the spam bots. I really don't like them telling me that i have erectile dysfunction and need this medication, or that i need to buy this type of cell phone because mine isn't good anymore.

 

My sites are somewhat open minded. They all fall under a PG-13 type rating but foul language and risque images are not allowed.

Then again most of the sites I run have demographics showing the members are for the most part over 30, enjoy a better than average income and are for the most part fairly well educated.

When things start to go a bit south I try to appeal to their more adult like sensibilities long before wielding a hammer. More times than not these tactics yield positive results.

 

i have never had to ban and only had to warn a few times, except for banning the odd bot that gets through the system.

the best thing to do is be the sort of admin that doesnt ban or warn their members over the smallest things, or have too many rules, cause the members wont think of the forum as a fun place to be and might leave, but you also cant let members get away with everything or your forum will end up full of trolls and spam.

youve got to be somewhere in the middle, not be too strict and ban easily, but not be afraid to punish troublemakers

 

I dont' mean to laugh, but this "troll" word has only recently been tossed out in threads i have read. I think it is a funny word, but apparently it is taken fairly seriously. I have never seen this term before. hehehehe, troll, i love it.

 

I have an anime site in which they often 'could' get out of control with some topics, specially when it comes to Ecchi, Hentai, Yuri and Yaoi. We try to keep those discussions open to a certain point, hentai (normal, yuri or yaoi) is prohibited to talk about, though, our site does not cater to those kinds. We allow cursing but to an extent, not on every post on the forum or chat, nor do we allow cursing as an offensive way or 'route', so we can say 'Effing hell' but not 'Eff you'.

Our forum, we allow kids who are 13 years or older, but not on our chat, we feel as if we have much more control on the forum, so we decided to make it like that. The anime world can somewhat be said that people take it serious, you diss one anime and all of the sudden you're a bakayarou! Plus you get raids, I insta-ban people who I know are there for a raid and pretty much I have a competing anime site in which the users come to MY chat to 'troll' so we insta-ban them as soon as they do one thing wrong.

We don't get bots on the chat, and on the forum StopForumSpam stops them.

We also let the religion and political topics go along, it's interesting specially when everyone's politic and religion is difference since almost everyone on the chat lives SO far away.

 

Very kewl guys/gals.......very kewl.

 

Taken from the bible.

 

lol, that is a harsh meaning. Hard to believe something that lived under a bridge in fairy tales, has become something so harsh in internet life.

 

The Urban Dictionary

This is a tough topic to comment on I think. I mean, its based on yourself, the admin which is ruled by own experiences and their vision. If you have multiple admins, then there can be some balancing, compromise, etc. or conversely, strife.

So i voted:

but its a loaded characterization having said the above.

In my house, though shalt deter from being derogative. Much like FMBs description. Let's not attack people or being unnecessarily harsh and abusive. This is my only firm meter stick when it comes to what upsets others.

As for obvious heated topics, like Religion and politics, I have a forum called The Bar for the members only. It's like....Going to Vegas. Post at your own risk, anything goes. No Rules there. I have to say....wowzers on those 2 topics mentioned. Especially Religion. Not meaning at all to create a topic here on it, but just to note that such a topic is something all my fellow Admins here have dabbled with.

 

I used to have the same theory as you, but then some jackass started spamming my forum with his site and flaming other members. It went on for over a week, I banned multiple accounts, and even banned his IPs multiple times. It was not a matter of this guy being frustrated; he was simply bored and had too much time on his hands.
Now I try to be as strict as possible, in most of the non-casual discussion areas. I also don't believe you should spoonfeed answers in a forum. There IS a search function for a reason, so if they are too lazy to use it, why should other members waste their time helping him or her?

 

What is this "as long as it doesn't upset others?" Every controversial opinion upsets someone. Some people are upset at what someone else posted - and the someone else will be upset if they can't post it. Who gets their way?

One of our "About" guidelines is that members should "expect to be offended at times." We have objective rules that are pretty open, leave a great deal of latitude for controversial opinions, disagreements, upset and offense. We moderate personal attacks, and language except for one opt-in forum, and that's about all. We don't moderate tone or upsetting opinions.

I picked "other."

 

I'm pretty relaxed with how I run my forums really. In fact, probably too relaxed to the point of allowing nearly anything within reason. As per most people here though, as soon as someone registers with a dodgy name like '[spambot standard name], I'm watching that ban button, their posts and member profile for any sign of them being a spammer. Because spammers make a site look bad. But I can't just ban someone by name, because I get a huge amount of legitimate members with extremely strange usernames but perfectly reasonable posts.

Still, I do take care of things like flaming, persistent trolls, etc, but I try to be as far in general as possible.

 

"other" is a good choice too and i like the way you lay out specific guidelines for your members to read.

 

I have just over 1100 members mainly from an older age group and for 3 years we have got along more or less nicely with one rule

behave like ladies and gentlemen

I have actually said that you cannot run a forum effectively by committee so my decision is final and that I do have bad hair days and sometimes I stub my toe, learn to live with it. If I get it consistently wrong I can and will be replaced. If people are reasonable I shouldn't really have anything to moderate so what I may or may not do is ultimately as a result of how they act.

In actual fact I check most things with the owner of the site before acting or to explain and that stops me making a mistake (second opinion) but I don't make that public. We know each other's thinking to be fairly confident our opinions will gel.

All I can say is that it works with our members, I doubt it would on a teenage forum.

Maybe once a month or even longer I might have to post with "moderator hat on". It is a nice position to be in.

One other point is that I have also said I would not moderate via PM. If I need something to happen I will have enough belief in what I need to post it openly so there can be no hidden happenings or accusations. Knowing that it will be open for everyone to read makes me soften what I say and how I say it so that tends to keep down the build up of any hostilities. Again not a bad thing.

Just one small aside. Quite often if two members get into a slagging match over some point or other and I step in and suggest the thread has reached it's sell by date and should close but feel free to start a fresh thread they close but do not bother with a fresh thread. One or maybe both wanted to stop their argument but neither wanted to be seen as backing off first and moderator intervention is actually welcome (but not admitted).

 

That is a great philosophy right there. I have noticed that too on sites i run and have run in the past.

 

very open

we have maybe 3 rules

no racial slurs in thread titles
material not work safe has to be tagged as such

that's pretty much it