The toughest thing about running a forum

In your opinion, what do you think the toughest thing about running a forum is?

 

I would have to say that the promotion and advertising aspect of running a forum can prove to be the most challenging (but fun at the same time).

 

This,

So does anyone know of some good places to advertise

 

+1.

In addition I'd say the dealing with member issues, handing out infractions/bans, etc. I hate playing cop.

The most annoying part is of course spammers.

 

Rarely do I encounter human problems from someone that was actually a participating member of the forum, but I have had my fair share of the spam-bots, and yes, they will make you go crazy.

 

Advertising is the hardest for me. But I also am slowly becoming demotivated as I fear I may not be getting paid as much as I thought for making my latest forum.

 

Aside from all of the above, I feel that the hardest part of running a forum, if indeed you're running a community-type forum, is keeping current members actively posting.

 

Whilst I do agree that the aforementioned aspects certainly are tough and time-consuming, this hasn't been my experience.

Advertising: my forum is excellent in terms of SERPs and SEO. I only did a bit of promoting when I launched, but the word-of-mouth effect by my users was viral. Now, I don't do a thing and 95% of the "how did you find us" answers are "Google". If not, then they found us by recommendation of another member.

Member Management: I haven't had any severe cases (or anything close) so I haven't had to play cop, per say. I do enjoy interaction with members - even if it is sending warnings or quick notes, etc. so this isn't a burden. We have minimal undesirable behavior.

Keeping activity going: My members naturally produce content all the time, so this isn't a big setback. We do have many contests and events, some that are long-term, but without them we'd still be doing just fine.

The toughest part in my experience has been pleasing everybody. You just never can.
If you make a change for one crowd, it will displease another and I have the hardest time deciding which side to please.
Another hard part has been getting user feedback. I make changes and customizations here-and-there all the time but rarely get any feedback from users (even when I ask for it) as they are mostly a crowd that isn't the most tech-savvy. They just come on to read and post messages, and interact with their friends, so they don't pay much attention to the usability of the board.

 

Nick, since you cannot please everyone, don't ever set yourself up for failure by trying. Do the best you can for the greater number and know you've done your best.

Member management issues are not much of an issue for me. We set up a complete set of rules and we enforce them without prejudice. I find people actually appreciate that level of moderation, as they feel it keeps everyone on a level playing field.

The biggest issue for me is potential members and new members not paying attention during the registration process. 'Where did it say I had to look for an e-mail from you? I never saw anything like that when I registered!' I hear it every single day. How tough is it to register for a forum site?

People having client-side issues wears me out, too. I'm sorry your IT department won't let you visit the site from your workplace, but that is not my fault. I'm sorry you keep getting logged out, when was the last time you cleared your cache? You all know what I mean, you run into the same issues.

I just received an e-mail from a fellow griping that he had forgotten his password and that my 'lousy forum' wouldn't recognize his e-mail address to get a new password. He gave me his username and demanded I fix his problem immediately.

This individual had never registered on the forum. The username did not exist and his IP address matched nothing. I replied and explained he might have us confused with another site. Two minutes later, I get notification he has registered. I'm confident he will e-mail me an apology about his brusque manner. Why are you all suddenly laughing?

 

lol @ Mike...

 

Keeping members active has been a huge issue. It is quite frustrating to login and see maybe only a handful of posts. Even worse when staff go inactive and things look like a ghost town. Always remains the hardest part for me in trying to get a forum up and running smoothly.

 

I really don't think inactive users are so much of a phenomenon. Think about any group or organization you are associated with. For a few years, I was the pastor of a church (yeah, believe it or not) and I always noticed that 20% of the membership was active. In my Masonic Lodge, about 20% of the members are active.

I think a lot of people are 'joiners'. They want to join, even when they really have no intention of ever contributing or participating. It's just a case of belonging.

 

You hit the nail on the head right there.

 

I join a lot of brand new forums that look like they have potential to make it. I do this so I can come back in a year when the forum is huge and claim I'm an "OG".

 

Since it hasn't be said, and neglected on most discussions - Having time to post on your own forum.

 

That's a viable point, Boss - it's something that many administrators today are faced with.

 

I would have to say keeping members active and keeping the forum active would be the hardest, our rules are really let loose, so the chances of them getting infractions/bans are low. It's just getting them to post

 

Promoting and getting new members is definitely the hardest part for me.

 

Not to mention, it can be time consuming.

 

I remember the once someone wanted to buy a paid subscription. But they had no PayPal.

I think in the end it came to about £40, they said they would send me a cheque. So I gave them my address...

You see where this is going?

Instead of a £40 cheque, I had a cake come through the mail. What was I supposed to do about that?!