Admin

Assembling your Forum’s Team

by on October 6, 2010

Some forums can’t be run without some staff. So, what should you look for when hiring staff?

Well, you sure don’t want a bunch of unprofessional leaders on your staff. So, here are some tips on how to hire some good, trust able staff.

  • 1) You can’t stop the willing!

    • When hiring staff, you should always look for the person that is either most active or most helpful on your forum. Always make sure to pick the people that are most willing to do the job, because you don’t want your staff to find that visiting your forum is a task.

  • 2) Literary Analysis

    • One the most important things that I look for when hiring staff is how good their grammar is and how well their sentences are formed. Let’s face it, no one wants staff that can’t correctly form a sentence, it’s just unprofessional. Spelling is important, but not as important, most software has spell check built-in, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t pay attention to it.

  • 3) Past Experience

    • When you are hiring staff always look for the most experienced in your forum’s niche. Having the most experienced members as part of your staff will allow things to be done more efficiently, then someone who hasn’t had past experience.

  • 4) Communication

    • Can you easily communicate with the person you are planning to hire? Will you be able to contact them outside the forum (Skype, MSN, or Phone)? Communication is a key for preventing staff confusion. So, when hiring staff make sure there is another way to contact them outside of your forum.

  • 5) Are they truthful and have good behavior?

    • When hiring someone make sure to check that they haven’t been in any trouble or have caused in trouble in the past. Make sure that they are not banned on any other forums. Also, make sure their alias is not located on any “Malicious” sites or listed on any spam lists. You can simply ask them and if they do answer truthfully, then don’t penalize them. If they do lie to you, then don’t hire them, because if they lie to you before you hire them, then what’s going to stop them after?

    So those are some basic tips that can help you Assembling your Forum’s Team. What are your tips for hiring staff? Also, what was your worst moment during hiring a staff member or being on a staff?

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    IB (vBulletin) files suit against Xenforo

    by on October 5, 2010

    Read some very interesting news today. Internet Brands, the owners of vBulletin have filed a lawsuit against Kier, Mike, and Ashley; the developers of the new and upcoming Xenforo forum software.

    I’m really surprised that they announced it in public. But then again the timing of the announcement is even more interesting to me, since Xenforo was going to start selling their early adapters beta version later this month, possibly starting this week.

    I’m been following the development of the software, but not as close as a lot of others. I don’t have any plans to purchase Xenforo, but if I was thinking about it, this announcement of the lawsuit would for sure make me think about purchasing it.

    So for those who are thinking about buying XenForo, will this lawsuit stop you from buying?

    You can read the announcement here

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    Methods To Stop Spam – Forum Edition

    by on September 28, 2010

    Spam

    I always worry about spam and spammers when I first start a forum. Its probably because I have seen so many other webmasters fall victim to spamming. I myself do not support spamming or enjoy it at all. So, through my years of experience I have found several ways to either slow done spammers or almost stop them completely.

  • 1) Captcha or Recaptcha on registration

    • Since most spammers are just automated bots built for your forum software, then adding a Captcha or Recaptcha field basically confuses the bot. This is one way to prevent most spam bots from victimizing your forum.

  • 2) Extra Required Fields

    • Adding an extra field that is required is another way to prevent spam. As, most bots are set to fill in only email, username, and other basic required fields. Adding your own personal field like “Favorite Band” will prevent the bot from signing up.

  • 3) Wait Time

    • This function comes with almost every forum software currently out there. It allows you to set a certain time to where a member can has to wait a specific time in between posts. It will allow you to control spam easier if you are under attack. I wouldn’t recommend setting it too high, as it could make some of your members a little cranky.

  • 4) Akismet

    • Like WordPress, some forum software have started to implement Akismet into their coding. This will definitely help as it will prevent some of the top spammers from posting on your forum. The only problem that I have found, is that “true” members are sometimes prevented from posting. This has only occurred when the members were posting either to fast or having links in their posts.

  • 5) stopforumspam.com

    • – My favorite and highly recommended!

    Stop stopforumspam.com lists all the latest reported forum spammers by IP and Alias. Its list is huge! There is also modifications provided that will prevent spammers from signing up under a Russian email and will scan the list of stopforumspam.com to see if they have been reported. If they have, then they will not be able to sign up.

    So, those are the methods I have used to prevent forum spam. I have also used Email Verification in the Past, but some members did not receive the emails. So, what are your methods of stopping forum spam?

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    What happened to An Admin’s Mind Blog?

    by on August 18, 2010

    So what did happen? Well I am here to say that we (my company) are the new owners of the AAM network of sites. On Monday, we purchased the AnAdminsMind network of sites, which including the blog and the AAM forums.

    I have forwarded the AAM blog to my personal blog and soon I will be re-posting the articles written by Joshua shortly as well as posting some of my own.

    Also this week we will be merging the existing AAM forum into our current Admin Forums, at ForumAdminDojo.com. All usernames and passwords will remain the same. We look forward to the merge and the expansion of our current forum and we would love for you to be a part of our ever growing admin forum.

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    AdminFusion is for sale

    by on June 22, 2009

    The once thriving community of forum administrators is for sale on Sitepointe’s Flippa site.

    Currently the bid price is $6000 which according to my sources is about 1/3 of what the current owners paid for it.

    Recently I’ve been approached by 2 separate proposals from different people asking me if I would like to partner with them and purchase it. I have turned down both of their offers, current the revenue is only at $100 a month, so at 6K you’re looking at 60 months before you even broke even and that is to long for me to get my money back.

    But really my biggest reason is due to that the forum has been damaged, to what I believe beyond repair. Many members have left for other admin forums, some have even started their own, there are lots of new members spamming the forum like crazy, tons of young members who think that they run and own the place, but one of the biggest reasons is due to that there is really nothing new in the world of forums, sure vBulletin is going to be releasing 4.0 soon, but really nothing else is groundbreaking in the admin of forums.

    My belief is that blogs, Facebook, and Twitter will make some forums almost obsolete and unless you have a “very niche” forum you’re just not going to make it.

    What do you think? Will social media sites end the use of forums?

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