Forum Talk

Assembling your Forum’s Team

by James Seligman 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?

    { 2 comments }

    Methods To Stop Spam – Forum Edition

    by James Seligman 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?

    { 0 comments }

    What happened to An Admin’s Mind Blog?

    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 [...]

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    Demolitionforum.com Update

    March 16, 2010

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    vBulletin Backs Down A Little

    October 15, 2009

    Yesterday vBulletin announced a new pricing structure for the new 4.0 suite, well like I said there was going to be some backlash about it and now vBulletin announced today that they are giving those with an expired license a deal now. For licenses that expired in the last 12 months, we are offering an [...]

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    vBulletin 4.0 Pre-Order

    October 14, 2009

    Yesterday vBulletin announced that vBulletin 4.0 is on it’s way along with a publishing suite that includes a Blog and an Article-based CMS Publishing. I am really looking forward to upgrading to the suite and if you’re a customer with an active license, the vBulletin Publishing Suite is at a pre-sale discount price of only [...]

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