MESKOS Forum Development Blog

Outline - The Skinning Machine?

Outline Forum Review
If your a Zetaboard user, trying your hardest to find a decent skin for your board, i recommened you give Outline a visit.

From my point of view, Outline has a dedicated team which designs and codes ZetaBoard and InvisionFree skins for their members to use. They are achieving success slowly and this is achieved through hard work and a constant submission of new and exclusive resources which can only be found at their forum.

The services which they currently provide include:

• ZetaBoards Themes
• InvisionFree Skins
• Design Chat
• Documentations
• Support

Their forum layout is also quite compact which keeps the forum nicely organized. They also used sub-forums effectively to accumulate a higher total of posts within a forum. (Reduces the feeling of inactivity).

The forums total activity is moderate at the moment but we need to remember, this board is still young. With 5,000+ total posts and 388 members is quite successful for now.

And also rememebr, we never know, the board may accept custom Zetaboard skin requests, if it grows. (Just my assumption).

Never or less, give Outline a visit by clicking here.

Written by
Michael. W
© MESKOS Forum Development Blog 2008

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Forum Contests, Forum Success?

Forum Contest Ideas
Fresh Contest, Fresh Members, Fresh Forum.

To spice up your forum, refresh the community or just an event to regain members interest, all comes down to a forum revamp or a forum contest. Contests are useful as it brings all the active members together and motivates interaction (depending on the contest idea).

If the forum staff team can manage the contest effeciently and effectively, it can really bring back a lot of old and new traffic.

Here are some contest ideas which can be used as a guideline for your forum(s):

• Referral Contest.
  - Winner will be judged on most referrals.
  - More points if the referrals post.
• Posting Contest.
  - The basic, “Who ever can post the most wins”.
  - Distribute additional post points for quality topics/replies made.
• Advanced Posting Contest.
  - Who can create the most active topic? (encourages members to start interesting topics)
  - Post a statement and allow every member to write an interesting paragraph on it. Most interesting, would be the winner.
• Content Contests.
  - Article writing.
  - Poetry writing.
  - Create the topic concept in regards to your forum genre.
• Treasure Hunts.
  - Create riddles in different parts of the forum.
  - Let your members find their way to the treasure.
• Digital Contests.
  - Award the winner by using their design on your forum. (Eg. Banner).
  - Photo Contest. (Who ever can be most unique in a photo?)
• Simulation Contests. (Used on one of my old forums, was successful and loved)
  - Create a simulation (depending on your forum genre) and judge the best response.
  - Example: I use to run an admin forum, where administrators could share managing tips etc. I had a section called the “Admin Simulation” where i would develop a situation where members had to put themselves into the situation and reply with a well written response.
  - The winner can be selected on the quality of the response.

I hope this will refresh your ideas. If you have any new contest ideas, feel free to submit them through the comment feature.

Written by
Michael. W
© MESKOS Forum Development Blog 2008
Redistribution of this article will be violating copyright laws.
Please contact me if you would like this doc. submitted to your forum/website.

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Daily Tip #2

Securing your Password.
A basic but extremely important tip. Keep your admin. account secure with a strong password. In your password, include symbols, numbers, signs and lower and capital letters.

If your curious on how secure and strong your password is, visit Hotmail, then visit the Sign Up page and test out your password in their password box. They provide a useful tool to measure how strong your password is. View an example here.

© MESKOS Forum Development Blog 2008

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Successful Forum Tips

Successful Forum Tips
Here are some additional tips on developing a successful forum. These tips do not guarantee a successful forum, it all depends on how well you integrate them into your community.

• Make sure you know your topic. Do not create a forum which you don’t know much about. Don’t leave topics or discussions empty, Google for answers if needed. I’m not saying you need to know everything about the topic, know enough to create discussions, join in etc.
• Unique hacks and features. Many forums are successful due to its unique features. Additional hacks and mods for a forum can really bring a new atmosphere to the community and may even spike new interests from the members. Such as: Currency (money), banks, stores etc really boost up activity.
• Not too many topics. (In response to my Establishment Tip entry). Yes, do have topics when you open your forum but don’t have pages of them and left empty. The fewer the topics the better because it will condense your content and appear more active.
• Affiliates. Affiliates are highly useful for new forums. Affiliate with related forums to build up your member base and name. Don’t affiliate with forums which have relevance to you or your wasting your traffic.

Good Luck again everyone.

Written by
Michael. W
© MESKOS Forum Development Blog 2008
Redistribution of this article will be violating copyright laws.
Please contact me if you would like this doc. submitted to your forum/website.

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Tips on Maintaining a Successful Forum

Tips on Maintaining a Successful Forum
Maintaining a successful forum is difficult, but if you use the correct methods to satisfy your members and motivate them in regular contests, discussions etc. the job will not be as difficult. Here are some tips which i would recommend you put into action to motivate your members and maintaining the forum activity.

• Improve the registration rate and activity rate to eliminate any sense of inactivity. How? Invite friends and family to register and post once in a while.
• Give incentives to members who are active at your forum. Rewards may include: Free advertisement, a custom group, profile/account enhancement, etc. Depending on your forum genre, you can provide a service.
• Requirements, don’t hide all your resources from your members. Hide the “premium” resources from your regular members. Many admins make the wrong decision by making 25 post requirements for gfx requests, then another 10 posts to use these resources etc etc. This just encourages spam. I found that if you set one standard requirement to view all resources/access to services, it will improve the forum activity/less spam in general.
• Don’t act GOD! Many administrators close topics, abuse power and intimidate members, obviously this will cause disputes and loss of activity. Learn to acknowledge members input.
• Moderation - Not too strict, not too lose. Keep it moderate. But definitely remove spam no matter what.
• Offer interesting titles to users, forum awards and other offers to keep people posting in your forum.

I hope this article helps you in maintaining a successful forum. More tips will come soon in “Tips on Maintaining a Successful Forum Part 2″.

Written by
Michael. W
© MESKOS Forum Development Blog 2008
Redistribution of this article will be violating copyright laws.
Please contact me if you would like this doc. submitted to your forum/website.

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