MESKOS Forum Development Blog

When is a Community Successful?

Every online community wants to be successful. But what determines a forum is successful or not? When can you confidently declare your community is successful?

What are online communities?

An online community is a virtual place where people can gather together online to share opinions, thoughts and an opportunity to engage in discussions. Online communities can be in a variety of forms, including: forums, social networks, blogs and chatrooms.

Community Success factors.

There are a number of ways an online community can be judged to be successful. Here are a few ideas:

• The number of registered members.
• The amount of interaction.
• The amount of revenue being generated.
• The value of the relationship within the community.
• The amount of traffic the community is attracting.

Only a number of points will be judged to determine the success level of a community. It is important to know that different forum owners judge on different factors.

What are your individual goals?

As a forum owner you must set yourself goals and targets. With out them, it will be difficult to declare your forum is successful or achived success. Only you can determine if your forum is successful. Why? Only you know when your forum has achived a goal/target. A great example are Niche forums, then even if you only have ten members you can justifiably call your community a success.

A big brand looking to develop a positive relationship with its customers may have 100,000 members and a million posts, but if the content is full of negativity about the brand and its products, the community is a failure.

Remember to not compare your community with others. Every other community has different aims and goals. Their targets are different and every your very own forum is unique. Know what you want, what you want to achieve and strive towards it. Nothing controls the success level of a community, except you!

Share your Thoughts.

Is your community successful? Have you reached your goals/targets? If so, share your experiences.

Tags: achieve, community success, goals, success, targets

Should communities ban the discussion of certain topics?

It’s a fact that more controversial topics may encourage hatred, flaming and other negative sorts of behaviors. But on the other hand, it motivates members to engage forum discussions. What should we do?

What is the subject of your forum?

If you decide to ban the discussion of certain topics, you must acknowledge what your forum subject is. For example, if you run a world news forum, the banning of topics regarding politics would limit and affect the community. Why? Because politics is a significant aspect of the news in today’s world. Even though the topic may develop heat within the discussion, it will psychologically encourage members to re-visit the forum to emphasis their point again.

What level of moderation should be executed?

To prevent the discussion traveling off-topic, reasonable moderation will be needed. But remember, to maintain a successful forum, you can’t just sit on your back side. Staff don’t need to sit at their computer, refreshing their window to keep track of the topic. To moderate it, simple visit it once in a while to make sure all replies are responses to the subject.

If you encounter any unhealthy replies, simple remind the members with a friendly notice about staying on-track and encourage a healthy debate. A great example would be topics regarding religion or politics, members often have strong views about those subjects. It is expected that members may become extremely passionate when discussing them, so the best way to prevent any abuse would be a friendly PM.

What type of members does your community attract?

Every community should attract their own type of members - if not, they should be! If your forum is targeted to more mature members, you will notice their will be a dramatic drop in flaming (or any other form of unhealthy acts). Usually mature forums don’t need the banning of any specific topic because they are handled/discussed appropriately, in a mature manner.

But if your forum is targeted to the younger generation, or those who are sensitive to disagreeing in them, you might consider the banning of specific topics.

Give your members a chance.

I would suggest all members adopt a laissez-faire approach in setting rules for your community. The more strict you are, the less you encourage your members. Allow the discussion of topics, take the risk. If you notice an up-rising of flaming, take action.

Your thoughts

Do you ban the discussion of certain topics? Do you actively encourage controversy and passionate debate? Has this ever come back to haunt you? Share your thoughts and experiences by leaving a comment below.

Tags: banning, flaming, forum, successful, topics

Sorry for the absence!

I am extremely sorry for the lack of updates and new posts at Meskos. Lately, i have been bombarded with exams, assignments and assessments which all go towards my HSC ranking.

Don’t worry though, i’ll be back and active very soon, but sadly only for a while because of trails and the actual HSC examination which is a couple of months away.

But don’t give up, once that is complete, i will be giving a lot to my blog.

As for now, take care and good luck to your online community!
(Expect a new discussion topic soon, to bring back some life! :))

Tags: forum, sorry