JoelR

Forums that only focus on conversation won't survive. Forums that focus on meaningful conversation can survive. I'm more convinced than ever that forums as a social tool are gone, and that you need to provide success - answering questions, providing solutions, providing resources

This is a really good guess! I never heard of it, but it looks very robust and used by Stack Overflow.

I've often thought about doing a roundup of the most interesting, most fascinating, most informative, and most bizarre support topics from IPS. To start with, here's a fun topic on the more bizarre side: https://invisioncommunity.com/forums/topic/477418-banned-account-in-the-trial/

This is a great suggestion. You should post on their Feedback board.

This doesn't sound like the Pages update that they've been talking about (regarding the app), but a more powerful editor does mean crafting more advanced pages

https://invisioncommunity.com/forums/topic/477045-when-can-we-expect-ic-5-to-be-released/?do=findComment&comment=2965674 Any guesses on the new editor? I didn't notice anything different in their tease videos

The scenario that I outlined in the OP was specifically for the separation of duties between the cop and the judge: In other words: - One person to confirm you made a violation - Another person to confirm the level of punishment

One thing that I consistently see among a certain subset of forum admins is that they only focus their goals on members. More members is better! And when they fail to reach their lofty goals for members, they feel bad. That's entirely the wrong approach to goal setting. Set objectives that you personally can control. You can't control how many members will join in a timeframe, but you can control an outreach campaign, or a promotion campaign, or a new member campaign, and how quickly you can implement these initiatives. Focus on activities that you can directly control, and you'll be able to set expectations that actually match what you can do.

Why haven't you switched domain?

I think it really depends on the context of your scenario, and the trade-off between quality vs delay. One thing that I will add though is that forums have not evolved is in providing expectations. When a topic is moderated, why was it moderated? What is the typical turntime for it to be approved? It's all lost into a black hole. These are behavioral nudges that we can do much better on modern forums.

Overconfidence is where market leaders (or online communities!) become complacent and lose touch with customer needs, emerging trends, and competitive dynamics. This mindset can lead to poor decision-making, lack of innovation, and ultimately, a decline in market position. Many of us who have "successful" communities became successful because we were early adopters of forums. But how do we keep up with our success? Continuous Learning: Are we investing in learning and adapting, or are we resting on our laurels? Customer Feedback: How closely are we listening to our users? Is their feedback driving our innovation, or are we assuming we know best? Competitive Awareness: Do we keep a vigilant eye on the competition, learning from their moves and staying ahead of industry trends? It's a cautionary tale for communities to remain humble, continuously innovate, and stay closely connected with their customers, ensuring they adapt and evolve to maintain their leadership and relevance in the market.

Inspired by SearchEngineLand: https://searchengineland.com/link-building-win-fail-430176 "As search engines have become more sophisticated, the strategies for effective link building have evolved. In 2024, the focus has shifted from quantity to quality, with a greater emphasis on acquiring high-quality, authoritative backlinks from relevant and trustworthy sources. This article explores 12 key dos and don’ts for successful link building, highlighting common mistakes to avoid and effective SEO strategies to employ. Fails: Common link building mistakes 1. Don’t: prioritize quantity over quality More is not better. Better is better. A focus purely on volume is detrimental to your rankings and credibility. Remember, Google values the quality and relevance of backlinks over sheer volume. One high-quality backlink from an authoritative website has more impact on rankings than multiple low-quality backlinks. Be sure to focus on building relationships with authoritative and relevant sources for impactful link acquisition. 2. Don’t: Neglect the relevance of linked content While acquiring backlinks from any source may be tempting, this harms your website’s credibility and rankings. Building links from irrelevant websites can undermine your site’s credibility and rankings. For example, if you operate a law firm, acquiring backlinks from technology blogs or travel websites may not be as beneficial as securing links from legal publications or industry-specific directories. 3. Don’t: Publish thin content In the quest for more content, many are tempted to publish thin or low-quality pieces to drive frequency over quality. Google and other search engines won’t reward content that isn’t valuable to visitors. Instead, be sure to focus on creating high-quality, informative, and engaging content that addresses the needs and interests of your audience. The quality of your content is more impactful for your visitors and rankings over poor content publishing more frequently. Remember to conduct thorough research, provide unique insights, and ensure your content is original, well-written and well-structured. Use surveys to gather your own data and provide insights that are easy to digest or provide a different point of view."

A content pillar is a comprehensive topic or theme that serves as the foundation of your content strategy. It represents a key area of expertise for a brand or individual and underpins the creation of various pieces of content that relate back to this central theme. Content pillars are designed to provide value to the target audience, establishing authority and trust in a specific domain. Content pillars are not static; they evolve as your audience's interests shift, new trends emerge, and your business goals change. Therefore, maintaining and updating your content pillars is crucial for staying relevant and engaging to your audience. When is the right time to pivot your content pillars, and how do you identify that moment? This question challenges the balance between consistency in your content strategy and the need to adapt to changing market dynamics or audience preferences. How can you ensure that your updated content pillars resonate with both new and existing audiences without alienating either group? This addresses the challenge of evolving your content strategy while retaining the core audience that contributed to your platform's growth. In the process of updating content pillars, how do you measure the impact on your SEO and overall content visibility? This question focuses on the practical aspects of content strategy adjustments and their effects on search engine rankings and user engagement.

This is one of my biggest pet peeves as a new user. If I have to wait more than 3 to 5 minutes to get my account approved, I'm probably never coming back.

The pratfall effect is a psychological phenomenon where blunders can actually enhance a person's (or brand's) likability. Did you used to love ordering takeout pizza from Domino's? Fourteen years ago, the CEO of Domino’s Pizza starred in their 'Pizza Turnaround' marketing campaign. The commercials embraced the criticism of their pizza at the time (it was bland! it tasted like cardboard!) and promised to fix the problem. He openly admitted their product wasn't up to par and pledged to fix it. This honesty not only humanized the brand but also won over customers. Can we apply this principle to managing our online communities? Have you ever thought about openly acknowledging the shortcomings of your community platform or strategy? Could this transparency foster stronger trust and loyalty among members? What's the line between being relatably imperfect and unprofessionally flawed? How can we ensure that our admissions of imperfection don't backfire? This idea isn't about glorifying mistakes, but rather about embracing authenticity in a world that often demands perfection. It's about turning 'oops' into opportunities and using candor to strengthen the bonds within our communities.

Do you mean offering RSS feeds, or do you mean ingesting RSS Feeds and displaying them in your forums?

This is definitely a challenge for most individual community owners, where we only have limited time. There are tools to help you auto-post and craft different pieces of items for the different platforms, which is something I do want to eventually explore.

I've come to the realization that forums (and forum developers) won't evolve. They make forums. They will always make forums. And while they may add some features here and there, fundamentally they will never make the evolutionary jump to another kind of platform. What does that mean for forum owners?

So much of the inherent design of reports and member actions are punitive: they're designed to punish the user. You ban the user, you suspend the user, you send an alert. These are heavy handed actions that don't incorporate remediation. It's swift justice, without giving the user the opportunity to present their side. This is hard. A new user, or a member who is not aware of the social norms of the community, can make an honest mistake but a moderator moving fast can misconstrue a statement. It's also much easier to one-click suspend or ban than to reach out, identify specific parts of the community guidelines that were broken, and to provide a chance for a rebuttal. How many times did you write something well intended, and the community moderator took a heavy handed action against you? In an ideal community, what would be some features that you'd like to see that are proactive and / or restorative? What are features that are designed to lead to healthier discussions and social norms? For example: - Moderators can flag a topic as Sensitive, which will force a reminder box before any reply remind users of community guidelines. - Make it easier to identify new users or members who have not recently visited. - Present guidelines in a better, simpler manner What else?

In the real world, there is a separation of civic duties to ensure checks and balances. No one person does everything. The cops catch you, the judge gives out punishment, etc. In online communities that are small or tightly-run, there is usually only one admin or one moderator. This person does all of the above: they investigate the report, confirm the level of punishment, and doles out the punishment. While this is extremely efficient from administering all of the individual tasks, it overweights the decisions (which are can be snap judgements made in the moment). Have you thought about a separation of duties, where one person reviews the reports, but another person independently gives out the punishment?

Forums are often compared to social networking sites, often in the context of, "are forums dying??" There's a nuance between all of these different platforms, where: Forums are based on discussions around topics Social Networking sites are based on connections around people Social Sharing and Broadcasting is based on publishing content This is not to say that your community can't contain flavors of all three. For example, one of the strengths of IPS is it's multiple applications where you can use Pages or Courses or a third party Video app for Social Sharing and Broadcasting to publish information to others, while using Forums for social discussion. Do you have a mix of all three on your site, do you only focus on one of these, and how do you think you can competitively position yourself against other platforms?

Features this topic. Good luck with your sale!

https://www.shopify.com/blog/most-popular-social-media-platforms By all accounts, TikTok and Snapchat have been exploding for the last couple of years - short form video.

This is such a good topic, so thank you for opening it up for discussion. I would actually argue that most independent and hobbyist admins don't look enough at analytics. There's a certain rigor and discipline that comes from consistently checking analytics, when most independent forum admins tend to 'do whatever and whenever and if I have time.' Analytics can help you confirm whether or not your community objectives and tactics are yielding results - I don't try to aim for specific metrics, I think it's more important to see if those metrics are trending in the right direction. You also don't need to look at ALL metrics, or to obsess over it. I pick one or two key metrics that align with what I'm trying to push on for that period of time (eg. if I'm building a new resource section, I'd like to see that there are actually new resources being added, there are people viewing those resources or interacting with those resources, etc) I'm a big believer - both in my professional life and in running a community as a side project - of the following quote:

I've definitely watched interviews via YouTube Live Stream, so it's doable. You may just need to learn how to configure it, since Youtube isn't normally for interviews. Good luck with the project!