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Howdy folks, Shawn here. Shawn Gossman. Joined in 2010... WOW! 2010? I was 26! :o I'm 40 now. Crazy. Anyways, I'm back! AWS linked here on my forum (it's just another admin forum lol) and I love admin forums, so here I am :) 40, married male, live in Southern Illinois Thanks for having me...again!

I agree with that. A community manager role would be good for this on a forum, but as the forum grows bigger, the CM could appoint mentors and change their role to lead them.

There is a definite need for forum mentors. People that will guide a new user along. Most people that join a community either don't post because they are intimidated or because they are shy. If there were mentor who's job it was to message the new user and get them involved communities would thrive.

I'm a big beleiver in tags. I add them to every thread I start. I've got much traffic from them.

They caught a lot of grief from vbulletin users at the start. Everyone said they stole the vbulletin code. John Percival the fater of vbulletin dispelled that rumor. Problem was he waited to do it until he coukld audit the code. He was in the process of developing 2.0. mybb survived and that's a good thing. They have never wavered from what they do.

If a feature is disabled there is no strain extra strain on the server. Files are there, but, you could remove them. In IPB there is an option when you disable the module to remove it. I think vbulletin is the same. They don't load. I was always in favor of everything included with no addons. It works seemlessy and built by the main devs.

As you can see from the site stats we have just over 1000 posts. We have over 29,000 members. How did that happen? I originally put this site online after I sold Admin Addict in 2010. It got a good start. Unfortunatley wheile getting my yearly checkup the doc found a tumor in my bladder. It turned out to be benigh so I dodged a bullet. Because this happened I decided websites had to go on the backburner while I tened better to my health. Drinking a partying had to go. I lost the original domain right before I cut my online presence down. It sat as a subdomain on Admin Addict and then Admin Zone. After this thread https://anotheradminforum.com/threads/entering-a-saturated-forum-niche.98/ I found that this site was still online and decided to open it. So to answer the question as to how we have 29,000+ members. The site was online and forgotten about for 14 years. Registration has always been on with no email validation so the spammers registered like crazy. When I upgraded it and went into the admin there was almost 50,000 spam posts in the spam queue. So you see Google will find your site even if it is unmaintained.

Me and you are a lot alike! When I left forums for a while it was because I was in pain, a drunk, and extremely depressed. It took a long, hard, and dark road to get me out of all that. The outdoors is what saved me. But I find it funny that people kept joining while the forum just waited around for you to come back -- if only it was a bunch of active members who policed themselves and you came back to a self-created big board. All of a sudden, they're like, who's this AWS guy LOL.

Very good tips.

I have updated the software to the latest version of xenForo version 2.3.3. If you find any bugs let me know.

Lets all welcome https://www.forum-forum.com/members/shawn.10/ to the team. He is our first super moderator. Welcome Shawn.

Thank you! I look forward to it :)

Nice re-introdution.

I just want to update this. LOL. I still have a lot of websites LOL some things never change!!! I don't do weather websites anymore. I'm pretty good at marketing and SEO now. I have a hiking blog and getting my posts on Google page one isn't that hard anymore. I'm still a male... I'm not 25 :( I'm 40. I still live in Southern Illinois. I'm still a county boy, but a married one! I don't chase storms anymore and thankfully I don't coal mine anymore. I work in investigations. Now I hike and bike quite a bit.

It has pretty much everything. In fact the other forum makers should take a look at what they did in the last couple years.

A few years ago there was a proposal to Icann to create .forum top level domains. It took forever and now they are available. I have a 3 of them: https://computerhelp.forum https://freepchelp.forum https://offtopic.forum I was sceptical at first and bought those 3 because I lost the domains the sites were on when I was ill. They were cheap, $4.95 each so I thought why not. Those domains have been online now for almost 6 months. I will say this Google loves the .forum domains. Those sites get almost double the traffic that old sites on .com domains got. If those visitors would only convert to active users. I can dream. What you think about the .forum doamins and all the other lesser known top level domains? Oh, I also have a .online and .tech site, but, that's for another thread.

.info has a bad rep for being spammers paridise. Most SE won't even list them. They have cleaned up there act. They used to be free so spammers took full advantage. I think they now cost money. damage was done. The other new top level domains learned their lesson from watching what happened to .info domains. Most of them are very cheap, but, very cheap is still too much for spammers and scammers.

LOL. Technology is great unless you don't know how to use it.

In my 20s I thought of myself as an expert, in my 40s? I'm a newbie LOL My 18 year old is still showing me how to use my iPhone LOL

Forum software remained stagnate for a long time. The linear interface is a dinosaur. These packages are starting to change that. Here are some of the newer software packages: Discourse: A modern, open-source discussion platform that offers features like real-time notifications and mobile responsiveness. Flarum: A lightweight, open-source forum software that emphasizes simplicity and ease of use. Vanilla: Another lightweight package that has the more modern look. If you know of any other new style forum packages let us know.

I feel like I remember my first forum being a perl script. Shortly after that, someone told me about PhpBB.

:o I want to say that's higher than I'm willing to pay but in reality, I am working on a paid community on Circle and it's $100 a month.

Yes it's still downloadable. New license is like $499 with $199 renewal. I am a legacy customer so I still get access to new versions and pay old renewal prices. I got a message in the client area to upgrade my licenses to the new classic license at a lower cost of $199 with renewals at $99 every 6 months. I declined and paid $25 to upgrade the license on the test site.

Yes they did. I had my visual basic forum on it before I converted it to vbulletin. The users actauuly liked it better than vbulletin.

And what's crazy is Vanilla, I think, has been around for a long time, but they went modern really early.

It took me a minute to figure out categories and boards. It came default with a "Forums" category and one board under it. They call it channel, I call it board LOL. But I had to create a secondary category under Forums to make the category name show up on index and then child forums under the categories. So, like three deep to get a board to display under a visible category. That took me about a half hour to figure out. It's lacking some feature. Security questions, likes, etc. I figured vb would already have that TBH to compete with XF.

Invision Power Board (IPB) is a popular forum software that provides a robust platform for community engagement. Here are some key impressions and features of IPB: User-Friendly Interface: IPB offers a clean and modern design, making it easy for users to navigate and engage with content. Customization: The platform allows extensive customization options, enabling users to modify themes, layouts, and functionalities to suit their community's needs. Mobile Responsiveness: IPB is designed to be mobile-friendly, ensuring that users can access forums from various devices seamlessly. Built-in SEO Features: It includes tools that help optimize forum content for search engines, improving visibility and attracting more users. Rich Community Features: IPB supports various community-building features, such as user profiles, private messaging, and notifications, enhancing user interaction. Security: The platform emphasizes security, with regular updates and features like two-factor authentication to protect user accounts. Integration Options: IPB can integrate with various applications and services, allowing for expanded functionality, such as e-commerce and social media integration. Support and Documentation: Users have access to extensive documentation and community support, making it easier to troubleshoot issues and learn about new features. Overall, Invision Power Board is a powerful tool for building and managing online communities, suitable for both small forums and large-scale networks.

I'm enjoying it myself. It took me a minute to figure out how to add new forums. Channels are different than nodes. But once I got that out of the way, I started picking up on everything pretty quickly.

Yes it is. Contact me with an offer.

Hey Shawn, good to see you here.:)

Alright Ladies And Gentlemen, Here is a tip on Managing your Staff. 1.Give them Tasks so they can complete during the week. 2.Make sure they are taking care of the members and Monitoring there post quality and how well they treat there members. 3.Make sure they complete those task,Hey its just like a real job if you don't do it you will get a warning you know. 4.make sure they are not to hard on the members everyone slips up here and now. 5.make sure you have group/staff meeting monthly/weekly so you can discuss whats going on around the forum. 6 OH yeah make sure your staff is happy to a happy group of staff members will always have your back no matter what