AWS

I'm looking into it. I had to remove the threadsso I can investigate what happened.

So you want to be a forum admin. You bought or are using free software. You picked a niche you are familiar with. You're all set to make the big step to owning your own community. Here are some tips to help you along. Being a forum admin requires a combination of skills, responsibilities, and personal attributes. Technical Skills: Familiarity with forum software (e.g., phpBB, vBulletin, Discourse). Basic understanding of HTML, CSS, and possibly some programming languages. Knowledge of database management. Moderation Skills: Ability to enforce rules and guidelines fairly. Conflict resolution skills to handle disputes between users. Monitoring discussions to ensure a positive environment. Communication Skills: Clear and effective communication with users. Ability to convey decisions and changes in policies transparently. Time Commitment: Regularly monitoring the forum and responding to user inquiries. Dedication to maintaining the community, which may require daily involvement. Community Engagement: Encouraging user participation and fostering a sense of community. Organizing events or discussions to keep the forum active. Problem-Solving Skills: Quick thinking to address issues or technical problems as they arise. Ability to adapt to changing situations and user needs. Understanding of Community Guidelines: Knowledge of the forum's rules and the ability to enforce them consistently. Patience and Empathy: Understanding users' perspectives and providing support when needed. Patience in dealing with difficult situations or users. Being a forum admin can be rewarding, but it also comes with challenges, requiring a balance of authority and approachability. Hope this gives you some insight to what it takes to be a forum admin.

Thanks.Still a little work to be done.

Yes he did. I knew if I converted I'd use one of his skins.

Current Projects - October 2024 Welcome to our second edition of Current Projects, a monthly newsletter about what we’re currently working on at Discourse. Your questions and feedback are welcome! Kicking off Composer redesign Our composer redesign project is still in its early stages, but we’re getting closer to defining our design direction and choosing the libraries that we’ll be building upon. After evaluating our options, three contenders bubbled to the top: Lexical, ProseMirror, and TipTap. We did some earlier prototyping with Lexical, but ProseMirror looks compelling, and its recent adoption by some larger projects addresses some of our earlier concerns about it. We are currently working on a prototype based on ProseMirror to validate some assumptions we have about what that integration would look like. A new look and feel config page Our work on a new theme chooser is evolving into a slightly larger project to create a more streamlined config page in the admin interface for customizing the look abd feel of a Discourse site. In addition to giving admins on new sites an easier and more visual way to choose from a small set of selected themes, we’ll also be looking at how sites configure theme components, color schemes, and related settings. We are close to landing an initial pull request for this new page, which will remain hidden until it is in a state where we’re ready to roll it out more widely. In full swing Admin interface design consistency We’ve arrived at some new patterns for the design of config pages within the admin interface, that group related sites settings and other configuration together in on applying our new guidelines to the pages we’ve recently added for the new about page and custom user fields. Switching our hosted plans to browser page view metrics We’re working on rolling out our new page view metrics for our hosted plans, and updating plan limits accordingly, so that traffic from bots and crawlers will no longer be counted as page views towards a site’s usage, relieving site admins of the responsibility to manage that traffic. Simplifying invites We’re making invites more discoverable and simplifying some of the more common flows for inviting users. AI summaries for hot topics We’re still in the thick of our work to add an experimental feature to allow sites to include short summaries of topics on the hot topic list itself. We’re close to landing an initial change to allow topics to store multiple types of summaries, each using a different prompt. New full screen pages for signup and login We’re following up on our earlier improvements to signup and login and changing these screens from modals to full screen pages. We’ve merged this new feature behind the experimental_full_page_login feature flag for backwards compatibility with existing themes that customize these screens while they make updates to be compatible with the new pages. Ability to limit where Personas can interact and which LLMs they can use We’re working on a change to limit where individual AI personas can interact and which LLMs they can use. This enables you to create more limited personas that are available to larger groups of members while managing costs. A more extensible topic list We’re continuing to work on a new topic list implementation with a focus on extensibility developer experience. We have been testing this internally since May and our next goal is to be in a state where we can start testing the new implementation on Meta. We are in the process of updating many themes and plugins to use new APIs, in order to take that next step towards rolling it out more widely, Wrapping up New about page design We recently shipped a new design for the about page behind a feature flag. We’re still tidying up a few loose ends but will soon be unconditionally switching sites over to the new design. Learn more… Allowing chat threads in direct messages We’ve added the ability to turn on threading in chat direct messages, to enable more structured conversations among small groups when they need it. Switching themes and plugins from yarn to pnpm Following up on our recent work to switch core over from yarn to pnpm, which brings gains in speed and storage requirements for building Discourse, we’ve been doing the same within all of the themes and plugins that we maintain. Add upload support to custom AI tools Custom AI tools now support uploaded documents, and an API to search them, enabling you to create tools with access to additional knowledge for retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) that multiple personas can access. Ability to flag and hide posts as spam with AI triage automation We’ve added the ability to flag posts as spam with the AI triage automation, which also hides the post automatically. Previously, we only allowed individual posts to be sent to the review queue or entire topics to be hidden. 1 post - 1 participant Read full topic View the full article

You built your site. You're ready for the users to flock to the site. Next step to get the users to your site is to do some marketing and on SEO. Here are some effective SEO and marketing tips to enhance your online presence: SEO Tips Keyword Research: Use tools like Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs, or SEMrush to identify relevant keywords for your niche. Focus on long-tail keywords for better targeting. On-Page SEO: Optimize title tags, meta descriptions, and headers with your target keywords. Use alt tags for images and ensure your content is easily readable. Quality Content: Create high-quality, informative, and engaging content that addresses user intent. Update your content regularly to keep it fresh and relevant. Mobile Optimization: Ensure your website is mobile-friendly, as Google prioritizes mobile-first indexing. Page Speed: Optimize images, leverage browser caching, and minimize JavaScript to improve loading times. Backlinks: Build high-quality backlinks from reputable sites to improve your domain authority. Marketing Tips Social Media Engagement: Use platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn to engage with your audience. Share valuable content and interact with followers to build a community. Email Marketing: Build an email list and send regular newsletters with valuable content and promotions. Use segmentation to tailor your messages to different audience groups. Content Marketing: Create blogs, videos, infographics, and podcasts to attract and educate your audience. Utilize storytelling to make your content more relatable. Analytics and Tracking: Use tools like Google Analytics to track user behavior and measure the effectiveness of your campaigns. Adjust your strategies based on data insights. Paid Advertising: Consider pay-per-click (PPC) advertising on platforms like Google Ads and social media to reach a larger audience. A/B test your ads to determine what resonates best with your audience. Networking and Partnerships: Collaborate with influencers or other brands to expand your reach and credibility. Implementing these tips can help improve your SEO rankings and enhance your overall marketing strategy.

There are certain things you can do to generate traffic and convert them to users. Content is the driving factor that got the users to your community. Now that they are there you want them to register and stay. Creating engaging forum content is a way your keep users coming back and involves several strategies. Here are some effective ways to generate content for a forum: Discussion Threads: Start or participate in discussions on trending topics relevant to your forum's niche. Ask open-ended questions to encourage responses. Informative Posts: Share tutorials, how-to guides, or informative articles that provide value to the community. Break down complex topics into easy-to-understand posts. User-Generated Content: Encourage members to share their experiences, stories, or opinions. Host contests or challenges that motivate users to create content. Polls and Surveys: Create polls to gauge opinions on specific topics. This can spark further discussion. Share results and analyze them in follow-up posts. News and Updates: Post about relevant news, updates, or changes in your forum’s niche. Encourage discussions about these updates. Resource Sharing: Share links to valuable resources, tools, or articles that can help forum members. Create a "Resource of the Week" thread. Q&A Sessions: Host regular Q&A sessions where users can ask questions and share knowledge. Invite experts in the field to participate. Feedback and Suggestions: Ask for feedback on forum features or content. Create threads where users can suggest new topics or improvements. Case Studies and Success Stories: Share case studies or success stories related to your forum's focus. Encourage members to share their own stories. Themed Days: Create themed days (e.g., “Motivation Monday” or “Throwback Thursday”) to encourage specific types of posts. By implementing these strategies, you can foster a vibrant and engaging community on your forum.

With Invision Community we get new toys. I'm going to highlight a few. New forum format - You can change to the old linear format that lists all the forums. CMS New Link Directory Blog There is also a way you can change the colors of the site. Browse around, breal things and let me know what you think.

As you can see things have changed in the last few hours. I installed Invision Community on a test site. I wanted to run the importers again, I did it on the test site with a million post forums, to see if the process could be sped up. I decided to use the Forum² data as the test. Everything went smooth. I then wanted to try my hand with the styles. It turned out to be easier than xenForo using the visual editor. Once I had everything set up I checked in here to see we had no new posts since I did the import. I decided to go ahead and make the switch. I had pretty much decided to do the conversion to Invision Community when I got to play with the test site. I didn't expect to do it this fast. In any case some things are different. Your login will work. You have to use your email address or username and your current password to login. In the future the option to use a username to login may be removed. Logging in with email is more secure. If you find any bugs let me know by posting in https://www.forum-forum.com/forum/29-suggestions-bugs-feedback/ This move makes us unique. We are the only admin forum that isn't using xenForo.

I am actually throwing around the idea to migrate this site to IPB. All the other good admin forums are on xenforo. Would make it stand apart.

On man! Bad memories. I got an email from a co-admin about the site be hacked. One thing an admin never wants to hear. I went to the site and was greeted with a page that said I should pay 500 bitcoin to get the site back. I was in panic mode. WTF am going to to do. I hadn't even logged in to the server yet. I fire up RDP and log in to the server. Loaded right up. Now I'm thinking "wait a minute if my files are all encrypted why can I get into the server". I think maybe it's only the webroot. I open up webroot and can clearly see and access all the files. At that point I knew it was a scam. I still had to find out why they were able to replace the index. Upon investigating I found I had left a test site on an old vulnerable version of Wordpress public accessible. I removed it and replaced the site index. Did a security audit and all was clean. Lesson learned. Of you have old installs of anything make sure you don't leave them online.

I am seriously considering migrating this site to it. All the other admin forums are on xenForo. Be different that's for sure.

Had a ham radio forum. Sold it. Can't start another because of a lifetime NDA. Didn't see it in the contract when I sold it.

It's what they named the CMS. Very flexible and easy to work with. I created a link directory with it.

I have created 2 new user groups. They are: VIP Visiting Admin The visiting admin group is for admins from other sites that are active participants here. The VIP group is for members that actively participate in the discussions, create new topics and contribute articles. Members promoted to this group will get extra privileges and get a shiny badge to denote that they are indeed VIP's. If you have any questions I'll answer them.

I would like to start a community forum built on Invision Community v5. I have the license and the servers. What is needed is the topic for the forum and the domain. I did this once before when I was an admin at TAZ. We created a general discussion forum. It was very popular and when we closed it it had over a millions posts. I think a talented group of admins like the ones we have here could build a great community. Let's use this thread to brainstorm and come up with a topic and domain. Who wants to join me?

I upgraded one of my legacy licenses so I could access the beta. After browsing a few sites that have the beta installed I am going to install it with the idea that I will move to it once v5 is gold. If the beta proves as stable as v3 and v4 were when they were beta I might go ahead and move to it right away. I upgraded Admin Addict to v3 and v4 beta before I converted to xenforo when I acquired Admin Talk. Might step out of the box again. I am not easily impressed by much. I am very impressed with what I see so far. One of the major things I like is you get all products instead of having to buy each module. This also includes the payment processing app. If I wanted to sell products I don't need an addon. You get blog, gallery, pages, events and others. Pages is awesome. I used it to build a site that I sold in the early days of 3.0 when it was first released. I can't wait to see what the new version is like. So look for a site built on with Invision Community v5 soon. I will probably start a new site with. Have to do some brainstorming for a topic.

I have them blocked now too. It looks like the Russians have moved to Germany. Seeing a lot of registrations from there.

Your site has proved to stand the test of time. I remember when you first opened it. Good admins make things last. You've proved to one of the good ones.

Most of the ones I remember are not seen any longer. I am not sure what happened to them. At some point some of them will find it. I think we had 1 user already find us from an old bookmark.

On 2 of my forums a joke of the day thread was the best I started. On one site I started the thread with a joke. 10 years later it's still going. It's a unique concept. You post a joke and other do the same. No replies are allowed. If someone replies they get post to the wall of shame. It's really unique.

Invision all the way. In fact depending on what v5 looks and feels like I might migrate some of the sites. I am a legacy customer so renewal prices are pretty good. Even if they're only good for 6 months. I activated 1 license already to see how it would do while importing a large amount of data. Came through without a hitch.

I have IPB v4 installed as a test site. I am looking forward to v5 too.

I tried to buy the original Forum². Thread about it is here. When I sold Admin Talk I had a 5 year no compete. I always knew I'd start another. I started this originally on the domain forum4m.com. Had real life issues come up and left it sit unmaintained. I decided now was the time to start a new admin forum. I am a member of every admin forum. I like to share the knowledge I built through the years. I started my first forum before there was any software for forums. Learned a lot and am still learning.

Since the site was opened I've had a number of users register from Russia. I've seen this before with users from India. They would register and let the account remain idle for a few weeks. Then they would come back and post a boatload of spam. Spam filters would catch most. Some would get through. I'm seeing the same thing with members registering from Russia. Is anyone else seeing a high number of users registering from Russia?