As administrators, sometimes we can get a little too bogged down by the actual management of the forums, i.e. the stuff that happens behind the scenes and keeps the community running smoothly and on track. This aspect of our job is very, very important and should not be neglected.

However, an important part of running your forums is being visible on them. You want your members to know you. Be human, be involved – joke around, have fun if it’s in your nature and allow others to have fun – within your guidelines. Allowing your members to become familiar with you gives them the opportunity to see you as a real person and not just as an authority figure or a machine. This can lead to them being more responsive to you and respectful of you.

This goes for your staff members, as well. Part of being a staff member is participating. Your staff members should generally be ideal members before you invite them to join your team. And, once they come on board, they should continue to set an example that all members can follow through their own respectful, productive and kind participation.

There’s no doubt that the moving and removing of posts (as well as other, general administrative functions) is vital to the success of your forums, but you and your staff can do tremendous amounts of good by setting trends, showing people how to act and what your community is all about. Being a leader isn’t just about pushing buttons behind the scenes – it’s also about being a leader where everyone can see you.

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Patrick O’Keefe is the author of “Managing Online Forums: Everything You Need to Know to Create and Run Successful Community Discussion Boards”. He blogs at ManagingCommunities.com.

Some forum owners ask what exactly “Adult Content / Obscene Content” means in our content policy. In order to protect the integrity of our advertisers (which allow this service to be free) we require all forums to contain family friendly content and appropriate for all audiences.

While not a sure test, asking questions such as: Would I be comfortable showing this content to my kids or parents? Would I be comfortable viewing this content if my boss walked up beside me? If you answered “no” to either of these questions chances are our advertisers wouldn’t be comfortable running ads on your content.

Checking with us first is a safer alternative to having your forum removed without warning.

Lets face it, when was the last time you searched on Google or Yahoo? 2 hours ago? 30 minutes? Just like these search engines can provide you with information on your favorite movie, they can also provide you with free traffic to your forum.

This is the reason behind our recent forum optimization project. Due to the overwhelming amount of content, poor link structure, and session issues, forums tend to preform worse than normal websites in search engines. Having said that, with some key optimizations and upgrades you can make those issues a thing of the past.

Thanks to a mod from phpBB SEO, as well as some in house modifications, we were able to make some key adjustments across the network which will help search engines better crawl and index your content. The result? You should see more of your pages indexed and thus more people coming to your forum.

As always, the best way to get people to your forum is through quality content. Below we’ve listed a few tips to help put search to work for you:

1) Edit your META tags - We have a custom mod in your admin panel that lets you edit your META tags. Editing these can help search engines understand what your forum is about.
2) Use a targeted header - Instead of naming your forum “The best forum ever” consider naming it “Forums for Wrestling and WWE Fanatics”
3) Be descriptive - Try to encourage your members to be more descriptive when posting a topic. Instead of “Cool thing I found” have them make the subject “Seagate Readies New Hard Drive Technology”.
4) Link to your forum - Relevant sites linking to yours not only bring a lot of traffic, but can also help with search engine.
5) Be patient - Traffic from search isn’t going to come in the first few weeks or months. It may take time but it will be worth the long term results you reap.

One ticket for One Issue
Keep tickets as targeted to one specific issue as possible. We actually prefer you opening 5 tickets than one long never-ending ticket. The longer the ticket gets, the more the next tech has to read in order to get caught up and can be frustrating to both the customer and the techs working on it.

Forum url
We installed a custom mod requiring you to enter your forum’s url when you post a ticket for a reason: We need it! Over 95% of problems are forum specific and we can’t fix it without knowing the url to your forum.

Come clean and admit it
If you messed with the cookie settings and can’t login, banned yourself, deactivated the admin account, or just have no idea what button you pressed, don’t worry about it. We’re not going to engrave your name on the forum hall of shame. We all make mistakes and admitting yours will get your problem resolved much faster.

Research
There is a goldmine of information out there that can help solve your problem. Half of forum questions can be solved by a simple Google search. As they say, GIYF! (Google is your friend).

Close the issue
When your problem is resolved, update it and say “thanks, that fixed it” so we know to close the issue. Not doing so will lead to stale tickets floating around and slowing down the support process.

The “Thank you”
After 6 years of tech support I’ve come to the conclusion that a support tech is one of the most thankless jobs in the world. Lets face it, when was the last time someone opened a ticket just wanting to say “thanks for all the hard work.” Never. Every email or ticket includes a problem that needs to be resolved and usually an agitated or frustrated user on the other end. When your ticket is resolved ending with a simple “thank you” can do wonders.