What do you think?
Rate this book
Managing Online Forums: Everything You Need to Know to Create and Run Successful Community Discussion Boards
Every day, millions of users log on to their favorite online forums, communities and social spaces and interact with others to get advice and discuss everything from the latest news and trends to their hobbies and professions to whatever else strikes their fancy. Administrators have to lead these communities, deal with difficult users, manage staff members and make tough decisions.
Legal constraints, spammers and technical issues can turn the excitement of running an online community into chaos. With the right guidance, however, running forums can be an enjoyable and rewarding experience. My name is Patrick O’Keefe and I own the iFroggy Network. I’ve spent years developing and managing online communities. In this book, I share my experiences in a straight forward, honest fashion and show you how to make the right decisions about every aspect of your forums, including:
• Creating an organizational structure
• Designing and launching your community
• Deciding on user options like avatars and private messaging
• Promoting and attracting members
• Utilizing technology to your benefit
• Developing and enforcing guidelines
• Choosing and managing moderators
• Shutting down users who disrupt and harm the community
• Involving your users and keeping the site interesting and inviting
• Generating revenue
What is talked about in this book is not hypothetical – it consists of in use, battle-tested theories and solutions, making it so that when you must deal with these issues on your forums, you will be better equipped. Real life examples are cited throughout, including the actual user guidelines, staff member guidelines and more, from real communities.
This is a book for both new administrators and experienced ones. If you are new, it will give you a major boost as you grow your knowledge and build your community. If you are already an administrator that’s leading a successful community, the book can enhance your knowledge and give you more to think about and, with that, even more experience for you to pull from.
“Managing Online Forums” is the one book that shows site owners and administrators how to create a safe and entertaining community that users will return to again and again.
Legal constraints, spammers and technical issues can turn the excitement of running an online community into chaos. With the right guidance, however, running forums can be an enjoyable and rewarding experience. My name is Patrick O’Keefe and I own the iFroggy Network. I’ve spent years developing and managing online communities. In this book, I share my experiences in a straight forward, honest fashion and show you how to make the right decisions about every aspect of your forums, including:
• Creating an organizational structure
• Designing and launching your community
• Deciding on user options like avatars and private messaging
• Promoting and attracting members
• Utilizing technology to your benefit
• Developing and enforcing guidelines
• Choosing and managing moderators
• Shutting down users who disrupt and harm the community
• Involving your users and keeping the site interesting and inviting
• Generating revenue
What is talked about in this book is not hypothetical – it consists of in use, battle-tested theories and solutions, making it so that when you must deal with these issues on your forums, you will be better equipped. Real life examples are cited throughout, including the actual user guidelines, staff member guidelines and more, from real communities.
This is a book for both new administrators and experienced ones. If you are new, it will give you a major boost as you grow your knowledge and build your community. If you are already an administrator that’s leading a successful community, the book can enhance your knowledge and give you more to think about and, with that, even more experience for you to pull from.
“Managing Online Forums” is the one book that shows site owners and administrators how to create a safe and entertaining community that users will return to again and again.
- GenresNonfiction
320 pages, Paperback
First published April 10, 2008
16 people are currently reading
60 people want to read
About the author
Patrick O'Keefe
2 books10 followersPatrick O'Keefe is the founder of the iFroggy Network, a publisher of websites. He has been managing online communities since 2000 and is the author of "Managing Online Forums," a practical guide to managing online communities and social spaces. Patrick blogs about online community at ManagingCommunities.com and hosts the Community Signal podcast.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
May 14, 2011
The book delivers what the title suggests. As someone who managed forums for an open source community software project I can say that I would have benefited from reading this earlier. The book focuses on examples from vBullitin and phpBB and might have benefited more from consideration of a range of other platforms (things like BBpress and or Vanilla forums). With that said, the focus of the book is not really on specific software as much as it is on general principles. The book does a particularly nice job of laying out concrete examples of interactions between users. For those unfamiliar with web forums the book does a nice job of explaining a lot of key terminology.
September 12, 2008
Patrick does a great job of giving you all the details you need to create a successful online forum, from the why to the excruciatingly detailed how. Some chapters are good reference, but definitely read the first half before you create your own forums. I wish I had!
December 8, 2010
I didn't read this book from cover to cover. But I read what I needed to read. Even if one is using a different online discussion site/platform from the one in the book, one can always apply the general guidelines prescribed. Useful? Yes.
April 6, 2010
The title of this book accurately reflects what you will find in its covers. I'm sure it would be an excellent guide for anyone setting up an on line forum. I was reading it for another purpose.
I didn't learn a lot from this book as I have no intention of managing an online forum. In the absence of books on how to operate Blackboard online sites, I read this kind of book hoping to glean a few new ideas. Therefore I could afford to skip the sections in this book on managing staff and making money.
The book did clarify my thinking that a successful Blackboard site needs equal attention to promotion and keeping the content interesting. His ideas were not new to me but confirmed that our own thinking on these issues is along the right lines.
Patrick O'Keefe also pointed out the pitfalls of creating personae and artificial participants to create the illusion that a lot of people are using the site or to disguise the fact that you are single handedly producing all the content. This certainly influenced my decision not to engage in this practice.
Other than an admonition to keep content up to date and interesting, he had no suggestions on how to gauge what was interesting nor on where to generate the new content. I am aware that on my Blackboard site I am writing for an adolescent audience and I am finding it difficult to find topics which engage their attention.
When it come to promotion so many of his ideas aren't applicable to our situation. We don't have a budget for on line advertising and we are a closed community. Nor can we adopt methods which can increase the chances that our website will appear at the top of a Google search.
What was a particularly good feature was his chapter headings and the summaries of each chapter in his conclusions. These made it easier to target relevant content and sieve out the rest.
I didn't learn a lot from this book as I have no intention of managing an online forum. In the absence of books on how to operate Blackboard online sites, I read this kind of book hoping to glean a few new ideas. Therefore I could afford to skip the sections in this book on managing staff and making money.
The book did clarify my thinking that a successful Blackboard site needs equal attention to promotion and keeping the content interesting. His ideas were not new to me but confirmed that our own thinking on these issues is along the right lines.
Patrick O'Keefe also pointed out the pitfalls of creating personae and artificial participants to create the illusion that a lot of people are using the site or to disguise the fact that you are single handedly producing all the content. This certainly influenced my decision not to engage in this practice.
Other than an admonition to keep content up to date and interesting, he had no suggestions on how to gauge what was interesting nor on where to generate the new content. I am aware that on my Blackboard site I am writing for an adolescent audience and I am finding it difficult to find topics which engage their attention.
When it come to promotion so many of his ideas aren't applicable to our situation. We don't have a budget for on line advertising and we are a closed community. Nor can we adopt methods which can increase the chances that our website will appear at the top of a Google search.
What was a particularly good feature was his chapter headings and the summaries of each chapter in his conclusions. These made it easier to target relevant content and sieve out the rest.
September 12, 2008
This is a great book if you are considering setting up an online forum. It provides pros/cons, etc.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews