Planning a Discussion Forum

Before Starting

Anyone with a basic knowledge of the Internet can start an Internet discussion forum. But, a truly successful forum web site demands an investment of careful planning and hard work. Before starting a discussion forum or message board site, consider these points.

Qualifications

You may be among the rare number who don't mind if your new forum ends up with only a few members and posts. A support forum doesn't typically seek new members in the same way a community forum might. The community model thrives on the enthusiasm of members and always seeks to initiate new ones. The heart's desire of most forum owners is that their forum site be an alive and growing community. Whichever model you plan to go with, consider your expertise and ability to communicate. Do you and your moderators have a something of genuine value to offer visitors? Are you able to express yourself well? Do you enjoy writing? Do you have a deep desire to share your knowledge and skills with others? Are you willing to commit to respond to visitors daily with thoroughness and courtesy, even when you don't feel like it?

Web Hosting

A forum can be remotely hosted or hosted on a server that you have access to. A remotely hosted forum hosts forum pages on their domain instead of one that you own. Ezboard.com is one example. Going with the remotely hosted option means you don't have to worry about researching domain host plans or making many design decisions beyond choosing from one of the available styles. Another bonus is that many remotely hosted forums are free. In most cases, anyone can sign up and create a forum or message board in minutes. The drawbacks of remotely hosted forums tend to be limited customization, slow speeds, long url's, and advertising. While newbies may be amazed at how quickly and easily they can create an online community, the hardcoded nature of remote hosts usually proves too restrictive for the experienced webmaster.

A self-hosted forum or domain-hosted forum gives you greater control over the look and feel of the site, but more importantly, it allows you to deploy the functionalities you need. Most forum software scripts are highly customizable and offer downloadable themes or templates that allow the font styles, graphics, and layout to be changed. Customization ability is especially important if you are integrating a forum into an existing site that you own.

Most forum postings consist of text, links, and maybe an avatar or signature graphic. Unless your members will be posting lots of graphic files, the server space and bandwidth demands should not be high for a self-hosted forum in the early stages. As your forum grows, keep a watchful eye on the bandwidth consumption in your server stats.

Consider what operating system (Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, etc) and web server software (Windows Server 2003, Apache, etc) you want the server to run. Most web hosts feature either a LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) or Windows solution. Make sure the web host supports the scripting language and database that you require.

Design

What software, script, or remotely hosted solution will you choose for your forum? Most forum owners elect to use one of the many existing scripts on the market rather than write their own forum code. There are many such scripts written in PHP that rely on mySQL as a backend. vBulletin, phpBB, and Invision Power Board are a few. There are also good forum software scripts written in ASP such as ASP-DEv XM and Snitz Forums 2000 and a vast number written in CGI/Perl and even some written in CFML, C, C++, Java, JSP and Python. They are likely close to 100 low cost and free remotely hosted scripts available. AnyBoard is just one example.

Assuming that you will host the discussion forum yourself or on a shared server that you can access, some early design questions to ask are:

• Will you pay for commercial software or use an open source software solution?
• What scripting language must the software be written in (PHP, ASP, CGI/Perl, etc)?
• What database system should be used as a backend (phpMySQL, Oracle, MS SQL, etc)?

Such factors as traffic volume, customization requirements, scaleablilty needs, installation and support will also be important.

Decide Forum Topics

Expect your new forum to be a lonely place at first, with maybe a few friends and your Mom stopping by to post out of sympathy. Begin with a small number of topics. When these become active and mature, develop more. A few topics with posts in the double or triple digits looks better than a vast number of single digit posts.

Set Rules

Before a discussion forum goes live, the forum owner needs to set rules that govern the types of content the members are allowed to post. This body of rules called the terms of service (TOS) or acceptable use policy (AUP) prohibits behavior such as posting solicitations or offensive language. In order to become a member, one is normally required to agree to these rules. The consequences of violating the rules must be clear. Because of the openess and public nature of discussion forums, you can bet that violators will be noticed. A forum's credibility is at stake when the rules aren't enforced.

Choose Administrators and Moderators

Most forums don't need lots of administrators and moderators in the beginning. Over time, as more new members come on board and conversation becomes active, the forum owner will need help. Administrators will be needed to enforce the terms of service, ban offenders, and lock threads. Moderators will draw from their expertise in subjects to stimulate discussions. A popular forum with thousands of members will have no problem finding candidates interested in lending their expertise. A new forum should expect to offer some kind of incentive in return for a moderator commitment.

You'll want the moderators to possess good writing skills and have a decent understanding of grammar. A good moderator can break through the boredom with a creative post that incites thoughtful conversation. Good moderators are polite, even when it hurts. At the least, moderators should be respectful of the views of other members, and respond quickly to threads that need answers.

Search Engine Optimization

A well-known fact is that search engines, including Google, often do not index forum thread url's because they consider question marks, session id's, and other characters not to be "search engine friendly." Among the remotely hosted services, this can especially be a serious obstacle to getting a forum indexed. Some remotely hosted forums, such as Board Host offer a short url feature. John Doe's forum at Board Host would look like this:

http://members.boardhost.com/john_doe/

Voy.com's free message board service url's are constructed in the same friendly fashion. Ezboard.com's url's also appear search engine friendly. Many of the individual ezboard boards have a Google PageRank, which is evidence enough that url's are friendly and being indexed by the leading search engine.

In the self-hosted or domain hosted arena, url's can be constructed to be short or search engine friendly by the forum owner. Accomplishing this usually takes a little work. Some forum owners have successfully used Apache server's mod_rewrite function to get their forum pages indexed by search engines.

Marketing a Discussion Forum

Getting new members to join your forum solely from the search engines many not be enough. If you're using a community model discussion forum, you may want to consider more aggressive methods of attracting new forum members. Some new forums like to create their own affiliate programs to introduce new visitors to join their message boards. Since forum owners may not have the time or resources to do this, they may find it easier to simply pay a fee and join an affiliate network as a merchant.

There are vast numbers of paid advertising methods to choose from. Many forum owners go with the often more efficient pay-per-click search engine advertising to target visitors who search for specific words related to their forums. For example, a PHP programming forum might bid on the keyword phrase, php forum to get their ads in front of potential visitors. This way, the forum owner only pays for traffic from visitors who have clicked on his particular ad. Some companies like Ezboard.com use Google AdWords to attract prospective members through keyword searches. Whatever methods you choose to market your forum, expect months and possibly years to pass before turning your forum into a busy and energetic discussion community.