How many Webmasters of Other Forums are here

HI ,

I wanted to know how many Forum Owners(Other Forums you own) are here in this forum …

I own 2 Forums … both running on MyBB Forum softwares…

I made this thread so that we can discuss issues we face with our forums and help each other out…

So, why don’t you start with describing one of the issues you face as a forum owner?

  1. Spammers : The biggest issue we all webmasters face…every day there are like 10-20 registrations from spammers who try to put a link on either a Post or their profile page.
    My Solution : I have set a minimum number of posts required before posting a Link in a Post or in the profile website. Also I have added a Random security question which is related to our forums.:slight_smile:

Yes There is a decrease…in spam posts but registrations still continue…now i come to know with their usernames that they are spams…

While going around on this forum i found a known spammer who has joined here recently…will not post the username as i am not sure…but am sending u a PM with my doubt about why i feel he/she is a spammer…though she has not yet posted a link neither here nor on my forum :slight_smile:

Yes, that’s definitely a big problem. And spam bots don’t care about minimum requirements, they spam anyway. Do you notice a decrease of spam with these requirements?

Hello,

I actually don’t have any forum on my own. But I am a members of some forums, And one of the forum I joined for almost 4 months? I think, was get to the point of sincerely saying to the users that they are struggling to make things ok for the forum, because of the fact that the forum was attack by so many spammers and I do think that also some hackers because as of now the forums I am telling today was unable to reach because of some harmful malware.

“spam bots”
and hackers are all big enemies of forum administrators.

Please read my question…my friend…I do not want answers i want other Forum owners to get on this thread and help each others issues…so inshort…i want forum owners to discuss their issues here…:slight_smile:

I have a very quiet phpBB2 forum. It was so aggravating to get such a high SPAM to post ratio that I started taking away incentives - then started putting up progressively more aggressive hurdles. It wasn’t until I blocked anonymous proxies that the SPAM stopped.

Of course doing something this drastic depends on how much SPAM you’re willing to put up with vs. potentially blocking legit registrations and posts.

I am a webmaster of an English website related with construction machinery. Actually, it is the website of our company, i don’t own one of myself. I don’t think i have enough energy to manage another website, since one has drained up all my energy.

I run various forums myself. have started the one in my signature 6 weeks ago. Always loved running forums, can’t say I find another type of a site that’s more fun. I also run blogs, but forums work better for me. The biggest issue is with spammers, but these can be stopped too

Second Issue most of us face is getting genuine members posting valuble content and posts to our community…we can drive few friends from here and there like other community,facebook,twitter etc…but u should have a crowd which actually is dedicated to posting…

I own a semi-active custom forum.

My biggest challenge, by far, is deciding which content to allow and which content to delete. I run a sports handicapping forum where a lot of people post nothing but their picks or things like “thanks”. I delete all of those posts because I only want quality posts. The problem is that people are constantly pushing the edge by making their posts shorter and shorter, with worse and worse grammar, and by allowing one questionable post I’m starting a slippery slope. It’s insanely hard to figure out where to draw the line.

I only get 30-50 quality posts per day, so it’s really tough to stand my ground and delete content that I don’t deem helpful when I know I could easily have 200 posts per day if I was lax about things.

Ohh can we talk about this?

but these can be stopped too

I’ve run a gaming forum since 2004. I’ve used phpBB2, SMF and now back using phpBB3 which is by far the best one yet. I’ve had massive issues with spam in the past, in fact the only real reason I have changed software is because of forum spam. @Mittineague, definitely upgrade to phpBB3. It’s not that hard! it’s scary at first but you get use to it :wink: They have in-bilt functionality to allow custom sign up fields which are great at stopping spam. (TBH I’ve thought about just blocking China completely, too harsh? illegal? don’t know!)

Recently I’ve had issues with new members not getting along with a very old member of the forum. The way he comes across to noobs can be “stand-offish”, this often happens with older members as they have seen it all and get tired of the same old questions. Has anyone come up with sensitive ways to tackle this issue? I’m sure it comes up a lot around here :slight_smile:

Boosting activity: any tips? it’s not always easy is it! I find it comes in spurts when new members flood in. The oldies get up and start talking. I know a lot of members come to the forum daily but they just don’t say anything or reply that often. What are some incentives you use? has to be some cheap tricks other than post count and “title”.

I’ve not heard a forum of my own but i’ve been a Super Moderator in most forums. It brings out the best in me and makes me meet new people which is why i love it. I do check out the contents of the forum before signing up. One thing that pisses me off in forums are spammers; which is popular and scammers. I just can’t tolerate both of them. If am a moderator in the forum, i give them INSTANT BAN. I just cant understand why some people are to lazy to get their own traffic.

The real big issue is the nasty spammers. I hate these guys. They waste lot of our time. We have a busy forum. Weeding out these spammy idiots take good amount of time. I have limits for posting links. I moderate each registration. I have random questions when people sign up. Still… these spammers keep on trying to register. I have just no idea what these guys are gaining because we would never activate their registrations.

I tried a miniBB forum setup and had to constantly increase the security settings making it harder and harder to sign up in order to block all the spam.

When I set up a BBpress forum instead I had no spam issues at all with just the default settings.