rogerd - 10:21 pm on Dec 19, 2002 (gmt 0)

Miles, I'm sure Brett will give you an idea of the time he has put into WebmasterWorld, although this site is probably far from typical both in terms of the traffic and high standards of quality.

My own experience has been that the time you need to put in depends heavily on the post volume (moderating 5 posts a day is a lot easier than moderating 500 or 5000) and the quality of the posters. If the board is about Medieval Sacred Music, you'll probably have fewer spammers, idiot posters, etc. than if it's about, say, XBox Gaming. A rigorous registration program will cut down on bad posts but may also discourage new posters.

You can enlist help, as Brett has, but that has its own management overhead.

In addition to clearing spam, obscene posts, flames, etc., you'll have to decide how much other moderation is needed. Clearly, fixing bad titles and moving posts and threads to more logical locations is a benefit to visitors, but can be very time consuming.

On the other hand, operating a good forum can be very rewarding (emotionally more than financially) - a good forum becomes a real community, with real benefits to its visitors.