Forum Moderators: phranque
Opera has operated a set of large Usenet format news groups for several years. There are somewhere around 50k messages - about half the size of WebmasterWorld. I wrote the following in response to thief new setup and I thought you may find it enjoyable to read.
I've been involved in many forums and operated bulletin board
systems. I'm not an expert, just experienced.
This is feedback - if you can use it, great - if not, that's fine too. (eg: I'm not looking for a debate).
Forums that are successful and encourage higher levels of discourse are forums that put the focus on user messages. Given Opera's past here in Usenet, I think there is a clear history of experienced and more informed users than the general web populace. There are some fairly high quality posts that come through here. I would hope that one of the prime goals of a web based forum system would be to continue that tradition.
The biggest problem I have found with building forums for software producers is that management feels they are support entities. They fail to recognize that forums for a could be a tool of promotion first, and support second. The usual percentages are 80% support, and 20% promotion. If you flip that expectation around, some interesting possibilities open up.
As support vehicles, they tend bog down customer support due to ever increasing demands for support. As promotion tools, they can have actual ROI. The difference in resource expenditure between the two "charters" is significant. A forum created and operated for support purposes alone can exponentially demand more time and resources. Customers begin to expect their answers will be answered. Users end up skipping the documentation and all other avenues for the instant gratification of a "help me" message. We see a great deal of that already here in the Opera Usenet groups with each new user.
There is a large segment of the web population who knows nothing of Usenet. A web based forum is almost mandatory. In that sense, this is two years to late. In another sense, you are experienced enough now to know the traps and pitfalls.
Leveraging a forum as a promotion tool involves focusing on that first time visitor. They will often surf in from a search engine search. Forums as search engine food represent a gold mine. There is no reason Opera should not come up first on each and every Opera related keyword on every major search engine (that is not the case now). What is already built here in Usenet is a windfall waiting to happen.
I would start by converting all of the current Usenet message database to the forum system. Difficult and time consuming -- yes -- but such as system is parked on my disk here about 85% done. I stopped the project when I heard you were working on a forum system (turned out to be a different system than I'd heard). I think a conversion would go a very long ways to giving the forums a backdrop. I would also link the to forums and usenet together. Post in one appears there - post there, appears here.
As it is now, the search engines are poaching your traffic (eg: Google newsgroups). There is a great deal of traffic coming out of the newsgroups on Google that should be going to Opera, and it isn't.
If SSI is available with Vbulletin to get static urls, then by all means use it and get rid of the telltale php dynamic extension. Make it easy for the SE's to index it. If you can't, there is little benefit for Opera software to have a forum. If you aren't going to use it as a promotion and sales tool, it's just resource expenditure. If you need to burn money like that, I'll give you my address ;-)
Vbulletin is a respectable choice. Webmasters all love it. That said, go find a forum operated on Vbulletin (other than their home forum) that has the type of quality posting we have come to expect from Opera users? It's difficult to find forums that can encourage higher levels of discussion operated on Vbulletin - very rare in fact. Most Vbulletin based systems are seen as gimmicks and toys for the -- well -- kiddie, warez, and porn crowd.
Much is the same case with Discuss. It is hugely popular with webmasters who operate them. However the general consensus from users is that they don't care for it. Almost all forums that are big hits with webmasters because of behind the scenes toys, are failures with users. Those systems that put the focus on users and user messages are the most popular and long term.
Things I've learned:
Visual Noise.
Forums that are more successful and productive (eg: actual rates of return) are those forums that put the focus on user messages. Everything about a message page needs to focus on the users messages. Everything else is just visual noise.
Vbulletin has one of the highest "noise levels" of any forum. It is why they are generally not successful and encourage low quality postings. On the opera forums, the noise level is in the extreme category. Even after reading a few threads, it is a struggle visually to see where the users messages are and what is the noise (page spam). Sure - it's easy for us that have done it forever, but you are targeting us - you want the search engine referral surfing - that's where the new users are. When they go looking for Opera information as a new user or potential customer, they are looking to get in, find their info and get out. Speed is everything. Anything that distracts them from that goal, is just noise (page spam).
The same is true for UltraBoard. It's first version was a huge success. Then they added all the page noise - the latest version has all but killed the software because users don't care for all the screen noise.
Height and width. A forum based on 640x480 is a death nail. They almost always fail (long involved reasons for that, but the main one is larger screen users reject 640 forums outright. One look and they are gone). Combine that with the noise factor of Vbulletin, and it encourages excessively low quality postings. What I know works for width is using a percentage width around the main table of 90 to 95%.
Part of making pages easier to read is having extreme visual separations between different messages, and also between the message and the post details. Right now, I can't immediately tell where a posters name is and where their message is at. After 5 visits, I'll see it just fine. You don't need to worry about a users 5th visit. You want to impress them on their very first. This isn't site building - this is forum building.
Quoting.
Disable it. It's a forum killer. Few forums that enable that style of quoting grow. Those user that use the feature tend to like it. Those that don't use it -- find it excessively annoying.
Graphics,
The fewer the better. The ones that you do use, should scream "purpose" without having to see what they mean. Right now, the two "read/unread" graphics are so visually alike, they are mostly useless.
Anyway, I could write a book on the subject, but I've probably lost everyone by now any way. More if you want it...
<added> follow up post : [webmasterworld.com...] </added>
Whoa, that's sparked off some ideas. I've been playing with user-generated content in the form of classified ads and it's working well. Usenet offers an unlimited source of content...
Methinks Net::NNTP might be pressed into use shortly ;)
I should start by echoing people everywhere by saying that the knowledge and experience that you share on these forums has helped me greatly to find success in my website endeavors. Thank you!
This post on forums has given me some good information on proper forum design, but what about promotion? In my mind (and maybe I'm wrong), the toughest part of starting a forum is to get it off the ground. No one will be likely to post if there are only a handful of posts already in there. So, my goal right now is to get a few hundred posts in the system.
Let me give you a little background -- I write hardware articles on my website, and I know them to be a hit with my visitors. When I publish my articles on other websites with well-established forums, they stimulate some great discussions. The same articles on my site stimulate zero discussion. My linking is good, I believe the forum to be straight forward...I assume the problem is simply that I do not yet have enough of a collection of posts for new people to feel comfortable posting their thoughts. How can I get past this "no activity" wall?
