All data from each customer’s account will now be replicated and transferred to an external location twice a week. This helps protect all our customers from data corruption following the unlikely event of a hardware failure.

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Dealing with Complaints

You must learn first of all that you cannot keep everyone happy all of the time, it just simply is not possible. All we can do is try our best! From time to time you will receive messages from members complaining about the way your forum is run, how it is to navigate or complaining about another member or something of a similar nature. It is important to read these complaints and to asses them appropriately. Sometimes the complaint will be something trivial or something which is out of your control, but always respond to the complaints giving a clear and concise reply. Politeness is key here. If it is something which you are going to deal with explain how you are going to deal with it and outline a time frame for doing so.

If your forum is a big forum and you have many members of staff then you may have staff who deal with specific areas. If a complaint comes in which is not your department or not something which you deal with then, if your forum software supports it, add the appropriate staff member to the message or at the very least forward the message on to them. Explain to the member in question that you have noted their complaint and are forwarding it on to the appropriate member of staff who will deal with it in a timely manner.

Stick Around

Here is something which I have been guilty of in the past with my previous forums. From time to time you may disappear when the pressures of life get on top of you. If it is your forum make sure that you can dedicate at least 30 minutes a day to the forum, ensure you read all messages in your inbox and respond to them. There is nothing worse than going to a new forum and trying to contact the staff members when you are stuck and you do not receive a response, or you receive a response but it takes 10 days to receive one. Obviously at times you wont be able to respond the same day or even the next day but try and respond in a timely manner otherwise people may decide to go elsewhere.

If you are a member of staff on someone else’s forum then make sure that you are doing your job properly. If you cannot dedicate the time needed to successfully do your job then it may be time to consider stepping down, even if it is for a short period of time.

In my opinion it looks bad if staff members are not around and do not log in often. Obviously people go on holidays and people have lives away from their forums but during normal circumstances try and make an effort to login regularly.

A Problem Member

A member is causing you a headache and sometimes it may seem like a good idea to deal with them publicly to make an example out of them. Before you do that STOP. It is never a good idea. Remove any offending content and send the member a direct message. Be polite and ask them to respond to accept that they have made a mistake. More often than not the member will be very apologetic. Don’t be an unfair moderator who just slaps them with a ban or a suspension, obviously there are times when this is the appropriate action to take but these cases are far less common.

Keep Notes

Whenever you give a warning out, edit some content or warn a member make sure you keep a note of it. In IP.Board’s warn system there is the option of adding a note, ALWAYS add a note, if you have a lot of members and your site is busy then you will need to keep track of why someone received a warning. If you ban or suspend a member always leave a note. Most software will have some method of leaving a note in these situations. One of the key reasons this is useful is so that any other member of staff on the forum can read notes on members when they deal with them. It may be the fact that you have a problem member who keeps being a problem, without notes you will not be able to keep track of these problems and the actions taken to deal with them.

Have a System in Place

As your forum gets busier keeping track of things becomes harder. Ensure you have systems in place for dealing with certain situations. My tip is to set up a private forum which is for the staff members only. In here you can include topics for the staff which outline how to deal with all different situations. I think uniformity is the key to keeping everyone happy. Always deal with similar problems in the same way regardless of which staff member deals with it, this way you can never be accused of being unfair.

Keep ALL Internal Problems Out of Site

Staff members may not always agree with other staff members, DON’T air these problems in public. Set up a forum area for staff only which is dedicated to this sort of discussion. You will find that not everyone agrees on everything and sometimes some staff members will have problems with other staff members or they will disagree with how another staff member has dealt with a situation. Keep these posts behind closed walls. When you face your members you need to be seen as being a team and you all need to be on the same side. Resolve all problems out of the site of your members.

Discuss Things With Other Staff Members

It is simple to implement new things in your forums just because you feel it is the best idea. My policy on all of my forums is to post my ideas in the private staff forum so that everyone can contribute their ideas. This way you can gain all feedback, find new ideas and find potential problems in your ideas. It is also a great way to build friendships and rapport with your fellow staff members. The more unified you can all be the better for your forums.

Your Ideas

This concludes part one of my general tips on moderation, if you have any ideas or suggestions of your own then please leave them in the comments box. We are glad to receive suggestions, feedback and ideas. Any good ideas may be included in part two of our moderation tips. Thanks for reading!

As an admin or moderator of a community your primary responsibility is to facilitate the conversation, to moderate the conversation and to keep a watchful eye out. For the sake of this post I will be using admin or moderator interchangeably. As a moderator it is important that you always remember that the site you are moderating is only as good as the people that use it. The whole reason for you being a moderator is due to the demand on the site by the members.

I have all too often been to sites which are moderated by megalomaniacs, people who think that having the status of administrator or moderator immediately makes them better than everyone else. It is important to embed a friendly ethos within your site and to make it an open place where moderators are seen as people who are there not only to enforce rules but to facilitate the general conversation and to participate openly in the conversation. As a moderator your postings do carry extra weight, it is important that you set the example for which you want your community to adhere to.

A moderator or an administrator should always approach a member with an open mind. If you have set out rules which have not been followed then yes it is your responsibility to enforce these, but you must remember to do so in a positive manner. Approach your members in a friendly way. Remember to explain the reasons for you contacting them, if you must edit a post leave a polite reason. Never publicly humiliate a member of your community.

Every member, be it a regular user or a moderator is entitled to their opinions, a strong debate in the forums is a good thing, but there is a fine line between a strong debate and a heated argument. A moderator must recognise the difference. Whenever giving out any warnings, whenever moderating any member always be discrete. It is never a good idea to make an example of a member.

Remember to always be helpful, specifically when it comes to new members. A new member has joined your community for a reason and it is likely that they will make mistakes to begin with. Be patient with them; be there to guide them and to direct them. If a member posts in the wrong area, don’t grill them for it but move the topic and leave a link in the old forum. This allows the new member to discover the correct places to post. Leave a reply in the moved topic explaining, politely, why you moved it but ensure you come across as an open and friendly person.

I started with it and I will finish with it, remember that your members are the reason for your site’s existence. They are the forum’s most important asset and it is vital that you treat them that way.

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We hope that these new shorter URL’s will help save you time and will prove easier to remember.

Whilst a student is studying, learning and reading it is important that they document these new skills, not only for themselves to remember but also so that they can demonstrate to their future employer what it is they know. Bosses today look seriously for students to provide examples of their work, be this through a blog, a portfolio or other means. In difficult times bosses cut back on recruitment and more and more candidates are chasing the same jobs which increases the competition for each job. With increased competition recruitment managers are going to be looking for outstanding people to work for their businesses. Having only a CV is often not enough today. Instead a future employer is not only going to be looking for candidates with excellent grades but will also be looking for candidates who can demonstrate their skills.

Obtaining a graduate job is the intention of most who study at degree level. It is the end goal. But achieving it is the problem. It is time to start thinking about how you can improve your chances to ensure you get yourself a graduate job.

A blog is an excellent way to keep a record of your achievements, every time you learn something new, every time you try something new blog about it. Not only will this serve as a diary for yourself to look back on it is a way a future employer can have a look and see what you have been up to and see what you know. It is important to keep your blog professional, well presented and up to date with new material. Keep your blog posts concise and to the point, include pictures, images, graphs or any other imagery which is relevant. Use bullet points, and point out the key things you have learned. Blog about projects you have worked on, blog about clients you have worked with and your experiences (but remember to keep it professional). Always remember that a future employer could read this so always be aware of that.

A portfolio is specifically useful for certain career aspirations. Use a portfolio if you are a design student. If you are in web development keep a portfolio or your work, if you created a nice logo for a project or for a client ensure you keep this in your portfolio. If you create a nice website, screenshot it and link to it if it is live. Perhaps you are studying fashion design, keep a portfolio of your projects, of clothes you have designed, take photos and upload them, upload design patterns. If you are a software design student upload screenshots of software you have designed, offer software as a download if possible. The purpose of the portfolio is to present everything you have created. A future employer will be looking to see examples of your work and if you do not have examples at hand a future employer will be more likely to turn you away.

You need to begin this early on in your days of studying and you need to build it up as you go along. Updating it regularly. Keep a record regularly. Don’t forget the professionalism and remember to always keep examples of everything you do. Use professional networks such as LinkedIn and provide a link to your blog or portfolio. Get networking and speaking to professional people in your industry, ask for feedback from people and build up professional relationships.

If you follow all of these tips you are increasing your likelihood of future graduate employment.

To get a very competitive student hosting account visit the following page: https://www.ufhosting.org/whmcs/cart.php?gid=1

There have been some very minor problems with people running older version of vBulletin, in particular version 3.7.x (3.7.3). This problem is due to the software using a referencing method which is now deprecated from PHP. If you are experiencing this problem as one of our clients then please do open up a support ticket and set the priority to high and we will endeavor to  fix it in a timely fashion. If you are happy to edit the source files there are two which need editing:

/includes/init.php

/includes/class_core.php

On the site you will see many error messages such as the following:

Deprecated: Assigning the return value of new by reference is deprecated in /home/xxxxx/public_html/forum/includes/init.php on line 49

It is important to note the line number, for each line number find the line within the relevant php file in this example line 49 in /include/init.php. Open this line up and you will see “=&” this simply needs to be changed to “=” without the ampersand. This is because within php 5.3.x you are no longer able to assign a return value of new by a reference. Changing this to just an “=” resolves this matter.

If the Do It Yourself approach is not suitable for you then please open a ticket and we will do this for you. Remember, if you do edit your files please make a backup, this will allow you to rollback the files should you make a mistake. If you do not back up then you will need to open a support ticket for one of our staff members to roll back your site to a previous restore point.

Forum software is as old as the internet itself. We started off with Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) and overtime this has transformed in to the modern day Internet Forum.

The question that gets thrown to me time and time again is “how can I compete with Facebook?” my answer for that is simple, don’t. Once you realise that Facebook is not the competition but is something you can use in conjunction with your own forum and something which you can even use to promote your forum the better. There is a huge buzz around how social media can be used to help promote websites and it is definitely worth getting involved with. It is usually free and whilst it takes some effort it is well worth it when you reap the rewards.

To remember why forums are still relevant we must remember what the purpose of a forum is. As defined by thefreedictionary.com A forum is ”a meeting or assembly for the open discussion of subjects of public interest”. Whilst social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter allow the instant exchange of messages and content they are structure in a way which is very different from that of a traditional forum.

Drop off the page

Posts on a social media site are often short and interest in a thread usually lasts only for a couple of hours. Old threads on Facebook disappear off the bottom of the page very quickly and once they have the discussion on that topic ends. With the traditional set up of an Internet Forum a topic, once posted, will remain at the top of its category as long as it remains active, only inactive topics will drop off the page and on to subsequent pages. Why is this important? It is important on an internet forum where topics are usually specialised around a specific subject that the topics of interest to the community remain in prime visibility. Topics which interest a lot of people will potentially interest more people. A real discussion can then occur. On a forum this is not the case, the conversation is usually much more generic and more often than not time relevant. Once the time has passed the interest on that topic on a social network is no longer interesting to the general population of that network.

Tree Like Structure vs a Timeline

A social network runs much like a Timeline, so much so that Facebook renamed and re-branded the Wall as a Timeline. Messages on a social network follow a chronological order, the newer topics are on the very top and the older ones drop off the page at the bottom. This is extremely well suited to very generic and time related conversations. However where specialist forums are concerned and someone wishes to discuss a very important topic it is important that the topic remains visible for as long as it is kept active with new replies. To make this more convenient a forum is split in to a tree like structure offering hierarchical categories of specific nature. This allows the forums to be easily navigated and browsed in order to find topics of interest. A forum therefore allows more specific conversations about more specific topics. It is far more structured in nature and therefore allows the user to have more control over what they see. It allows the user to find the content which interests them.

Search-ability

Whilst some social networks are remotely searchable through various systems such as Twitter’s hash-tag they do not offer the convenience that a forum does. A user who visits a forum and needs to find a very specific topic can use the feature rich search tools found in the most popular forum software. These search tools allow for older topics to be recovered and allow for new responses to be made. A new response in an old topic in a social network such as Facebook will usually go unseen but in a forum it is very likely to be seen because the new reply will bump the topic back in to the visibility of the the rest of the sites users.

Which Is Better?

Some people say social media has destroyed many forum websites, but I have to disagree. Whilst generic chat is now an unnecessary category in many forums the more specific categories of a forum are what makes that site useful to its users.  Social networks have made it more important for webmasters to ensure that their forums are more focused on specific topics rather than generic topics. It is important to be focused and visioned and to ensure that your forum doesn’t become bloated. A user will use a forum to find answers to questions and to discuss important topics in a place where people share a similar interest.

Softaculous is an excellent auto-installer that we provide to all of our clients here at Ultimate Forum Hosting, it allows you to install scripts in an instant without any technical know how and without any hassle (Read more about Softaculous). When you have your web space you will probably want to start building a site, this can be a daunting task to even those who are technically minded. We are attempting to take that hassle away by providing you with this auto-installer. You can get your blog or forum up and running within minutes!

Firstly you need to access your cPanel account (For Ultimate Forum Hosting customers this information is provided in your welcome email).

Once you are on your cPanel home page you will need to scroll down until you find the Auto-Install Scripts section (as shown below)

In this example we are going to select phpBB which is a piece of forum software. Click on the icon of your choice.

You will then see a screen similar to this:

At the top is an Install button and at the bottom it shows you the rating of the script and the space required to install this software. You will need to click on the Install button to continue the installation of this script.

The Install Screen

The install screen has a pre-filled form which you can leave or adjust as needed, you really only need to edit the Settings section and Admin section, these sections are shown in the screenshot below highlighted with a red box. Alter these options to explain what your site is about, give it a title and choose an administrator account name and password.

After you have done this simply click on Install

Installation Complete

You should now see the following confirmation screen:

This confirms that the script is installed and gives you any additional information you may need such as the URL to the installed software.

Demo

As you can see, within a matter of a few minutes and with minimal configuration the software is installed and ready to use. It really is that simple!

Want a Professional Installation of This or Any Other Scripts?

Would you like us to install any scripts for you, be it WordPress, phpBB, Invision Power Board (IP.Board), vBulletin or almost anything else? We can do this for you and there is usually no charge for this service, to find out more check out our services page.