[Tucker]

Running a forum involves much work, from stopping spam to creating quality themes. Which aspect of managing the forum do you think is most important to the success of the forum? What do you think needs to be the top priority of the forum admin?

[sbm]

simply the admin needs to be an netizen..:)

[webcrawler]

I think it is content management. You expect forum visitors if you forum has good contents . Aside from maintaining good contents, the forum manager should also spend time in forum promotion and keeping his or her posters happy.

[emmaonline]

Listed in order of importance:

1) Design (a nice looking forum will bring you members)

2) Functionality (everything needs to work smoothly)

3) Catagories (make sure you have enough catgories and sub catagories to keep thing organized and easy to follow)

4) Moderating (stay on top of posts and posters and remove problem posts and spam fast)

5) Participation (be an active member of your own forum)

6) Promotion (once your forum starts to get legs go out and sell it to the internet community)

7) Rewards (encourage participation by offering rewards)

8) Hire help (for a nominal price you can get outsiders to help with moderating and management issues)

9) Frequent Updates (you need to keep things fresh)

10) Ask your members to spread the word

[Lorelei]

it all depends on your forum's niche, first of all the members should feel welcome and admin should be sure that no one feels uncomfortable in the board. if there are any rewards, like emmaonline mentioned, it's also a good thing.

[The_Scholar]

A forum manager needs to initially create a functional and appealing design then move on to promoting the forum.. Its his/her job to get people to come and enjoy the forum. After that its the manager's job to moderate the forum to get rid of spam and stem arguments which would hurt the forums reputation. A proper forum has admin support 24/7 depending on the number of posts it receives.. It can't go a day without getting at least the reported posts deleted, or moved.

Running a forum involves much work, from stopping spam to creating quality themes. Which aspect of managing the forum do you think is most important to the success of the forum? What do you think needs to be the top priority of the forum admin?

[carla]

It would be ideas on how to retain your members and make your forum their daily routine. This helps it to be active so encouraging more members.

[shelly]

You should focus on the community, how members interact with each other and if they have been building a good discussion within your forum.

[StarLab]

Just a small addition to what has already been said...

Provide an Introduction area. Not everyone wants to just "jump in" and and start posting. This way, people can talk a bit about themselves without worrying about being off-topic in other boards just to say, "hi!"

It's a good way to start getting to know other members as well.

[tianlei]

Forum admins should be active in the forum. Welcoming people, answering questions, stuff like that. Also, forums admins need to understand how to help new people out without making them look or feel stupid.