Successfull forum?

I have been asked a Question by "Northern156" in a PM on RWTS and he writes:

Hi Dave,
I'm just wondering if you could give me some advice on how to "fire up" my forum (to make it more popular, and to get more posts etc)
Hope you can help,

Cheers, Sean

Well Sean, Its certainly something that does not happen overnight.

When i started The Train Sim / Zone Reloaded I set up the forum first made sure i had minimal sections to start with, mainly the important sections like help, screenshots & Downloads.

Then i wrote out a few posts mainly a welcome post welcoming everyone and then forum rules. (make sure these are st up as cleanly and as politely as possible. The last thing someone will want is to read six paragraphs about 1 rule.

Observation, When i thought the site was ready, i observed the RailSimulator.com forums, to see who was knowledgeable. Basherz was the most knowledgeable person who was not on the Developer team. He kindly offered me help with a problem i had with my PC got me up and running with RailSimulator. once we knew each other a bit better i invited him to become an admin on the forum to offer help.

Now your team: you should make sure you can trust them to be helpful and step into problems and brake up fights, you need a stable team, so if two arch enemy's are on your team that's bound to explode in public sections, but importantly members can sense if there is tension between members of staff, and usually play on it to provoke a fight.

But also you need to make sure you don't have a member of the team who will "upset the applecart" when something happens that they do not like, For example you know what happened with a certain member of my site caused so much grief i ended up shutting up shop.

once i had cooled down i came to RSTS as a member, and worked my way up the ranks.

So first off, don't add Staff willy nilly so that staff out number members, that is a big PUT OFF and some may see it as power hungry and will not stay. Start of with just yourself advertise the site in a way that is constructive and obeys the rules of each individual place.

Whilst adding mates in your forum as staff may be good, then be very careful, sometimes the two do not mix. see if they join, watch their progress and how the treat others as a member, if they boss people around as a member its a clear sign they'll abuse their role of power.

Your behaviour on other sites also contributes to weather or not people think its a cool idea to try your forum, If you post gunk all the time and have hardly anything constructive posted they will pick up on that and think your site will be the same. The same goes for other staff members, you must remember to compose yourself in a polite and friendly manor and not heat any debates that may be on the verge of moderator action.

Don't bad mouth other sites, unless you have the proof to back up why the site is bad, then leave the subject in private.

Airing "dirty washing" in public is a no no, so again keep any disputes in private, between you and the person involved.

Content - now content is a touchy subject sometimes, and using the same system as another site may seem good, but ideally write it out in your own style, or it will look like you just couldn't be bothered to put the effort into the site.

work with content developers closely and give them a little more freedom, for example RWTS now gives out those developers with 5+ downloads access to a special area where they can ask for managers to put work up directly without it being checked first. Ideally we'd love to give our trusted developers the ability to add their content themselves, however, this can be risky and because of the Way our system works, means we can not.

Encourage the first timers and guide them, the more content developers you have the better, Also if you don't have an answer don't be touchy about sending them to somewhere that can, after all we all want to share what each other have that you don't. that's the meaning of Community, we all work as 1 big family to help those in need.

Don't be afraid to say thank you or ask members to help, at the end of the day a true member will help to the maximum of their ability to help you but remember RESPECT and thank them.

build up a reputation, and then build on what suggestions are made. so a suggestions thread is a good idea too.

Also consult decisions as a team, that's the whole point they are there, and if you need advice you can consult your team...

So key points:

:- Minimal Sections to start with (if possible try and make sections rank accessible).
:- Respect your team members and members.
:- Don't have to many staff to start off with, too many staff = people running away.
:- Work with other websites we are not at war, so why treat it as if it was a top secrete?
:- Behave as you would expect your members to behave on your site.
:- post constructive posts on your forum as well as other forums, the more you contribute the more you learn and knowledge is a good thing to have as a site owner.
:- Design - if the site is hard to read by you, what about members who have disabilities? make it easy to read and easy to find important items.
:- As much as possible get your members involved :- ask thier opinion if you plan to change somthing, see if they agree or not.
:- never force a member of another site to join yours, you'll come across as pushy and no one likes to be forced to join a website because a member of the team on that site gets on their nerves.

I think that will do Sean, if you follow what is said in this post you will start to hopefully see improvements, but remember don't give up, one day it will work!.