Managing Online Forums: Everything You Need to Know to Create and Run Successful Community Discussion Boards

Managing Online Forums is a great resource for both those starting out in the world of online forum management and seasoned veterans looking to improve and grow their online communities. The effectiveness of this book as a resource is founded upon three main strengths. The first of these is the author's experience and knowledge of the subject based upon years of administrating online forums. He knows what works and what doesn't. By tapping the author's knowledge, a forum manager can avoid wasting time and effort going in directions that are, ultimately, unfruitful. Instead, he can focus on only those things that are proven effective. Second, the book is organized in a logical sequence. It begins with suggestions on choosing a domain name and progresses through ideas on keeping an established forum interesting. Third, the book is effortless to read, avoiding technical jargon except when necessary. This effortlessness can transform into absorption, at times. Ultimately, if you are interested in starting and running your own online community, Managing Online Forums is a great place to start. However, its usefulness does not end once a forum is up and running. As your community grows you will once again be able to reference the knowledge that exists in this book to further develop your community.

If you're considering to build your own online community or forum, then this is a must-read book. Patrick O'Keefe covers everything from how to start a forum to how to develop and police it. I particularly appreciated that much of this book covers managing people rather than technology. There are lots of other books on how to physically build a site, but this one goes into depth on how to build the actual community of the site. O'Keefe advices how to recruit new members to your site without spamming other sites, and also gives good advice on how to deal with difficult members by offering a lot of examples and how he handled it. You won't have to run a site to recognize some of the difficult types that he describes. If you're going to start a forum or community site, or if you already have and you would like advice on how to manage the human side of running a site, then I recommend that you read this. If you're not, then I think you would still enjoy reading this. You'll find out how hard it is to run a site and you might appreciate those who do a little more.

Years ago I began a message board focusing on sports in North Mississippi. I soon chose to expand it to include the entire state of Mississippi. And that's where Mississippi Sports Talk came from. But as I grew in my knowledge and experience of how to set up and manage an online community, I looked to help from other community administrators online. There was one guy who seemed to be quite knowledgeable and wise because of the multiple communities he ran. I was surprised to find out that he was just a teenager at the time. But Patrick O'Keefe continued to learn and build sites and grow communities. He then began forums specifically for community admins and has even now recently written a book. I just received his book, Managing Online Forums, and read almost the whole thing in the first night. In a word, it's great. If I had read this book early on in my forum experiences I would have bypassed a lot of mistakes and stumbles. Patrick covers many topics from how to set up your forums, how to select your staff, how to handle security and moderation issues, and how to promote and even monetize your site. He provides sample templates for many needed documents and insight on how to interact with your users or even competitors sites. Patrick knows his stuff. It's quite plain to see. I have benefited from knowing him online and bouncing ideas off of him. And now I've benefited from reading his book. So for anyone who runs an online forum or has an interest in it, I highly recommend Managing Online Forums.

Disclaimer: Patrick has been a friend of mine for years. I even wrote the Forward for the book, so I know I'm biased. That being said, I still review the book honestly after having read it several times. This was the first book I've ever read on managing forums or communities. With the whole web 2.0 culture moving more and more towards building up sites around communities this book was a welcome addition to my library of geeky books. Patrick gives plenty of high level advice to get you started thinking about how to manage your own community and then goes into the details of just how to do it. One of my favorite sections is the templates (which he offers as a download) for contacting people on your site for various reasons, like violating your TOS or other infractions. While Patrick primarily runs phpbb based forums, this book is for anyone who runs a community no matter what software you run. It's a great book on a very hot topic.

I had the opportunity to read through this book over the last week, and I'm just floored by how much good information it's got in it. This book is years of Patrick's experiences running successful forums (22 forums now, I believe!) and all the tips, tricks and wisdom he's picked up during those years. I ran a moderately successful forum years ago, and would have saved myself months of headache and heartache had I the information in this book at my fingertips back then. The book is definitely opinionated - these are Patrick's recommendations based on his experiences, and it shows. His voice is natural, and the wording is down to earth. This isn't some theoretical treatise, but a 'from the trenches' view of what works, what doesn't, and why. The book includes many sample forms which have example language to use for welcoming members to your forum, working with moderators, dealing with abusive or disruptive visitors, and much more. They're all available on the book's website too, so you don't need to retype it all in, but can quickly customize them to fit your own needs . The one thing lacking in this book is that it doesn't go in to much detail about the major forum packages out there, so the reader who is just starting out will have to do some more research as to what packages have which features discussed in the book. Having said that, this keeps the focus of the book more on the human/people side of internet forums, and doesn't devolve in to a technical manual. I would have preferred a small feature comparison of the big forum systems out there, but I'm more of a technically-inclined person to begin with. If you're not technically inclined, you likely won't even notice the information not there. Bottom line: if you're thinking of starting a web-based community, or have one and aren't sure how to manage it, this book is a must-have. It will save you weeks, if not months, of getting up to speed and being as effective as possible with your forums.