DISQUS

Thanks for having me, Jason. :)

Wow, that's a long list. But, congrats to you, Jason and everyone else.

I had actually been trying to contact them to see if there was anything we could do as far as the book, but had not hear dback, unfortunately. I wish I lived near an area that mattered to the world. ;) heh.

Forums take time to manage. No matter how many plugins or automated solutions you install, people will still spam and they'll still have to be managed. You want to start by having a good guidelines that make it clear that these activities are not allowed and then you want to fairly and evenly enforce those guidelines. You will want to create a system of documentation where these instances are logged. And then you'll want to contact users and notify them of violations, assuming that they are not/have not yet been banned.

Software can be your friend, though. Some community software is too vulnerable to automated bots. Depending on the software you have, there may be CAPTCHA hacks that change the default caption (or add one, if it doesn't already have it) that may be broken. Try one and see what happens. I like logic based CAPTCHA, if I can help it. On my forums, I have a CAPTCHA on the registration form that displays a dozen or so pictures and asks the user to pick the ones that are animals. Once they pick the pictures, they can register.

Making it so that links can only be posted when there are 5 posts can help, but it's also not hard for someone to make 5 junk posts, either, and then post a link. So, you'll still need to be on guard.

Good luck in your efforts.

Thanks,

Patrick

Some of the communities that I manage include KarateForums.com, the phpBBHacks.com Support Forums, SportsForums.net, PhotoshopForums.com and others. Thanks for the interest.

Patrick

How much of my 20 cents would you like? ;) heh.

How much of my 20 cents do you want? ;) heh.

Thanks so much! I appreciate it. I hope you like it and welcome your thoughts once you have read it.

Thanks again,

Patrick

Hello,

Thanks for the kind words. :) I appreciate you taking a look at the book. Sorry about not having an eBook available - we'll hopefully be selling an eBook at some point (it's available on the Kindle, as well).

In a way, I feel the book is somewhat timeless (as much as one of these books can be) in that, these are good, strong strategies that I have used to manage my online communities for the past 8 years. Regardless of what comes next, the book will help you to be prepared.

It's probably important for me to say that this is not a software book and that was a decision made for a number of reasons, but one of which was to preserve it's true long term value, which is in the actual management of the people on online communities, not the software they run. So, it's not about phpBB 2 or 3 or vBulletin 3 or any particular software - it's about the management of the conversations that take place on your community.

Having managed forums for this time, I can say that what changes isn't the style of the communication or the medium, but the functionality. Forums now are similar to forums 8 years ago, in many ways. At their core, forums are a text based medium and that is something I feel will continue to be true. With that in mind, I don't think that good strategies for managing these areas are not easily changed.

Thanks again for your interest.

Patrick

Interesting post. Thanks for writing it.

Patrick

Good luck!

Congrats!

Happy Birthday. :)

Glad to hear it! Thanks again.

Patrick

Hey Recording Studio,

You purchased a copy directly from Amazon.com and they won't send it? :( Would you be able to e-mail me with your country and any important details? patrick@ifroggy.com is my e-mail. I want to find a way to get you the book. Sorry for the trouble. Thanks!

Patrick

Weird stuff, but thanks for buying it! :)

Hey Recording Studio,

On the link Jonathan gave, there is a "Buy Now!" graphic that will take you to a page with store links. Or, if you prefer, you can just go to your favorite online bookseller (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Borders, Books a Million, Powell's, etc.) or, if you have one near you, a Barnes & Noble location.

Thanks so much for wanting to pick up a copy. I really appreciate it.

Patrick

Hey Jonathan,

Thanks so much for the review. :) And for your help with the book. I'm glad that you liked it.

I think that the book will be valuable, as a whole (for the most part) to both new and experienced admins. There are issues talked about in chapter 2 and 3 that many experienced administrations will not have known. And then, others will have. But, different people will take different things from it.

The content is not focused toward novice admins, but toward completeness. I covered everything I could possibly think of. On some level, that may comes off as being focused on beginners because I cover everything from start to finish, but really my focus was completeness and not novice or experienced.

Thanks again. :)

Patrick

Yeah, totally! hehe. :) Big fan. I've seen every video.

Interesting stuff. :) I'm a big fan of the nerd! :)

Thanks Jake. :)

Thanks for the interview mention. :)

Jonathan and Chris, I should say! :)

Thanks for having me, Jonathan. It was a lot of fun. :)

Of course, it would be nice if I spelled your name correctly. Next time!

Patrick

Congrats Jak. :)