Advice on forums
I'm having a problem with the people on my forums. You see, I started a website a few months ago featuring entertainment views and reviews of movies, music and video games (it's at http://www.theblastrag.com, by the way). Anyway, I don't expect a lot of traffic as I'm still trying to bolster the valuable content, but the first thing I did was invite all my buddies from back in high school to join the forums. They currently make up about 75% of the active membership.
The problem is that they form kind of a clique and tell a whole lot of inside jokes and talk about people that no one else knows. I think this frustrates the 25% of the members who don't know what they're talking about. Worse yet, I think it alienates a lot of visitors who lurk the forums and feel like they wouldn't fit in.
I think I need to do something to curb this kind of stuff, but I don't really know what to do. Obviously I don't want to ban 75% of the members. Am I overreacting? What would you do in this situation?
TheBlastrag.com - Reviews and discussion about movies, music, games and more!
wamasterhunter posted this at 01:09 — 11th February 2007.
They have: 6 posts
Joined: Feb 2007
What I did is create a seperate forum that only certian members could see. then all that stuff goes in there, and the others do not know about it.
Megan posted this at 15:56 — 11th February 2007.
She has: 11,421 posts
Joined: Jun 1999
Making them a separate forum that is only visible to them might be a way to get this out of their system.
I would start with a simple suggestion - "Guys, can we keep the personal stuff off the forum? We don't want to alienate the other members. Thanks :)" (or whatever kind of language would be most appropriate for your group.
If that doesn't work you might need to have more of an open discussion with them about it. Or you could speak to a couple of the ringleaders privately.
Banning is always a last resort
Megan
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jjack posted this at 16:50 — 11th February 2007.
They have: 7 posts
Joined: Feb 2007
Those are some good suggestions...thanks!
I think I'm going to kind of combine the two. I talked to some of the "outside" members and they pointed out that it wasn't as bad as I thought, and that most of the inside stuff goes on in one specific forum of the board. I think I'm just going to request that members keep all the personal stuff confined to that forum and keep it out of the rest of them. If it gets out of hand I could make it a more formal rule.
Thanks again
TheBlastrag.com - Reviews and discussion about movies, music, games and more!
longhornfreak posted this at 02:51 — 12th February 2007.
They have: 3 posts
Joined: Feb 2007
A separate forum is an option, also if your forum grows, eventually they will overpower them, and they can keep their inside jokes to theirselves
jjack posted this at 19:08 — 12th February 2007.
They have: 7 posts
Joined: Feb 2007
That's kind of what I was thinking. I just didn't want to get caught in a catch-22 where if I get more members the inside jokes will go away...BUT I won't get more members until the jokes go away.
TheBlastrag.com - Reviews and discussion about movies, music, games and more!
John_Dean posted this at 21:53 — 12th February 2007.
They have: 7 posts
Joined: Nov 2006
For me the best way is to ban them (ban e-mails and them names). And after that you'll have only good members
This is not a joke, if you do that - your forum will get more "real" traffic and good reputation.
Good Luck !
Best Regards
John Dean
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