People who open forums without knowledge on the niche

[GAF]

Fail.

You have no point in opening a forum if you do not know the subject very well and keep up to date with it. It is pointless if you just go on a forum with the same niche and copy what they say. You need experience in the area otherwise you will fail with the forum. For example I see many people saying "I am going to open a promotion forum" what do you know about promotion? What do you know about marketing? Congratulations you are a member on a promotion forum that does not mean you know all the ins and outs.

One of the most important things about opening a forum is you must know how to take it further and develop on the subject.

 

[kavin]

Re: People who open forums without experiance

I agree with you GAF. People should be good enough in the niche they select.
But there is other chance too. If they have good resources, they can still start a community by teaming up with another person, who can manage the posting part.

 

[D]

Re: People who open forums without experiance

People don't always have expiriance when opening a forum, that does not mean they wont suceed.

When you open a forum its usually in a new niche you don't have experiance with, nobody can just start as a great webmaster from day one knowing everything. You learn things as you develop the forum, at one time or another a webmaster is going to have zero knowledge on forums.. we all have to start somewhere.

 

[iron hide]

Re: People who open forums without experiance

Well said ShadyX. No one is born as an experienced webmaster, you learn by doing it. Many people learn by hands on experience, others might learn by reading and doing research. If some newbie starts a forum and it failed, then he will know what he did wrong, and by learning from your mistakes, the same person can become an expert.

But again, that person should atleast know enough so he/she doesn't copy 100% from other forums.

 

[Jay]

Re: People who open forums without experiance

I agree with Shady, I mean if someone has interest in a topic they can start a forum and learn on the way. Things like that pushes the owner to learn more about the niche and drives them to do better. Like Shady said, we all have to start somewhere.

 

[kavin]

Re: People who open forums without experiance

Well said ShadyX. No one is born as an experienced webmaster, you learn by doing it. Many people learn by hands on experience, others might learn by reading and doing research. If some newbie starts a forum and it failed, then he will know what he did wrong, and by learning from your mistakes, the same person can become an expert.

Well. Learning from mistakes is good for tech part of Forum administration. But regarding the niche you should know something about it. Ofcourse, as i said they can do the tech part, and hire an admin for maintaining content.
But managing a forum while knowing nothing about the niche is a bad start. people will loss interest on your Forum, and possible never return soon.

 

[Nebulous]

Re: People who open forums without experiance

Sometimes people need to have a couple failed forums under their belt to be able to learn and grow as an administrator.
We all had to start somewhere.

 

[Yehya]

Re: People who open forums without experiance

Niche-experience: MUST be 5/5.
Webmastering experience: any really, there is a first for everything.
Grammar: For me i hate admins with grammar/spelling with 3/5 or below. Sends out a bad impression.

 

[Connor L]

Re: People who open forums without experiance

Hmmm...
From how I see both GAF and Kavin have very little knowledge in web languages aside from HTML and CSS, yet they opened a script site.
So that's not much different than a person with no forum knowledge opening a forum.
Hell, I can assure you GAF, I was not experienced when I first started, how could someone be experienced if they never tried it before, but from the start my site looked better than yours. If someone works hard enough, they can pull it off. Most peoples first forum can do well if they don't give up on it.

 

[fantanoice]

Re: People who open forums without experiance

Forum administrating is one of those things that you can only learn by doing. You shouldn't be discouraged from starting because everybody has to start somewhere. However, it is highly unlikely that a forum will succeed with an inexperienced Admin.

Perhaps for those who want to start one up, but don't have the skills, they could team up with somebody who has some more experience, or use remotely-hosted software like Zetaboards which are much easier to pick up and use, along with not hurting the bank.

Sometimes people need to have a couple failed forums under their belt to be able to learn and grow as an administrator.
We all had to start somewhere.

Definitely. Every failure is a learning experience so you shouldn't be afraid to fail. Especially with remotely-hosted options where you basically have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

 

[TheNova]

Re: People who open forums without experiance

People who open forums without experiance

Fail.

But if they never open a forum, how will they gain experience and knowledge on how to manage one?

 

[Yehya]

Re: People who open forums without experiance

I think you are all confused.
He is talking SUBJECT... THAT'S NICHE.. wise
Webmastering, we all have to start somewhere.


Imagine me opening a forum about birds... he is saying i can't because i have no interest in birds. All i would do is copycat other forums... oh yeah this works.

 

[GAF]

Re: People who open forums without experiance

I think you are all confused.
He is talking SUBJECT... THAT'S NICHE.. wise
Webmastering, we all have to start somewhere.


Imagine me opening a forum about birds... he is saying i can't because i have no interest in birds. All i would do is copycat other forums... oh yeah this works.

Yeah that is what I am talking about. I am not on about the webmastering and creation on a forum I am on about the topic of the forum.

 

[fantanoice]

Re: People who open forums without experiance

Well, no shit. Sounds kinda stupid to open a website about something that you don't know about. That's like taking a hairdressing course so that you can be an aerospace engineer.

I mean, I can kinda understand it from a 'learning' perspective, but if that's the case you're better off joining a similar forum and posting there. If such a forum doesn't exist, then... well... you're in a bit of trouble. 😛

 

[GAF]

Re: People who open forums without experiance

Well, no shit. Sounds kinda stupid to open a website about something that you don't know about. That's like taking a hairdressing course so that you can be an aerospace engineer.

I mean, I can kinda understand it from a 'learning' perspective, but if that's the case you're better off joining a similar forum and posting there. If such a forum doesn't exist, then... well... you're in a bit of trouble. 😛

Yeah I know it seems stupid but people still do it.

 

[kavin]

Re: People who open forums without experiance

Hmmm...
From how I see both GAF and Kavin have very little knowledge in web languages aside from HTML and CSS, yet they opened a script site.
So that's not much different than a person with no forum knowledge opening a forum.
Hell, I can assure you GAF, I was not experienced when I first started, how could someone be experienced if they never tried it before, but from the start my site looked better than yours. If someone works hard enough, they can pull it off. Most peoples first forum can do well if they don't give up on it.

I'm sure you have some personal issues with GAF/me or with Script Installs, because you keep on bashing at any topic we make. If you have any such issue, please get sorted it through PM.

And how did you concluded we don't know any other language other HTML and CSS? I do know PHP. Just because we don't create scripts doesn't mean we don't know anything about it. And you do forgot, we have glock in the team, who created a lot of scripts.

As the topic says, we can't expect the Forum admin to know everything. But he must know something good enough. Like we know HTML, CSS and PHP, which is good enough to run a Script Discussion Community.

but from the start my site looked better than yours

Not trying to offend you. But for everyone, their Forum would look good than the others.

 

[MrJohn]

Re: People who open forums without experiance

I think it is vital that you have passion for the forum subject that you are running. If you have no passion, the experience factor does not really matter does it?

 

[Umbreon]

Re: People who open forums without experiance

Honestly, here is my story.

I had no experience with forums a few years ago. COMPLETELY no experience. All I knew at that time is posting and making threads. So I wanted to see how its like to be an admin of a forum. A friend of mine made me an co-admin of a ZetaBoards forum (which still exists as of now). I had no experience. But somehow, we went through hard times, like major hatred, spamming, and multiple hackings. I managed to get through those issues, and never gave up. Even when the forum was hacked and all the posts were deleted. Did I give up? Almost. If I did, then.... I wouldn't be here.

Anyways, during those times, I eventually learned to become a true admin. I feel dedicated. But at the same time, its pain in the ass to be an admin. I never read any tutorials on "how to be a good admin", I never ever ever read tutorials on managing your forum. I just learned by myself, and by a friend. There are times where you get into stressful situations, but you will quickly learn from that. Its how it is.

Then, here I am. I own a active gaming forum. I haven't ran into issues since then. Of course, I retired as an administrator of the forum, and it was eventually taken over, renamed, and all kinds of stuff.

I was an admin in that forum for about 8 months. I honestly was pretty good as an admin.

So, the answer is, even if you have no experience of being an administrator, you can be a good admin. You just have to learn what its like to be a true admin.

*excuse for some grammar errors, I rushed this post hehehe

 

[MrJohn]

Re: People who open forums without experiance

OMG I used Zetaboards like 2 years ago, that put a smile on my face. I remember the themes and plugins for that software. Those were much simpler times lol.

 

[Yehya]

Re: People who open forums without experiance

Honestly, here is my story.

I had no experience with forums a few years ago. COMPLETELY no experience. All I knew at that time is posting and making threads. So I wanted to see how its like to be an admin of a forum. A friend of mine made me an co-admin of a ZetaBoards forum (which still exists as of now). I had no experience. But somehow, we went through hard times, like major hatred, spamming, and multiple hackings. I managed to get through those issues, and never gave up. Even when the forum was hacked and all the posts were deleted. Did I give up? Almost. If I did, then.... I wouldn't be here.

Anyways, during those times, I eventually learned to become a true admin. I feel dedicated. But at the same time, its pain in the ass to be an admin. I never read any tutorials on "how to be a good admin", I never ever ever read tutorials on managing your forum. I just learned by myself, and by a friend. There are times where you get into stressful situations, but you will quickly learn from that. Its how it is.

Then, here I am. I own a active gaming forum. I haven't ran into issues since then. Of course, I retired as an administrator of the forum, and it was eventually taken over, renamed, and all kinds of stuff.

I was an admin in that forum for about 8 months. I honestly was pretty good as an admin.

So, the answer is, even if you have no experience of being an administrator, you can be a good admin. You just have to learn what its like to be a true admin.

*excuse for some grammar errors, I rushed this post hehehe

Great read, but what does this have to do with the topic?

I think the TS should rename the thread to something less confusing.