Forum Management

[WilliamK]

Forum Management today can be a ongoing and tedious chore, especially when targeted by spammers and other malevolents trying to exploit them. Considering the huge readership that this forum has, AZ must be doing doing right.

I have used many different forum solutions over the years, and even written and still do use one of my own in a restricted area. So I am interested to know how XEN caters for new members, new posts, IP blocks, etc. Are the moderators doing it easy?

 

[JAM]

AzBilliards administrator and moderators deserve a huge round of applause for keeping the Discussion Forum a safe place to network with like-minded folks.

I'm the founder and administrator of a private industry group that I started in 2015. It’s not an open group, though. We require applicants to answer three questions and agree to the group rules before being admitted as members. The goal is to keep out spammers and other nefarious characters.

There have been times when posts start heading in the wrong direction, sometimes even directed at the administrator (me). In those moments, I’ve tried to follow the command-and-control example set by Mike Howerton et al., remaining a neutral party when addressing threads that need guidance. And I don’t use the ban hammer unless it’s truly necessary.

I admire the moderation of the AzBilliards Discussion Forum and have taken a cue—pun intended—from the way they run things when managing my own industry group.