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

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Binding: Paperback Dewey Decimal Number: 004.693 EAN: 9780814401972 ISBN: 081440197X Label: AMACOM Manufacturer: AMACOM Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 320 Publication Date: 2008-04-10 Publisher: AMACOM Studio: AMACOM
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Spotlight customer reviews: Customer Rating: Summary: For novices and experts alike, especially professional and aspiring community managers Comment: Managing Online Forums: Everything You Need to Know to Create and Run Successful Community Discussion Boards Managing Online Forums is great for anyone that is tasked or would like to be tasked with managing any kind of online community. Whether it's a membership forum, a mom's group, or a company's community around a brand, this book is one that can and will be referenced on a regular basis. This book will appeal to complete novices and experts alike. The book is written so that someone just starting an online forum can move through the book step-by-step to set-up, design, and get a forum running in no time. Someone who has an existing forum will appreciate the chapters on keeping your members active, monetization, and dealing with trolls. "Managing Online Forums" is the kind of book you'll keep handy after you read it to refer back to again and again. My favorite chapters were the ones about setting guidelines and rules. Obviously, freedom of speech is important but so is the safety and morale of your members. Patrick is very good at addressing your questions just as they surface when reading through the book. The information and knowledge is organized in such a way that the reader will continuously build on what they've already done. Patrick's advice is practical and easy-to-understand. Customer Rating: Summary: Manage Social Networks Comment: This is a great book by a well respected and knowledgeable member of many communities across the web! Patrick is also my friend, and we are both Advisors on SitePoint Forums. Patrick breaks down every aspect of community management including developing community guidelines, promoting your community, managing forum staff, dealing with bad members and chaos, and how to make money from your community. My favorite chapter of the book is one of the more sensitive subjects, Banning Users and Dealing with Chaos. One of the quickest ways to lose control of a community is to handle chaos incorrectly. Patrick does a great job of giving real world community examples and solid solutions on how to handle each. Another great chapter is Developing Guidelines. I've started more than a few communities, and not once have I stopped to think about my communities guidelines before launching. Not only does Patrick go into great detail on what type of guidelines you should have, but he also provides a blank guideline template section demonstrating exactly how he lays out his guidelines for reference. I really enjoyed this book and would highly recommend it to anyone, beginner and expert alike, that is interested in increasing their knowledge on community management. Nice job Patrick! Customer Rating: Summary: How to Care for a Lively Online Community Comment: Why do Yankee fans flock to their favorite online community, YanksBlog? Perhaps, it's because they feel welcomed and supported, as you would want to be at the site for your passionate interest. Patrick O'Keefe is a gracious and savvy host for this avid baseball fans. He manages several communities including PhotoshopForums, KarateForums and BadBoyForums. Like Augie Ray, he can help you decide whether to join or build a community.Now, would you like to launch and manage a lively online forum for people who share your favorite interest? And perhaps make money? Or become more adept at most any type of social interaction online? Then listen in as O'Keefe, the author of Managing Online Forums, describes how to jumpstart and care for a lively, growing community online. *Work from anywhere. * Host a popular place for people who share your interest to gather. From mothering to scuba diving, managers of some of the largest online forums rave about O'Keefe's advice. Hear how powerful a community can become, ways to set up a community and a content site, mediate squabbling members, develop guidelines and promote your community. As you can tell I am a fan of this generous community-building expert and his book. As both O'Keefe and Peter Block suggest, what makes communities work online is the same as in face-to-face time - -it is the sense of belonging. Customer Rating: Summary: Much needed advice for those who run online communities Comment: As many online forums as there are, sadly there are only very few titles out there that deal with the topic. Until now, the best one (now out of print) was Design for Community. But Patrick O'Keefe has changed this for good with this amazingly comprehensive title that is packed with great (and fairly timeless) advice about how to start, develop, promote and manage your online community. Two chapters at the end deal with tips on how to keep your online forum interesting and how to monetize it. Personally, the only downside I found in the book is that it has a very heavy emphasis on forums (phpBB, more specifically), leaving outside some of the aspects specific to social media. However, the knowledge that the author has included in here can be relatively easily ported to help folk wanting to manage social networks or other social applications. As for me, I am getting a copy of the book for each of the Administrators in my communities. Customer Rating: Summary: Must read for anyone interested in Forums Comment: This book is a must read for anyone interested in forums. From seasoned veterans to forum noobs this book is a great resource. I have yet to find a comparable resource of the same quality on this subject. I highly recommend it. More Reviews
Editorial Reviews: Every day, millions of users log into their favorite online forums to keep up on the latest trends in music, politics, entertainment, and current events. Each of these communities is led by administrators who must make tough decisions, deal with difficult users and manage the staff. Legal constraints, trolls, and technical issues can all turn the excitement of running an online community into chaos. With the right guidance, however, running forums can be a pleasure, not a chore. Patrick O'Keefe has spent years developing and managing his own online communities. Now, he shows readers how they can make their lives easier by making the right decisions about every aspect of their forums. From developing their site to choosing the right employees, "Managing Online Forums" is the one book that shows site administrators how to create a safe, entertaining, and informative community that users will return to again and again.