Some thoughts on running a community / discussion forum

For me, running a discussion forum meant creating a community people wanted to participate in. In January 2011, I shared some thoughts after looking at an unnamed Danish community.

Run a discussion forum for a clear target audience

I would first clarify who the forum was for and what they should get out of visiting. A very broad offering could make it hard to see yourself reflected in it.

I compared it to inviting people to a party. The language, appearance and atmosphere needed to fit the people you wanted to bring together.

Make it easier to join in

I noticed the options for replying weren’t clear enough, especially for new visitors. People needed to be able to see how to participate, even before creating a profile.

I suggested making the path from interest to signup simple and explaining what membership involved.

Profiles needed to show people

I wanted more than statistics about post counts. A photo, username and personal description could make it easier to understand who you were talking to.

I used Amino as an example of encouraging people to fill in their profiles. I also felt a new community needed a clearly visible host or person behind it.

Finally, I talked about tone, design and handling conflict. I preferred guidelines that allowed an overall assessment of behaviour. These are my experiences and suggestions from 2011, not a promise that a particular button or profile feature creates an active community.

Also read about choosing a clear target audience.

A community needs to feel like a community

I’m meeting some guys from a Danish community who are coming to visit me here for a few days. I’ve promised to help them take a closer look at their project. I won’t say who they are, but some of my observations may be useful to others.

For me, the most important thing about a community is that it actually is a community: A group of people who feel united around a common cause. Some places don’t succeed because they don’t feel like a community.

I don’t think it’s clear enough who the community I’m looking at is for. It’s so broad that I imagine perhaps 40–50 per cent of Danes could use it. But that’s my impression, not a measurement. The problem is that lots of people might be able to use it without anyone thinking: This is exactly for me.

Run a discussion forum with a sharply defined audience

If you have neither an enormous marketing budget nor a fantastic, truly special idea like Facebook, I think you need to be more specific.

Who are the people you’re addressing? What kinds of people are they? What do they come for? What do they want to achieve by joining? Those are some of the first questions I’d ask.

Then you need to create a living room they love being in. It’s a little like throwing a party. If you’re inviting heavy rock guys, you wouldn’t necessarily decorate with red hearts and pink tablecloths.

What design does your audience like? What language? What do you want to signal, and what atmosphere helps people visit often, participate and give something to the others?

People need to feel comfortable and looked after. The other participants should inspire, interest and provoke them. It’s fine if some annoy them a little too. Just not so many of the latter that being there is no longer enjoyable.

Show the reply button even when visitors aren’t logged in

A community needs people contributing posts, photos and other things relevant to the other members. So participating needs to be extremely easy.

In the community I’m reviewing, there are no reply buttons when I’m not logged in. So I’m not encouraged to join in at all. When I’m logged in, the reply button is only at the start of the discussion.

I’d have a reply button at every post. I may not want to answer the first one. Perhaps something in the middle of the discussion interests me. The option to respond needs to be clear there.

When a new visitor clicks, signup should start from the assumption that they’ve never been there before. Existing members will work out how to log in. I particularly want to make the path simple for the newcomer, a little like an online shop. You can find my experiences of online sales and marketing in E-pusher.

I imagine a big green button with a message like: Become a member for free, it takes two minutes. You can add a few reasons to join. If the audience is a little anxious, you can also explain what happens to their email address and how to unsubscribe. Of course, that needs to explain what you actually do.

A profile is a face, not just a statistics page

User profiles matter too. They’re people’s public face. Here, photos are missing from the discussion itself. It’s a little like a party where everyone walks around with a sack over their head: You have no idea who you’re talking to.

Give people the option of a photo. They can decide whether it shows them or their cat, if that represents them best. Also let the username lead to an attractive profile.

Statistics about post counts and activity can be fine, but they shouldn’t be the main thing. I’d rather see a photo and a description: Who is this person, and why are they here?

You can ask a few simple questions that make it easy for people to introduce themselves. That’s something we need to improve at Amino too. Profiles become interesting to visit when they show people who are relevant to each other.

On Amino, we show what percentage of your profile you’ve completed. It doesn’t mean anything in itself, but being at 30 per cent can be annoying if you can get to 100 in five minutes. I think that can motivate people to finish their profile when it’s easy to understand.

A new community needs a host

At Amino, I’m largely the public face. I could be more visible, as I was at the beginning. But Amino is well established now, and I’d actually like to make it a little less dependent on me.

The community I’m helping here is at a different stage. They’re starting up, and there I think it’s important to have a person people can relate to.

It could be a founder, a well-known person or perhaps a mascot. A recognisable person behind it can welcome people, perhaps in a video, and appear again in newsletters and welcome emails. That makes the place less anonymous.

Be careful with rules that box you in

I wouldn’t make too many rigid rules either. Imagine a rule saying you must never insult others. That can seem obvious when some idiot repeatedly ruins the discussion.

But what do you do if a really good, helpful user has a bad day and crosses the line? If you’ve thrown others out for the same thing, you may feel forced to throw the good user out. Or you have to break your own rules.

You can lose an interesting person who brings great value to the community. In the video, I say it can cost thousands of kroner. That’s my assessment of the possible value, not a specific loss I’ve calculated.

I prefer guidelines or a code of conduct: This is how we behave here. And if someone has to go, I think it should be because they generally don’t contribute positively and have problems with their behaviour.

It’s a little more fluid, but it leaves room to explain the overall assessment without being tied to a single mistake always having the same consequence.

Make the language and design personal

The design needs to be inviting and professional. The community I’m looking at is actually fine, but I think both its look and language are too conventional. A standard phrase like "welcome to the discussion forum about …" doesn’t say much about the people behind it.

Soften it up. Bring in more personality and feeling, and find language that fits the audience. Good icons can make a difference too, even if the forum is aimed at bank CEOs.

Back then, we used 1902 Software in Manila for things including icons, and I thought they did them well at a reasonable price. I couldn’t remember the price in the video. If you’re completely new and have no money, you can also buy an icon library. What matters to me is that the icons fit the audience, are easy to understand and don’t distract.

If you want a twinkle in the eye, it should be visible. If you want a serious tone, the icons should fit that too.

And use clear buttons for important actions. I think people notice a button more than an ordinary text link. "Join our free forum" can become a green button with an arrow, finger or tick that makes the action easy to spot.

Those were my observations. I hope you can use them if you want to start or develop a community. Good luck with it.

Best wishes, Martin