If you were building your own Forum; What Forum would you emulate??

I find this forum rather intuitive. I think most Warriors would agree. Perhaps it's part of what made this forum so successful.

One of the features I have found lacking in other forums is the 'Like' or 'Thanks' button. I think it's a good way for members to reward one another for posting valuable and meaningful content. You will also want to have some sort of report post feature like this forum has... otherwise getting rid of spam will be a nightmare.

Vbulletin, the forum software this forum uses, is definitely one of the leaders. It has most of the features you are ever going to need and they are constantly making updates to help protect the software and make it even more user friendly.

The thanks button here is a good way of showing your appreciation to the person who made that post that you think gave you the answer that you're looking for. There's another feature in another forum that I like; I don't know if you guys know it, but you can take a look at some of those forums with the "Add Reputation" buttons. Through those, you can agree, or disagree with whatever is on the post.

Vbulletin seems to be good because of its strong community and thousands of addons and plugins.

Personally I like xenforo from an admin standpoint and ease of use.

I would definitely emulate warriorforum.

-Brandon

You would look at all of the big boards for inspiration, but then listen to your members for the final product, each board has its own unique twists and turns, and probably more evolves than is born out of the box.

To emulate another board alone would not mean that you would gain the same popularity, if this was true then every member here could emulate / clone the warrior forum and we would all own boards such as this.

Many people have tried this before I would suspect and I am sure many more will try moving forward with little to no success, so in that a emulated board has little to no value.

A real community is just as much about its people as the board layout itself.

check out vanilla (i think this is the script name) - cool framework.

I think you should concentrate on getting traffic rather than making it look good. Try out various promotional strategies for making it get more members. Forums are not easy to get started but they are handsfree once you get enough members who are regulars.

None, come up with your own niche or a combo of niches/subjects/interests...

There are normally only ever one good forum sites, for each thing you can think of, check out each subject and you will see the authority sites are just that!

A new forum is hard to build, but if you capture the right niche, it will boom!

I think i 'like' or even an 'unlike' button would be a good option?

good luck!

I think I would emulate a mix of the old snowboards(IGN's old boards) and the warrior forum. I think the old snowboards were among the best boards from usablity but there are features here like the "thanks" I would add.

Just remember one thing...Moderators can kill your forum so becareful who you let Mod. I've seen Mods ban 5 people for having a discussion that he didnt like. I've also seen some sites that should be successful but arent because a Mod has to approve every post. Case in points is the forums on Tony Robbins website. His forums should be exploding, but they do stuff like make you wait 2 weeks(or longer) until a Mod approves your registration and if you post something, you might not see it for a day until a mod reads it and approves it. If they dont approve it, you will not get a notice. Its like the same 10 people on that board when in reality, that board should have at least 100,000 members just because of Tony Robbins name.

1. Which forums do you think are the most user friendly and have the best features?
Warriorforum. The site is really tidy and well-order. It's very easy to search and consume information here, because you are not distracted with too much ads. The best features of WF is the WSO sub-forum of course

2. What features do you like in a forum and what don't you like?
It'll be great to have a marketplace sub-forum that you could get bargain price.
I don't like blinking ads that placed in everywhere, just in order to make you click the ads.

3. Are there any forums that have a visual appeal you like?
I really like the visual of Sitepoint Forum. It really easy to read the contents on the forum.

I've had or moderated a forum since 1994.

We use vBulletin, same as WF, at our Seeds of Wisdom forum (12 years).

Choosing software and features to include depends on what you want, how many people your forum will serve. I'll give you a couple of examples.

I once had a private forum at my Mr. Chattel website. It was a "closed" forum, for members only and was restricted to 100 people. So, if you are going to operate a paid forum, your needs will be different.

The software used here is very powerful, allows you to have paid sections, like the War Room, and to accept advertising. I've seen scores of people try to emulate the WF, and all have failed. This was built over TIME.

Most of the web hosts, such as HostGator, have built in forums, everything form Simple Machines to more complex forums, and they are free.

So, I'd ask you first what is the INTENT of the forum?

Who is your TARGET market, who will be coming to your forum and why?

How much moderation time do you have and will you have other moderators?

HOW will people find your forum, what is it you want from them?

Visual appeal, is the least important thing, I've belonged to some ugly looking forums but the CONTENT and expertise on the forums were what made me participate.

So, in my opinion, you need to answer some questions first about what you are wanting to do and for whom...as it stands, it feels as if you are putting the cart before the horse. Good luck, forums can be very profitable if done right.

gjabiz

A guy named Dexx in the "offline marketing" section of this forum has a great forum that you can emulate.

Just don't make it too heavily moderated. I always tend to flock towards forums that have less rules and are advocates of free speech and thought (where I can come straight out and question a certain gurus credentials rather than get banned for it).

Internet wasn't made to censor people, but so many forums do exactly that, censor people.

-Red

Gamefaqs.com

If you make a forum about internet marketing on a similar topic, I highly recommend a reputation button.

I like the simplicity of Warrior forum, I would just like to see an itrader and add reputation button to be added and it'd be perfect!