Mar
05

How To Behave On An Internet Forum

5 comments

No GravatarSo, entirely not in light of any recent events, I was integrating the chat rules that Vexar wrote into RolePlayGateway’s Rules, and I was looking for some examples of forum etiquette that other forums use. In searching, I found this perfectly humorous video:

(I found it on Neil Boortz’s website, but since headed over to videojug to get the original. PS, Neil? You’re awesome.)

That was probably the best one I found, above and beyond the video I came across that seemed geared towards the Steam forum community, which was a bit too NSFW to actually embed here on my blog. If you’d like, you can go check out posting a new thread on AlbinoBlackSheep.

I’m admin on several online forums, and I’m a moderator on many more; not counting the countless other communities where I’m an active member. I was pretty proud of the rules I put together on Gateway, and I think they’re clean, simple, and easy to follow. No one likes being bombarded and tacked down by rules, so I try to keep them as simple as possible. What do you think of them?

How do you manage forum users and set rules? I know Martin Reed has some good tips on forum rules, and there are many others out there that learned a lot from running forums. The best thing that we can do is learn from others, and gather experience on how to handle these issues. What is your approach to forum etiquette?

5 comments
  1. Thanks for the link, Eric! I love the Video Jug video - all their videos are brilliant but I hadn’t come across that one before!

    If you ever fancy writing a guest post over at Community Spark, drop me an email :)

    - Martin Reed

    March 5th, 2008 at 8:11 pm
  2. As a user: Assuming a forum that does not have an exclusive purpose and rules to that effect (the Forge has), rules that are intuitive are good. I read them once and don’t have to bother with them anymore, because they amount to general acceptable or good behaviour.

    TommiNo Gravatar says...
    March 6th, 2008 at 2:13 am
  3. This video is hilarious. Should be a mandatory watch for anyone starting to use forums. Love the pace. Very well done

    Flash designNo Gravatar says...
    April 25th, 2008 at 2:17 am
  4. I’ve recently joined and wanted to introduce myself :)

    davernginzksNo Gravatar says...
    August 1st, 2008 at 6:57 pm
  5. Anddd awesome. Gotta feature this on flamewars.com now :P

    flamewarsNo Gravatar says...
    November 12th, 2008 at 10:09 pm
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