Hey, we all have our favorite forums and our own way of doing things. However, in my adventures across the internetz, I've seen a lot of forums. And with that, I've seen a lot of annoying practices that admins seem to be in the habit of implementing. So let's start this list off with,
1. All accounts requiring admin approval before being fully activated.
So you find a forum, it's active, and you're ready to get right to posting. You then fill out the registration and activate your account. But it wasn't actually activated... You soon find out that the admin requires that all accounts must have his approval first before they can post. Well, that's great. So now you're completely at the mercy of whether the admin is online or not (which is sometimes never). This can potentially be the biggest cockblock a forum can have, hands down.
2. No ways for a guest to contact an admin or member of staff.
The effects of this aren't really felt until after you find out that registration is completely broken or you've been banned. Well, no problem, you say. I can just look at the admin's profile for an email. LOLNOPE. Either one of two things will happen. One, the forum has profile viewing by guests disabled or two, the email simply isn't anywhere at all. And since members of staff don't usually post their email addresses either, you're completely screwed.
3. You can't view the forums as a guest.
Hey, you found another cool forum! You click on the link that google gives you. Only to find that you can't view the board without registering. I don't think I need to tell you why this is incredibly annoying. And not only is it annoying, it's counterproductive too. The logic is that, hey, more people will now want to register to the forum.
How about no?
The board is part of what intrigues the guests to register. It lets them view the community and its discussions. In essence, the board is its own advertisement. So by not letting guests view the board, you'll actually be driving them away in annoyance, never to return.
4. Annoying, unnecessary rules.
This doesn't apply to all forums such as ones focusing on religion. However, I only allow this leniency to forums that apply, and even then, only for certain rules. Anything else is just plain censorship and it should never have to be tolerated. If I want to swear, so be it. If I want to talk about bewbs, that should be my choice. People shouldn't have to watch every single little thing they say on a forum. It's suffocating and kills some of the flow of conversation.
5. Weird and/or outdated board software.
Look, I understand if you've been with a particular piece of software for a while, and it's a pain to switch too. But sometimes, you just gotta say enough is enough. You know it's bad when your board doesn't support basic forum features such as embedding videos or resizing avatars. After a while, it just becomes a hassle for your users. Sooner or later, you'll just have to bite the bullet. If anything else, it will look much nicer and you'll have a lot more support for your software.
6. Bad forum layout/color/organization.
Ugh. I don't know about you all, but I've seen some simple, nice forum designs, and let me tell you, after wading through some really crap boards, I believe that it is supremely important that the board looks as steamlined and as intuitive as possible. Everything from profiles to sub-forums, it's all important. It needs to look nice and the user shouldn't have to spend any time frustratingly trying to figure out how your forums set up. Less frustration, more posting.
7. Reputation systems.
Back in the day, I used to think these could work. But now, I've seen so many iterations of them on many different forums and they never, NEVER work out as planned. No matter how you set it up, it always seems to devolve into a system good for nothing more than circle jerking, trolling, and tears. And it also doesn't even matter because no one pays attention a user's overall score either. Not that you should, considering how broken rep systems are even when only contained to topics.
8. Boards that require that you pay to post in.
As compared to boards where I don't have to pay and can post in all the same? Wow, let me think for a second here.
If you need money, put up a donation button and make it known that you'd really like some donations. DON'T strip forum features from users and force them to pay to get them. Not only will you get less money, you'll have less of a user base too. Assuming any of them will put up with that crap.
9. Stupid looking smileys.
I'm actually not a big user of smileys either way. I think there's some good ones but otherwise, to me, they're rather superfluous. However, you look at certain smileys and you just want to shoot yourself every time you look at them. And the best part? Some forums will load them all up on the top of the posting toolbar. So now, if you don't like the smileys, too bad. You get to look at them all every time you post. Awesome.
10. Old forums that aren't decommissioned properly.
I don't see this very often, but when I do, it ticks me off and makes me sad at the same time. You think you've found a good forum until you actually look at it and find out no one's posted in it for at least a year. Or even worse, you find a forum where the page is still up but the page says it's down for maintenance. OK, but then you check back the next day, and the next, and the next... Finally, you come to the conclusion that this site is well and truly over.
I'm sorry, but if you've got an old forum you used to administer still lying around, you owe it to the forum to at least shut down registration and post a public message on it saying it's done. Preferably you have a replacement for it and give a link to it in the message. Either way though, don't leave your garbage out to rot. Put it in the trash and end it properly.
