Simple Tips for Forum admins

I saw something annoying on the internet today. Which makes this pretty much like any other day that my computer is on, I suppose. But I digress. 

What I saw was yet another forum with more Admin posts than user posts in the past week. I see this a lot for some reason. Google hates me, is my guess. Anyway, as usual, he was complaining ABOUT users using his crappy design wrong. Rant time...

I will, don't test me, admins

This post is in response to a forum I saw yesterday.

     One of these days, I will find a forum on the internet. This mythical forum will have the rarest of rare qualities. An admin, who is complaining about forum misuse, WHO ISN'T THE ROOT CAUSE OF SAID PROBLEM. Some day, I WILL see this. Here are a few tips to help you be this lovely forum


1."People don't search the forum for existing posts before posting questions"

     a. Is your search button larger than 125x125? People don't use what they can't see.

     b. Can it be found as quickly and is it as prominently displayed as the "Create new thread" button? It's on the bottom of the third page, isn't it?

     c. Are you set up correctly? Searching shouldn't require a forum signup, posting threads should(n't. NOTHING SHOULD, EVER. But it's a good way to use reverse psychology to annoy people into doing what you want)

     d. Does the correct topic have recent posts? If not, disable post timestamp feature until it does. You ever post to an empty forum topic?



2."People post in the wrong topics"

     a. Do the topics in question have names that CLEARLY indicate their purpose? Or is it some weird SEO efficient name, like "insert researched keyword here"

3. "Off topic, useless posts EVERYWHERE!!"

     a. Are people causing problems like this putting links in their posts or sigs? Disable problem feature, threaten to create a topic with poison keywords, (think animals, adult sites, plus free 'anything' internet) that will be linked to the websites of violators  That'll fix em.