How to set up a good user friendly Forum

When setting up a new forum the following should be done to make sure it is successful and user friendly.

Most forum owners make these common mistakes when setting up there forums. One of the big ones is using the name admin as there username. There are multiple things wrong with this.  First off a good username should be used to give the admin his/her identity. What I mean by this is the admin should be like a user to the forum and not just the admin. Using a name like “Blaster” or “DJB” will make you sound more of a friendlier type of person.

Another common mistake is staff. A forum staff should consist of only 2 or 3 admins. This number can vary depending on forum size. The less admins the better. If you have too many admins then people can get pissed and start banning each other and try to run the forum to the ground. Also same thing with Moderators. Mods should be picked by the admins and other mods. An open application is the wrong thing to do. This can lead to the wrong people getting power that can run your forum to the ground.

Forum with improper rules can set up a bad forum. Your rules should be strict. This way it is easier to defend the rules. Then people can not get around them as easy. Rules pertaining to signatures and avatars should be strict. Signature sizes should be small. If they are too big then pages will load slow causing users or potential users to leave because they are aggravated.

Keep the ratio of  posts to a page low. This way you have smaller page sizes so that your page can load faster. But you don’t want it so low that it takes 30 pages to view 60 posts. A good ratio is anywhere from 15 to 30 posts per page.