Community Interview: Dan The Man
Today we had the pleasure to send over a few questions to @Dan The Man . You might know him from VGR Gaming Forum. Dan and I go way back as we both came from InvisionFree and even had a forum together called ForumSpark. Without further ado, here's the interview.
Hello! Thank you for accepting my interview request. Can you tell me and the community more about yourself? Who are you, what's your age, gender, where are you from ?
My name is Dan, hence the username Dan The Man. I am a male, living in the United States, and have been creating and managing forums for nearly 18 years.
What is your greatest strength being a webmaster?
Forum promotion via social media and SEO and forum management.
What is your greatest accomplishment ?
I own Spurs Talk, one of the largest forums on the internet with over 10,400,000 posts.
How long have you been on forums in general? What's the history behind you?
I have been on forums for nearly 19 years and am responsible for creating the first ever promotion forum on Invision Power Board and promoting that forum to the Invisionfree and Zetaboards platforms. It was also one of the most successful and innovative promotional forums on the net. It was called Get A Link. I have since created many webmaster forums (Forum Exposure), sports forums (You Talk Sports, Spurs Talk, Pro Sports Addicts, and TBEBaseball), and gaming forums.
What has inspired you to start VGR?
The gaming community is massive and heavily under-served. Furthermore, I understand how to market websites to gamers due to my past experience with gaming forums.
Can you tell us more about the software your site is running?
VGR Forum is running on Invision Power Board. The software is expensive but well worth it as it offers the most community features and security enhancements compared to other software.
Where do you see your forum heading in a couple of years? What are your goals?
VGR Forum will continue to grow and become recognized as the top gaming community on the internet. I would like to see the forum reach 250,000 forum posts before 2024.
How often do you work on your forum, creating new content, adding news, doing back-end stuff?
I am on VGR Forum a couple hours each day, promoting the forum, moderating content, and creating new threads. VGR also has two stellar moderators who help with those tasks.
Do you consider yourself an expert webmaster? Are there aspects that you'd like to know better ?
Yes, I am an expert webmaster. I would like to some day learn how to code and create graphics, but I think my time is better spent on the marketing and promotion side.
Do you like to have each detail set-up the way you want it and have everything go perfect? Or are you more laid back and fix a couple settings and let things fall into place on their own?
I spend a significant amount of time with the development of each forum, specifically the skin/theme and forum layout. This is important to get correct the first time. VGR has been open for four years and I have never once modified the theme and have only made a few slight changes to the community layout.
Do you pick staff according to their popularity on forums, or their personality?
Neither. I pick staff solely based on their quality of contributions, their enthusiasm, and my belief of their willingness and ability to enforce and uphold community rules and culture.
How do you advertise?
I advertise on promotional forums, like Admin Junkies, and via social media and SEO.
How do you maintain your traffic/income and keep members entertained?
Traffic is maintained by consistent advertising via social media and promotional forums, keeping up to date and continuing to invest in SEO strategies, and I keep members entertained via a Bid for Rewards Program, where users receive Points for posting and can redeem gift cards and video games!
And a small survey we have asked Dan to fill in.
Concerning Members
Most likely to make Premium Member:
Most likely to make the Moderation team:
Most active member: Shortie or Heatman
Funniest member: Naiwen or Heatman
Favorite overall member: Aerodynamic
Concerning Admin Junkies:
What's your reason for visiting Admin Junkies?: Primarily for webmaster discussion and posting packages.
Favorite forum: VGR Forum
Is there enough to do within the community? Yes
What would you like to see in future themes: The current theme selection is excellent, plenty of options available.
Do you like the choice of the themes in the selector?: Yes
Which theme do you use?: Mere
Services you would like to see: Graphics Request, a dedicate sub-forum and Graphics Staff to fulfill requests.
Other comments: Keep up the good work and stay persistent.
Thank you for the excellent answers Dan, it was a pleasure reading them. Hopefully the community now knows more about yourself and your forum VGR.
Today we had the pleasure to send over a few questions to @Dan The Man . You might know him from VGR Gaming Forum. Dan and I go way back as we both came from InvisionFree and even had a forum together called ForumSpark. Without further ado, here's the interview.
Hello! Thank you for accepting my interview request. Can you tell me and the community more about yourself? Who are you, what's your age, gender, where are you from ?
My name is Dan, hence the username Dan The Man. I am a male, living in the United States, and have been creating and managing forums for nearly 18 years.
What is your greatest strength being a webmaster?
Forum promotion via social media and SEO and forum management.
What is your greatest accomplishment ?
I own Spurs Talk, one of the largest forums on the internet with over 10,400,000 posts.
How long have you been on forums in general? What's the history behind you?
I have been on forums for nearly 19 years and am responsible for creating the first ever promotion forum on Invision Power Board and promoting that forum to the Invisionfree and Zetaboards platforms. It was also one of the most successful and innovative promotional forums on the net. It was called Get A Link. I have since created many webmaster forums (Forum Exposure), sports forums (You Talk Sports, Spurs Talk, Pro Sports Addicts, and TBEBaseball), and gaming forums.
What has inspired you to start VGR?
The gaming community is massive and heavily under-served. Furthermore, I understand how to market websites to gamers due to my past experience with gaming forums.
Can you tell us more about the software your site is running?
VGR Forum is running on Invision Power Board. The software is expensive but well worth it as it offers the most community features and security enhancements compared to other software.
Where do you see your forum heading in a couple of years? What are your goals?
VGR Forum will continue to grow and become recognized as the top gaming community on the internet. I would like to see the forum reach 250,000 forum posts before 2024.
How often do you work on your forum, creating new content, adding news, doing back-end stuff?
I am on VGR Forum a couple hours each day, promoting the forum, moderating content, and creating new threads. VGR also has two stellar moderators who help with those tasks.
Do you consider yourself an expert webmaster? Are there aspects that you'd like to know better ?
Yes, I am an expert webmaster. I would like to some day learn how to code and create graphics, but I think my time is better spent on the marketing and promotion side.
Do you like to have each detail set-up the way you want it and have everything go perfect? Or are you more laid back and fix a couple settings and let things fall into place on their own?
I spend a significant amount of time with the development of each forum, specifically the skin/theme and forum layout. This is important to get correct the first time. VGR has been open for four years and I have never once modified the theme and have only made a few slight changes to the community layout.
Do you pick staff according to their popularity on forums, or their personality?
Neither. I pick staff solely based on their quality of contributions, their enthusiasm, and my belief of their willingness and ability to enforce and uphold community rules and culture.
How do you advertise?
I advertise on promotional forums, like Admin Junkies, and via social media and SEO.
How do you maintain your traffic/income and keep members entertained?
Traffic is maintained by consistent advertising via social media and promotional forums, keeping up to date and continuing to invest in SEO strategies, and I keep members entertained via a Bid for Rewards Program, where users receive Points for posting and can redeem gift cards and video games!
And a small survey we have asked Dan to fill in.
Concerning Members
Most likely to make Premium Member:
Most likely to make the Moderation team:
Most active member: Shortie or Heatman
Funniest member: Naiwen or Heatman
Favorite overall member: Aerodynamic
Concerning Admin Junkies:
What's your reason for visiting Admin Junkies?: Primarily for webmaster discussion and posting packages.
Favorite forum: VGR Forum
Is there enough to do within the community? Yes
What would you like to see in future themes: The current theme selection is excellent, plenty of options available.
Do you like the choice of the themes in the selector?: Yes
Which theme do you use?: Mere
Services you would like to see: Graphics Request, a dedicate sub-forum and Graphics Staff to fulfill requests.
Other comments: Keep up the good work and stay persistent.
Thank you for the excellent answers Dan, it was a pleasure reading them. Hopefully the community now knows more about yourself and your forum VGR.
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