Content Creation ❔Oopsie: Did you ever do something only to have it backfire spectacularly on your forum?

[CharlesK]

Have you ever introduced a policy or feature to your community, only to have it produce unexpected and undesirable results? For instance, maybe you set up a reward system to encourage posting, but it led to spammy, low-quality contributions. Or perhaps you implemented a strict moderation policy that ended up driving away genuine, valuable members?

What were some of your biggest "oopsie" moments that were well-intended, but had negative consequences?

 

[Cory]

This "oopsie" wasn't particularly on my board itself but concerning my board. I created massive code indexes of all the codes found on the InvisionFree support forum at the time and I posted the HTML for the indexes on a "Think Tank" board for InvisionFree where specific members were allowed to go in and contribute their thoughts and ideas to improve the community. I guess I thought I was originally going to be the one to post these indexes on the official board, but boy was I wrong, the code indexes were swept underneath my feet where an official staff member posted them all and I was not even accredited for my work, so it looked like the InvisionFree staff members did all the work. This was bad for my board because it was the most unique feature I could offer on my board to gain traffic, but once it was posted on the InvisionFree support board it probably killed a lot of the traffic my board did receive.