Strategies Forum Close Calls: Near Destruction and Remarkable Resurrections

[Cedric]

Managing a forum can sometimes feel like navigating through darkness. We've all had our fair share of close calls when it seemed like our beloved forum was on the brink of destruction. But the real question is, have you ever nearly destroyed a forum or had one of your forums almost to the point of destruction? And if so, how did you bring it back from the brink?

This topic is all about sharing our war stories and lessons learned from those heart-pounding moments. Whether it was a rogue spam attack, a heated feud among members, or a technical mishap that threatened to bring your forum crashing down, we want to hear your experiences.

Tell us:

• What happened that brought your forum to the edge of disaster?
• What immediate actions did you take to mitigate the damage?
• How did you communicate with your community during the crisis?
• What long-term strategies did you implement to prevent a similar incident from occurring again?
• Did your forum emerge stronger from the ordeal, and if so, how?

Maybe you implemented stricter security measures, initiated transparent communication with your members, or introduced innovative features to re-engage your community. Perhaps it was the unwavering support of your dedicated members that helped you weather the storm.

By sharing our near-miss experiences and the resurrection strategies we employed, we can all learn from one another. It's a testament to the resilience and dedication of webmasters and Community Managers. So, gather 'round our virtual campfire and let's swap stories and strategies for turning close calls into triumphant comebacks.

Have you ever nearly destroyed a forum or witnessed one teetering on the edge? Share your tales of survival, lessons learned, and the path to resurrection. We're all ears!

 

[SoluDome]

Well let me share one of my recent experience!

• What happened that brought your forum to the edge of disaster?

The only thing that i know was this the forum went down, as i was hired later. They tried there best for 15 days but their site was constantly under attack after downtime previous 15 day downtime, Their site was reachable but was giving lot of errors. They lost their SEO value.

• What immediate actions did you take to mitigate the damage?

What i did was simply improved the site security, as on checking logs i found out that the site is constantly under attacks. Not only that the site was having vulnerabilities that someone was trying to exploit. All these issues were fixed within a week. Not only that as I'm having good experience with automation we will be setting up we things to be done via automation to improve server performance. The best part was setting up CF Rocket loader for them on a XenForo based site. These were just few small things we did to give them the boost required

• How did you communicate with your community during the crisis?

Well i have no information regarding this but i can tell they didn't make any communication as they don't have any public handle of social promotion.

• What long-term strategies did you implement to prevent a similar incident from occurring again?

Currently, we haven't planned much as i haven't got full access so can't really do much there. I have already shared my insights with them. Hoping they will listen and work accordingly.

• Did your forum emerge stronger from the ordeal, and if so, how?

Well for now from the results we can say so yes it has emerged even stronger but they are still left with many issues that i explained but not sure if they will be moving forward with fixing them or not.

I was hired at this point

and these are the results we had after making all improvements

We are getting back in the game 💪, and I'm 100% sure that they will be in a much better position in the coming times if they implement my given strategies to improve forum security and make other performance improvements. It will give them the boost required to outperform their competitors. Otherwise, sooner or later, they will face hardships again.

 

[Sinistra]

• What happened that brought your forum to the edge of disaster?

Not my forum but I think my solution was amazing!! So over my forum days, I have learned not to get in the middle of a lover's quarrel I had just joined this forum and offered the admin some help. he was a novice and me having more experience in installing modifications and making skins he thought it would be good. So we discuss terns (because I'm not doing this for free). We came to an agreement and I am made admin. Not even 15 minutes after I get promoted. everyone in the admin and staff were demoted. except for his ex-G/F, who was pissed that well, he dumped her. He is messaging me trying to figure out what to do.

• What immediate actions did you take to mitigate the damage?

I asked him if he trusted me and he said yes. I told him I needed access to his SQL Database. Here I could do what I needed to get done, and not have any admin CP permissions. So I got database access, I proceeded to make him and myself admin again and removed her admin status to a regular member via the user table. While all this was going on her friends were posting things about the staff that no one could delete or get rid of without moderation power.

• How did you communicate with your community during the crisis?

With us back in control of the board. We restaffed everyone back and had them clean out their forums. This took a few days to do because a lot can go on in a 2-hour period. The super moderators were told to clean off the main page, and any other aspect of the community they had access to, while the mods worked on the forums they were associated with.

• What long-term strategies did you implement to prevent a similar incident from occurring again?

He and I agreed that he shouldn't make a partner an admin of his community ever again.

• Did your forum emerge stronger from the ordeal, and if so, how?

So this all happened in 2005 I think? The last time I checked the board was still active and still growing. I actually messaged him the other day to see how things were going. he said great. a few weeks after the incident happened his ex messaged me telling me there were no hard feelings and I did an impressive job of getting the board under control.

 

[Tracy]

The best part was setting up CF Rocket loader for them on a XenForo based site. These were just few small things we did to give them the boost required

Bad news for you... that's the WORST think you can do with XenForo... There is a reason that many of us that have used XF for a while refer to it as RocketEXPloder. It has a tendency to blow up functions on the XF script.

 

[Aussie]

• What happened that brought your forum to the edge of disaster?

Not my forum but I think my solution was amazing!! So over my forum days, I have learned not to get in the middle of a lover's quarrel I had just joined this forum and offered the admin some help. he was a novice and me having more experience in installing modifications and making skins he thought it would be good. So we discuss terns (because I'm not doing this for free). We came to an agreement and I am made admin. Not even 15 minutes after I get promoted. everyone in the admin and staff were demoted. except for his ex-G/F, who was pissed that well, he dumped her. He is messaging me trying to figure out what to do.

• What immediate actions did you take to mitigate the damage?

I asked him if he trusted me and he said yes. I told him I needed access to his SQL Database. Here I could do what I needed to get done, and not have any admin CP permissions. So I got database access, I proceeded to make him and myself admin again and removed her admin status to a regular member via the user table. While all this was going on her friends were posting things about the staff that no one could delete or get rid of without moderation power.

• How did you communicate with your community during the crisis?

With us back in control of the board. We restaffed everyone back and had them clean out their forums. This took a few days to do because a lot can go on in a 2-hour period. The super moderators were told to clean off the main page, and any other aspect of the community they had access to, while the mods worked on the forums they were associated with.

• What long-term strategies did you implement to prevent a similar incident from occurring again?

He and I agreed that he shouldn't make a partner an admin of his community ever again.

• Did your forum emerge stronger from the ordeal, and if so, how?

So this all happened in 2005 I think? The last time I checked the board was still active and still growing. I actually messaged him the other day to see how things were going. he said great. a few weeks after the incident happened his ex messaged me telling me there were no hard feelings and I did an impressive job of getting the board under control.

Never ever give other people total Admin rights, relationships can change so quickly, and sometimes for no reason... plus the power can go to peoples heads, arguments and disagreements can start over nothing. Never ever give anyone the power on your forum to demote you.

 

[SoluDome]

Bad news for you... that's the WORST think you can do with XenForo... There is a reason that many of us that have used XF for a while refer to it as RocketEXPloder. It has a tendency to blow up functions on the XF script.

I have a lot of experience with rocketloader, already know how to setup it properly without any issues 👍

 

[Tracy]

I have a lot of experience with rocketloader, already know how to setup it properly without any issues 👍

You can have ALL the experience with Rocket<EX>Ploader you want... it, by it's very nature, has issues with XenForo.... and has had for years. And it still raises it's nasty head. The only thing you can do is modify the XF templates with <script data-cfasync="false" src="/javascript.js"></script> for any (and a lot) of the scripts.. nothing at the CF level, and most admins aren't going to go through that trouble. And when you start excluding the number of scripts needed... Rocket<EXP>Loader loses a lot of its "benefit".
In fact, CF clearly tells you

There is a reason they tell you that. The issues with XF and Rocket<EXP>Loader go back well into the 1.x days of XenForo.

 

[SoluDome]

You can have ALL the experience you want with Rocke<EX>Ploader you want... it, by it's very nature has issues with XenForo.... and has had for years.

Can you list down the issues that you think exist ?

 

[Tracy]

Can you list down the issues that you think exist ?

Since you are XF verified.. simply take a little time over on the XF site and do a simple search based upon that cursed name. You will find a wealth of information where it botched folks sites up.
It's better to simply NEVER use it. But you do you. I've only worked with XF for over a decade and helped others, many of which were shafted when they enabled Rocket<EXP>Loader.
Just the posts I've directly been involved in.

Search results for query: rocketloader

xenforo.com

For a more encompassing search

Search results for query: rocketloader

xenforo.com

Notice the most recent was the cookie warning in XF having issues with Rocket<EXP>Loader... and guess who was involved in that discussion.

 

[ClicketyKat]

For any forum, you just have to stick it out and not give up. If you went through a bad patch with members, then you seek out new and totally different types of members to fill the void. You don't view this as a short-term process, it takes a while and you need to have a 1, 2, and even 5 year goal in mind for your site. I think any forum can get past any type of downfall if they hang on long enough and also not sit around and wait. You have to push forward and do hard work to become a phoenix.

 

[Jason]

It wasn't my forum, but it was one where I played a big role. Anyway, one of the co-admins got into an argument with the owner and the forum was deleted. Well, we recovered, but I'm not sure if it was from a backup.

 

[Bluezone777]

For me, my disaster all started when I promoted my test account to mod to test permissions for mods. It wouldn't be a problem if I quickly demoted it back but instead I forgot to do it and combined with a weak pass and a long list of enemies just waiting for a slip up of this kind to happen led to disaster. Turns out someone caught on to my mistake, got into that account and deleted everything. Seeing as this was an Invisionfree forum meant such an incident meant you lost everything for good. Most boards in this situation back then folded like a house of cards which is what people expected would happen here but I had other plans. I came on, saw all the angry members pissed that someone did all this damage and used that fuel that was set to revenge in an announcement stating what happened, took full responsibility for what happened and then redirected said anger to more productive means. I encourage people to get their revenge by posting thread and replies, sharing the board with others and the like. We gained a handful of members out of it and regain all lost posts that had originally taken a month to get and got them back in a week. The colossal intellect of a man who did it never came forward to claim responsibility as he was probably too ashamed of his efforts to destroy the board only gave it more life then it had beforehand.

 

[Excommunicado]

For me, my disaster all started when I promoted my test account to mod to test permissions for mods. It wouldn't be a problem if I quickly demoted it back but instead I forgot to do it and combined with a weak pass and a long list of enemies just waiting for a slip up of this kind to happen led to disaster. Turns out someone caught on to my mistake, got into that account and deleted everything. Seeing as this was an Invisionfree forum meant such an incident meant you lost everything for good. Most boards in this situation back then folded like a house of cards which is what people expected would happen here but I had other plans. I came on, saw all the angry members pissed that someone did all this damage and used that fuel that was set to revenge in an announcement stating what happened, took full responsibility for what happened and then redirected said anger to more productive means. I encourage people to get their revenge by posting thread and replies, sharing the board with others and the like. We gained a handful of members out of it and regain all lost posts that had originally taken a month to get and got them back in a week. The colossal intellect of a man who did it never came forward to claim responsibility as he was probably too ashamed of his efforts to destroy the board only gave it more life then it had beforehand.

I don’t know if I would be able to continue after losing a whole month’s worth of work but kudos to you for making the most out of a bad situation.

 

[Reverie]

• What happened that brought your forum to the edge of disaster?

Not my forum but I think my solution was amazing!! So over my forum days, I have learned not to get in the middle of a lover's quarrel I had just joined this forum and offered the admin some help. he was a novice and me having more experience in installing modifications and making skins he thought it would be good. So we discuss terns (because I'm not doing this for free). We came to an agreement and I am made admin. Not even 15 minutes after I get promoted. everyone in the admin and staff were demoted. except for his ex-G/F, who was pissed that well, he dumped her. He is messaging me trying to figure out what to do.

• What immediate actions did you take to mitigate the damage?

I asked him if he trusted me and he said yes. I told him I needed access to his SQL Database. Here I could do what I needed to get done, and not have any admin CP permissions. So I got database access, I proceeded to make him and myself admin again and removed her admin status to a regular member via the user table. While all this was going on her friends were posting things about the staff that no one could delete or get rid of without moderation power.

• How did you communicate with your community during the crisis?

With us back in control of the board. We restaffed everyone back and had them clean out their forums. This took a few days to do because a lot can go on in a 2-hour period. The super moderators were told to clean off the main page, and any other aspect of the community they had access to, while the mods worked on the forums they were associated with.

• What long-term strategies did you implement to prevent a similar incident from occurring again?

He and I agreed that he shouldn't make a partner an admin of his community ever again.

• Did your forum emerge stronger from the ordeal, and if so, how?

So this all happened in 2005 I think? The last time I checked the board was still active and still growing. I actually messaged him the other day to see how things were going. he said great. a few weeks after the incident happened his ex messaged me telling me there were no hard feelings and I did an impressive job of getting the board under control.

This sounds like a rollercoaster. Truly shows you shouldn’t just make partners staff or admins. Perhaps wait until more serious because I’m sure in 2005 it was young love probably. You seemed to handled it quite well!

For me, my disaster all started when I promoted my test account to mod to test permissions for mods. It wouldn't be a problem if I quickly demoted it back but instead I forgot to do it and combined with a weak pass and a long list of enemies just waiting for a slip up of this kind to happen led to disaster. Turns out someone caught on to my mistake, got into that account and deleted everything. Seeing as this was an Invisionfree forum meant such an incident meant you lost everything for good. Most boards in this situation back then folded like a house of cards which is what people expected would happen here but I had other plans. I came on, saw all the angry members pissed that someone did all this damage and used that fuel that was set to revenge in an announcement stating what happened, took full responsibility for what happened and then redirected said anger to more productive means. I encourage people to get their revenge by posting thread and replies, sharing the board with others and the like. We gained a handful of members out of it and regain all lost posts that had originally taken a month to get and got them back in a week. The colossal intellect of a man who did it never came forward to claim responsibility as he was probably too ashamed of his efforts to destroy the board only gave it more life then it had beforehand.

Man I can’t even imagine. It’s crazy that people had enough time to want to do such things in the first place. It is truly amazing you pushed through and made the best of a bad situation.

I know due to some conflict I had prior to a forum helped bring the new forum more attention. Any attention is better than none, but it was mostly positive attention of course. I’m sure that helped your community to become more tight knit too!

 

[Bluezone777]

I don’t know if I would be able to continue after losing a whole month’s worth of work but kudos to you for making the most out of a bad situation.

The way you go about getting through it is not looking at is as any actual loss. While it is true that the posts and threads are gone, the people are still there and all the connections that were being built are still there. That's what matters as the post, threads and all the rest is just the way you go about building said connections between people on a forum. The anger that the people at the community felt about what that person did showed that they were passionate about the board and the loss didn't change that. Tapping into that and directing that passion in a healthy and productive direction is what a good admin/leader should be doing to lead his community through a tough situation. I think ultimately every admin who build themselves a community is going to have to face a tough situation and he or she will be forced to show their community what kind of leader they are as your leadership abilities or lack thereof doesn't really show until you hit a tough situation of one kind or another.