What has changed compared to your teenager days?

[Cedric]

When creating a forum, what has changed now compared to your teenager days? Do you spend more money creating forums? Perhaps you haven't changed anything in your administration aspect ? Are you more carefully selecting staff members ? Or do you just know what you're doing now compared to years ago?

 

[Shortie]

I didn't start out forums when I was in my teenage years but I was in my early 20's when I started out with my first forum and when I look back to the very first forum I had compared to now when I co-own a forum, I would say a lot has changed in terms of understanding what helps bring people in and what may be too much and be off putting for members. I have also learned that having things such as a light and dark mode skin helps as well to bring members in and keep them around. Something else I have also learned throughout my years of running forums is that you can never trust everyone, and it always pays to be careful with who you trust with certain roles on your forum. Everyone has to start out somewhere and you will always make mistakes when learning, as I did and as many have done.

 

[Cory]

I probably come across as more mature, sometimes professional, and have better spelling/grammar than I did when I was a teenager. My coding expertise has especially grown since I was a teenager.

 

[Strawberry]

I think if I were to own a forum nowadays, I would definitely put 100x more effort into it than I did when I was a teenager. First of all, I would definitely look at a custom domain with hosting and probably a paid forum software, as opposed to signing up for a free forum host such as IF/ZB back then. I'd put a lot of thought into what type of forum I wanted to create and perhaps partner up with someone else. I'd ensure a lot of pre-work was done before opening and have a plan in place.

 

[Heatman]

What have changed in creating forums now when compared to my teenage days? It's definitely having access to spend more money on forums. Back then, I relied mostly on free resources to run forums but now, they are the last thing that I would ever consider to use.

 

[Reverie]

I grew to believe everyone should have a voice, but also you can't make everyone happy. At my last community I was very mindful that I wanted many different opinions and views being able to be posted. I never thought I would have to deal with someone upset with me for allowing someone to have an opinion or share a topic. I still don't know how I would handle that today. I began to believe, if someone doesn't like how the moderation and administration is, but they still actively participate... just to ignore it. If they didn't like the forum then they wouldn't participate. Some people just enjoy complaining and you truly can't make everyone happy.

Do things in the best interest of everyone is the biggest piece of advice I would give my teenage self!