Moderate a discussion board ?

[Evilhalfling]

Thanks for the replies folks, sorry about the impatient post.

I should have some budget, and will recommend vBulletin. 160$ for a copy is perfectly reasonable, it just has to be priced out ahead of time.

For the structure - I'm thinking a general Forum, and a specific forum for each workshop we put on (3 planned so far)

I am also planing on an area that is an online chat, with people sending questions then posting some question and a response from an expert. This will take place regularly, at set times this is my inspiration.
Can this be done with vBulletin or does it need a separate program? (My Boss is pushing the format, in addition to the regular board)

Mostly I was asking about moderating -

I suppose most of the things I am worrying about I will just have to wait and see - like if the board will need tending outside 8-5 and how much off topic to ignore before moving posts. I have had a couple of conversations with the people that will be on the board, and can tell they will stay with planning but drift between topics with some speed. I don't know how different it will be in a posting format. I think they will light on the personal attacks, but given alias they may supprise me.

 

[Piratecat]

You will have massive problems with spammers. MASSIVE - we get more than 100 spam posts a month, since the spammers cracked the authentification image code. I strongly recommend in installing a "blacklist" hack or something that will let you ferret them out automatically.

 

[Umbran]

For the structure - I'm thinking a general Forum, and a specific forum for each workshop we put on (3 planned so far)

How long do your workshops take, and how often do you expect them to repeat? A special forum is good for a thing that will take continued discussion, but a series fo single, one-time workshops might call for a different approach.

I am also planing on an area that is an online chat, with people sending questions then posting some question and a response from an expert.

We have some folks in #dnd3e that are well-versed in moderated chats with an expert. I'll see if I can make sure some of them see this thread...

I suppose most of the things I am worrying about I will just have to wait and see - like if the board will need tending outside 8-5 and how much off topic to ignore before moving posts.

Those are very dependant on how much traffic, and how geographically widespread your users are - a board with many users worldwide may call for lots more tending. Do you have any expectations or estimates for how many users you'll have?

 

[Plane Sailing]

I have tonnes of useless experience in trying to run professional forums. At the RCP we get doctors always saying "can we have discussion forums" but basically they never use it.

One of the big problems is that there needs to be plenty of 'seeding' of the forums with decent discussions (which probably means something that people care about enough to give their opinion). If you can't get enough people from within your organisation to do that, things might prove difficult!

Cheers