The Art of Conversation

The forums are often the first point of interaction for members of your site.  It is where most people will make their first contribution to the online community, but often people will visit many times just to observe and read other's postings before adding in their opinions.  Allowing forums to flourish on your web site and establishing a healthy community online requires a bit of planning and careful maintenance.

Remember the point

• Good forums encourage ownership and creativity - a sum that is greater than everyone's individual parts.
• Encourage authentic conversations that allow people to get to know each other beyond the usual social, geographic or demographic restrictions.
• Forums are a place to inform and educate, working together towards better conversations.
• Communities should build individuals up and in the process share collective knowledge, not share knowledge at the expense of people.
• Online forums enable people to make contact with others, this means some forums should be open and accessible places to welcome in newcomers.

Creating forums

• Less is more.  Creating more forums does not necessarily create more conversations, it may just confuse users as to where to go.  If in doubt start with a small but varied selection of areas and create more forums if a particular theme emerges.
• Communities are built on trust and shared interests.  Restricting forums by group membership may allow a better quality of discussion to take place.
• If you want to encourage membership of your site consider allowing visitors to read some forums, but allow only members to post.  This allows visitors to see what they are missing and encourages them to login or register.
• Decide on your 'Acceptable Use Policy' early.  Having a visible and objective means of monitoring behaviour in the forums will set the limits and encourage better usage, avoiding the need to shut the stable door after the horse has bolted. Editing your 'Acceptable Use Policy'.
• Display forums on your site front page to stimulate activity. The number of posts to display should be proportional to the amount of activity - for small communities, display only the last post so that it doesn't become too out of date.  For larger communities with a greater turnover of messages, display several (6 to 8) so that visitors can keep up with the activity.

Stimulating discussion

• Start threads, pose questions about topical events, write about things that are important to you.
• Be welcoming to newcomers.  Confine intellectual sparring to a private forum, so that people don't think they need to be witty or good with words in order to contribute.
• Revive old discussions by posting to them from time to time, prune out of date information.
• If topics repeat the flow of a previous discussion, search out the old posting and provide a reference.
• By default, articles will have a discussion thread allowing feedback on the article.  If the content of the article is not up for discussion, then set the article properties to 'not allow feedback'.

As a leader or site administrator

• Leaders need to be careful not to kill discussions by stating a party line.  Even if leaders are posting a personal opinion it is difficult for others to disagree.
• Have fun! Signal that it's okay to experiment and okay to not take yourself and the whole enterprise too seriously.
• If you need to moderate a forum posting, where possible email the individual involved to explain why.  Otherwise unexplained disappearing messages will cause a lack of trust.
• As administrators, set the example: read carefully and post entertainingly, informatively, and economically; acknowledge other people by name; assume good will; assert trust until convinced otherwise; add knowledge, offer help, be slow to anger, apologize when wrong, politely ask for clarification, exercise patience when your temper flares.

Guidelines for posting

• Be careful with humour, especially sarcasm.  The lack of visual and aural clues may cause people to misunderstand each other.
• Use email if you are addressing one person only and not adding to the collective debate.
• To be taken seriously, check your splleling and grammar carefully before you post. 
• Add whitespace between paragraphs and avoid long sentences to make your messages more readable.
• When asking questions, always offer your opinion (even if it's that you don't know what to think!) - that will set the tone of the resulting conversation and give people something concrete to respond to.
• Never post angry, but wait and respond another day.
• Think before you post, are you adding something to the discussion (a new opinion, support of an existing opinion)?  Offering a bland or inane comment is worse than none at all, as people will start to ignore your opinions.