Patrick O’Keefe

I spend more time on administrative duties at KarateForums.com than I do at SportsForums.net, the phpBBHacks.com Support Forums, PhotoshopForums.com and DeveloperCube combined. Surprised?

At first, it might seem surprising. But, when you think about it a bit, it’s not. KarateForums.com is a strongly opinion based community and there is nothing that can be done about that. Much of the martial arts is debated, even hotly debated and while they’re are facts, even those are often contested. Martial artists are a proud, opinionated group, by and large. I don’t say that as a bad thing. It’s not. But, when pride makes you so confident of your own side that you don’t care about other peoples feelings… we run into problems.

Likewise, look at the phpBBHacks.com Support Forums and PhotoshopForums.com. Mostly support communities. Hey, I need help with this. Here’s the answer. Thanks man. That’s a lot of it. Not too much to moderate there, besides the occasional remark. DeveloperCube is a “professional” type of community and there just aren’t too many hot button issues. SportsForums.net is a strongly opinion based community, as well. But, the issues don’t seem to be as hot and it is no where near as active as KarateForums.com.

At it’s worst at KarateForums.com, I spend hours reading through posts filled with nonsense and nasty comments and (usually right before I ban) I wonder “what is wrong with this person?” or “these are the people you need to sidestep while walking down the street”. KarateForums.com users, don’t take this badly, as you know it, too. By and large, the users of KarateForums.com are a great group. There are idiots in every group that, overtime, get weeded out. But, at these low points, I ponder if is it worth my time or if I should sell it. I could get quite a bit of money for it because I have put a ton of work into it. My stuff is quality and it is one of the sites I am most proud of.

So, what makes me keep it? The good people, my staff (who I love), my happiness with the project and how successful it has been. As most active community administrators are, I’ve been challenged, ridiculed, hated, lied to and about and had people scheme against me. But, as always, I overcome all of that nonsense and cut right to the things that are right and enhance the community in line with my goals for it.

Don’t mistake my discussion of “low points” for getting frustrated, pondering if the effort is worth it, if I am wrong, etc. Like Diddy, I can’t stop, I won’t stop and I don’t know how to stop. As long as I own the site, we’ll always have the same goals, the effort will always be worth it and we’ll always go about business as we do now. My principles will not change. I only wonder where my limited amount of time is best spent as all community administrators of professionally run communities do.

I say this also to point out that you can take this into account when choosing what type of site to launch. You can consider what sites will take less administrative time, if that is important to you. Should it be an end all? No. I plan to launch “hard to moderate” communities in the future. It shouldn’t necessarily discourage you. Would I launch KF again if I started over? Absolutely.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 30th, 2005 at 10:33 pm and is filed under Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.