Forum secrets, fess up.

NakedElf · Post by **NakedElf** » Wed Jun 27, 2007 3:38 pm

Kris X wrote:Or make a comic worth talking about...

Just because it's worth talking about doesn't necessarily mean it's <i>good</i>. After all, the <a href="http://joshreads.com/">Comics Curmudgeon</a> manages to talk a hell of a lot about Mary Worth and Mark Trail. ~_^

Tyras · Post by **Tyras** » Thu Jun 28, 2007 10:22 am

webkilla wrote:so you think that by having an 'isolated' forum you can better draw in forumites? hmm

That's exactly what I'm saying, yes.
That way there's no confusion whatsoever. It's a lot more personal. You can customize it. It's just an over all better experience.

Geekblather · Post by **Geekblather** » Thu Jun 28, 2007 3:24 pm

I've found that to be true, yes. I also like being able to admin my own space.

BoShek · Post by **BoShek** » Thu Jun 28, 2007 9:18 pm

Two things.

First, Comics Curmudgeon for the win!!

Second, the only thing in my young tag box so far has been a friendly argument with my brother about the metric system...

~_~

Montyandwoolley · Post by **Montyandwoolley** » Sun Jul 01, 2007 2:00 pm

Joel Fagin wrote:You know, I deliberately misspelt "Sheesh" and no one called me on it.

Man...

You guys really are bad at spelling.

- Joel Fagin

You totally give us too much credit lol. I can barely spell this sentance.

Webkilla · Post by **Webkilla** » Mon Jul 02, 2007 11:51 am

BoShek wrote:Two things.

First, Comics Curmudgeon for the win!!

Second, the only thing in my young tag box so far has been a friendly argument with my brother about the metric system...

~_~

i've so far managed to have several oddball conversations on my tagboard, nothing special, but people do respond.

Axonite · Post by **Axonite** » Mon Jul 02, 2007 6:59 pm

Tyras wrote:
webkilla wrote:so you think that by having an 'isolated' forum you can better draw in forumites? hmm
That's exactly what I'm saying, yes.
That way there's no confusion whatsoever. It's a lot more personal. You can customize it. It's just an over all better experience.

On the minus side (unless you've got someone else to help run the site), you're the one who has to try to prevent the porn spambots from getting in, and clean up after the ones who do!

I've had forums both ways - at talkaboutcomics.com, and hosted on my own site, and for me the forum's about as active either way (not very, but not *completely* dead) so for me the main advantage to hosting it myself is the control and customization. (And the disadvantage is being the one who has to do it!)

Tyras · Post by **Tyras** » Mon Jul 02, 2007 7:31 pm

Yeah, that's a good point. I must get three or four bots per day, and I wind up having to delete them myself.

I need more mods... Chuuu...

Webkilla · Post by **Webkilla** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 6:30 am

Tyras wrote:Yeah, that's a good point. I must get three or four bots per day, and I wind up having to delete them myself.

I need more mods... Chuuu...

the prefered option, from what i understand, is manual account activation - that after registering an account an admin or mod has to actually switch on the account, which gives them a chance to look over information given and check for spam.... not a perfect strategy, as it's not the instant 'you got mail, click link in mail to activate account, done, you're in' kinda thing from most other forums - i once waited almost a week to get inside one such forum - plus spambots can be tricky like that, filling out the optional info slots with seemingly innocent info to make them look good enough.

Tyras · Post by **Tyras** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 7:51 am

Yes, but even if you do that, they still register, even if they don't post, meaning your forum can get clogged with empty spambot accounts. I have to delete each account because I don't want half my forum accounts to be bots.

From what I've seen, though is, that a lot of these "bots" are probably actual humans, paid to do this to forums. A lot of them have gmail or hotmail accounts, and even with an anti-bot device (making them re-type a generated word, for example), they still get in and post.

Fleakitten · Post by **Fleakitten** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 9:56 am

Kris X wrote:Or make a comic worth talking about...

I sure hope that isn't the problem...

VIIStar · Post by **VIIStar** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 10:33 am

fleakitten wrote:
Kris X wrote:Or make a comic worth talking about...
I sure hope that isn't the problem...

It might be that comics that are more open to speculation make active forums; where readers feel the need to discuss and somehow get engaged in the story. It seems like readers have to think it's important enough and worth their while.

NakedElf · Post by **NakedElf** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 12:33 pm

Tyras wrote:Yes, but even if you do that, they still register, even if they don't post, meaning your forum can get clogged with empty spambot accounts. I have to delete each account because I don't want half my forum accounts to be bots.

From what I've seen, though is, that a lot of these "bots" are probably actual humans, paid to do this to forums. A lot of them have gmail or hotmail accounts, and even with an anti-bot device (making them re-type a generated word, for example), they still get in and post.

My understanding is that in order for the computer to judge whether someone typed the word correctly, it must first know what the word was... which means that on some level the world is in the code, and the spam bots can read it and so put it in... thus making it kind of pointless.

So I've heard.

Tyras · Post by **Tyras** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 12:38 pm

I really have no idea how they work. I installed that security thing a few days ago and it hasn't really stopped any bots from getting through, so there's that.

Jekkal · Post by **Jekkal** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 12:55 pm

I'm just going to interject with "I hate forums that don't allow you to have images in your sigs".

Cleanliness aside, if I'm unable to advertise my site in my sig, I'm less likely to post there. Now if you don't care about advertising anything, then that's cool, but without being able to use my sig in a certain forum I have a harder time standing out and making contact with others, let alone informing them that I make comics too.

Axonite · Post by **Axonite** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 2:14 pm

Tyras wrote:I really have no idea how they work. I installed that security thing a few days ago and it hasn't really stopped any bots from getting through, so there's that.

What security thing did you put in? The visual confirmation/email registration stuff didn't really help much, but this mod did seem to help - it just instructs the potential new forum member not to enter any of their profile information (location, signature, etc.) on registration (they can do it after they're registered), and if they do, it rejects them as a spambot. I have it set to email me on spambot registration attempts, and it seems to stop a lot more than make it through.

Eve Z. · Post by **Eve Z.** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 2:24 pm

how can I make my own shoutbox active? I mean, people don't bother too much in posting comments very often. Or... is my comic not that interesting? I got punched in my face (literally) two times till now.

WHERE HAVE MY WORSHIPPERS GO ?????

Tyras · Post by **Tyras** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 2:53 pm

axonite wrote:What security thing did you put in? The visual confirmation/email registration stuff didn't really help much, but this mod did seem to help - it just instructs the potential new forum member not to enter any of their profile information...

Interesting.
I'll try it out, thanks.

Axonite · Post by **Axonite** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 4:52 pm

Tyras wrote:
axonite wrote:What security thing did you put in? The visual confirmation/email registration stuff didn't really help much, but this mod did seem to help - it just instructs the potential new forum member not to enter any of their profile information...
Interesting.
I'll try it out, thanks.

Sure - hope it helps!

(I did see the effects of *not* having it this morning when I updated the board to the current version - two spammers got in by the time I had the mod reinstalled!)

Warofwinds · Post by **Warofwinds** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 7:31 pm

I offer many, many incentives to not only visit the forum, but to register and post. As a smallish comic, before I started offering incentives, I had all of one person (my sister) in my forum. Though I did have moderate shoutbox activity on my own.

Two days ago I put up a notice beneath the comic that the first 3 people who posted in the forum with a picture of themselves would get drawn as a certain race of people in my comic. 2 people signed up, one person emailed. Within a day. I'll be doing something like this again.

I have an incentive to post--whoever posts the 1000th post may commission me for any one colored drawing (within certain limits, of course.) In the past week, there have been about 50 posts, with nearly 800 total. I've had my forum for a month or two now, not too bad.

I post previews only in the forum. I link threads shamelessly. I post secrets and tidbits. I help people with coding their sites. Basically I make my forum a place people WANT to be, at my own expense.

/secrets