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PROPOSAL: V0.4 - Final
While there are many topics on these boards, many of the questions being asked are so short and open ended it is truly hard to properly and throughly answer the questions to the fullest extent. Also many very similar threads are being started and nothing from the OP is showing that they even tried searching the forums to expand in existing threads. What I propose are a more solid rule base for getting these forums off and building more high quality traffic, as well as responses.
This is not complete but a good start to most of the proposals I think the forums should add to its rules. I welcome any and all suggestions and will continue to update this post as I finalize my thoughts on this. This is by no means meant to be anything other than my own personal views and thoughts for our great forums here. When I mark this thread final in the version title I feel that is when I finished this post properly to my liking and then if things want to be implemented or not is up to our forum leaders. I hope no one takes any of this the wrong way either
Final EDIT:
I have finished the initial draft, please share your thoughts, things you would like to see added. Make sure new members read this and us as a community should be helping make sure threads from here on out follow these new rules. I will update the post with good additions and hopefully this will become the initial go to for all new members and those wishing to help further our community. Remember it is up to us just as much as the site owner to help make this new community a success, do your part
I will continue to edit grammar and spelling in this post.
While there are many topics on these boards, many of the questions being asked are so short and open ended it is truly hard to properly and throughly answer the questions to the fullest extent. Also many very similar threads are being started and nothing from the OP is showing that they even tried searching the forums to expand in existing threads. What I propose are a more solid rule base for getting these forums off and building more high quality traffic, as well as responses.
- Start subjects that are informative and clearly have a direct question. By doing this it will help increase responses from experienced users of certain subjects they specialize in. Do not start subjects with HELP or URGENT or any other extraneous phrases. Titles are key not only to existing members but also those seeing the forum for the first time in search results. They should be catchy and hit the main keywords of your actual question.
- Rants and complaints should be kept to a minimum as these types of conversations are best for a blog or similar type of communication platform.
- Show a real effort to use proper grammar and language as a respect to the letsforum.com community as a whole. No using any form of abbreviated communications, such as leet speak, textspeak or any other similar slang. This is not to say if English is not your strong suit you should not post, but do show an effort. We encourage everyone to post and be apart of the community.
- When you are going to ask a question, it is the askers responsibility to provide as much information as possible. This includes error messages, if asking about why your site does not do X then make sure you include a link to your site, or at the least what your sites content is about. What have you previously tried, what DOC's and searches have you tried on your own first. Show effort to those who you are requesting help from, you will be much more likely to get more helpful results.
- Make each thread you start about 1 single topic, no topic jumping, no thread jacking.
- Post your question in 1 forum only, do not multiple post your questions or thread jack an existing thread to ask your question. Any threads found to be duplicates should be reported and marked for closure. Repeated thread jacking should place the user in some form of suspension then if repeated again, total ban of the use of the community.
- If you are responding to a thread make sure you read the Original Post first. Then when replying keep your reply on track with the OP's topic. If your response has nothing to do with what the OP is asking, then it is not conducive to a productive thread where true conversation on the issue can flow freely.
- If your thread has been been answered or solved, edit your Original post's subject and include in the beginning [solved]. Do not use closed or any other verbiage. [closed] should be reserved for Admin and Mods to mark threads that have been closed and should be deleted.
- If you see a thread with the exact same issue as yours and it has been marked as solved. DO NOT add your issue into that thread, you will want to open a new thread with your problem. Then link to the [solved] thread if it is relevant, or at least state you found a similar one that had been closed already. This will show effort on your part the asker.
- Do yourself and all future online communities a favor and give this a read http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
- Threads that are similar to: "How do I get page 1 rank?", "How do I make the most money with Adsense?", "My computer is broken?", "My site has been online for 6 months and I am only making $10 a month". What these questions are truly lacking are any kind of information past the very basic issue at hand. How can you expect anyone to make a helpful answer when there is nothing pertinent to go off of.
- Questioning the methods of others on here, you are seeking advice from many veterans of the online world with differing specialties. Even if you do not agree with their methods, they are proven methods and work for those people. There is no guarantee or promise anything shared with you will work in the same manner. It is up to you to continuously expand your knowledge and stay current.
- Expecting people to show you how to make X,XXX a day with X software or whatever. Then not even given people an ounce of information about yourself and the site you are trying to get rich quick on. There is no one set quick way, most real ways will take years for a solid ROI.
- Do not just regurgitate something that is on the front page of site. Say someone asks how do you get approved with AdSense, and there is nothing else in there question. Repeating what is on the front page or can be quickly found by the OP in a Web search will not help them, nor will the thread really have constructive replies. The best is to link them to the rules of the forums and to the DOC's of what they are asking about.
If the question would have been, "I have a site that has been online for 6 months and I am getting roughly 50 uniques a day and close to 200 page views daily. I am thinking about using AdSense to monetize my site. I was reading the DOC's to see if I followed the rules for applying and I had a question on Rule #BLAH. My site I feel complies with this rule but I just want to check and get others thoughts."
While this is a theoretical question there is things to go off of, it could have been even more detailed to give responders an even fuller picture by including a link to their site, discussing if they have applied before and been denied, if they had tried other monetization methods previously but failed or did not see results they expected.
- Do not expect to get rich quick!
- Do not expect to not have to do REAL work for LONG LONG hours.
- Work together
- Help promote this forum on every other forum or social medium you use.
- Ask great questions and if not enough response is coming in, find another forum and link back to here to drive more people to viewing the blog and hopefully registering and staying on.
- Start talking about letsforum.com to as many people as you can. Share links to the forums and post links that will answer questions of others on different sites. The success of these forums is as much the community as it is the site owner.
- Is the thread interesting and thought provoking that others would want to spend their time in responding?
- Did you remember to show effort on your part before invoking the help of others for free?
- Did you even post your topic in the correct place?
- Do you actually reply to other threads? Are you helpful on the boards?
- Reward the people replying when they give a solution or teach you something new give them a +REP
- Does your question actually ask for replies?
- Make it simple and easy for others to reply
This is not complete but a good start to most of the proposals I think the forums should add to its rules. I welcome any and all suggestions and will continue to update this post as I finalize my thoughts on this. This is by no means meant to be anything other than my own personal views and thoughts for our great forums here. When I mark this thread final in the version title I feel that is when I finished this post properly to my liking and then if things want to be implemented or not is up to our forum leaders. I hope no one takes any of this the wrong way either
Final EDIT:
I have finished the initial draft, please share your thoughts, things you would like to see added. Make sure new members read this and us as a community should be helping make sure threads from here on out follow these new rules. I will update the post with good additions and hopefully this will become the initial go to for all new members and those wishing to help further our community. Remember it is up to us just as much as the site owner to help make this new community a success, do your part
I will continue to edit grammar and spelling in this post.
