So you have set up a cool new forum right?Well this post will tell you what you should do before you allow the general public to come in. I have some tips that may help you control your users easeir and better.Here are my tips to you:
*Post a topic listing your forum rules.
*Make sure you include in your rules no pornograhpic material or adult material as this is against the law and the government may punish you if you allow this to happend on your forum.
*Setup a discipline system because you know you will have them no so good people who want to break your rules. Don't make it strict like "I'll ban you if you say a cus word!Forever!"
*Be a nice admin, you will drive people away if your not a nice admin.
*Your gonna need some moderators on your team to help you make sure everyone is abidding by your rules and they can remove the bad posts and such.
*Don't just give moderator spots away, make people work for it, if you say "First five people to join get to be a moderator" you may get people who just want to mess up your forums and play with it as if it was a toy. Making people have to work for moderator status insures that you will get someone who is truly wanting to help you out because a person who wants to go around messing up peoples forums isn't gonna want to do a lot of work to get moderator status.
*You may want to note in your rules that you don't want people asking you if they can be mod, you want them to show by actions.
*Use common sence when picking mod, don't pick someone who has been warned once or have a bad history.
*The best mods you can trust are real life friends.
*I only recommend promoting someone who is admin is a family member or is a friend that you trust.
I hope these tips provide to be useful in the managment of your new forum!

One word answer to all that :- TRAP17
What do you say.. I have never seen a better, organized and clean forum on the internet other than Trap17. Somehow, I always felt that Forums are not chat rooms and people must write as much as they can in the post they make and this is the only place where I've found that..I've found that lots of people's posting style got changed because of the rules
Well, I will have to say that with these common sense rules..anyone can actually make a good forum!

I agree with Mayank. Trap17 is the most well moderated forum I have ever seen (of the few forums I've come across; Bustalk.net doesn't have much moderation, but the rules are followed pretty well). I have a forum, but no members to moderate posts of. I sort of wish that I could have the challenge of moodding a forum (as in my own, not a huge one like this).


In Simpleboard for Mambo, there is even a rules page which you can edit to show your rules. I will try to make resonable rules (maybe even adapt the Trap17 rules (let me PM OpaQue for permission first. As far as moderators go, I'll follow your suggestions on finding an experienced user or a friend.