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That is an awesome idea. It is very difficult to get a forum up and running in this industry anymore. OR, I should say, an active forum.
Genericising it could be the answer to this.
I really like the idea and would definitely be interested in this sort of thing.
I am in, I have a forum and it is a ghost town because it is a hard process getting people to stay and want to come back. I know when I go to a forum with less then 100 members I disregard it… I think you have an excellent Idea, I would be glad to help and participate.
I believe it would also be beneficial to allow filters into the forum.
For example, my site is about progressive slots…
I would prefer to be able to filter out all the craps, roulette, and table games out of the mix and have the forums which are slot-based.
I know this is a bit of work, though, and if the forums are in either php, asp, or asp.net I can be of assistance.
kw
I don’t know.
I have played with the thought off and on. Moderating a busy player forum worries me.
I wouldn’t want to have a forum where posters just scream: casino XXX rips me off! casino YYYYY steals my money! and so on and so on. And they all seem to turn into that. We have enough complaint forums out there.
Then there is the incentivised forum – post and I will get you a better bonus. Post and I will get you some free monmey in your account. I want no part of that either – you end up with so many bonus hunters.
Also, there are very few forums out there that are actually profitable.
If I had a forum I would want it to be similair to this one, but for players. I would want it to be informative, discuss the best way to play the various games etc.
Building up something like that would take very active moderating, with several moderators joining in to actively giude posts and contribute. I just don’t have the time to do that. I moderate here and at Aff Community, and I post at two or three other forums fairly regularly. I consider these professionally important for me and wouldn’t give them up.
So, I have a lot of concerns. But – the thought is and always has been intriguing, if it’s going to be done right. Perhaps there could be individual forums with rss feeds making the posts from elsewhere appear….
I am intrigued….
Dominique wrote:I don’t know.I have played with the thought off and on. Moderating a busy player forum worries me.
I wouldn’t want to have a forum where posters just scream: casino XXX rips me off! casino YYYYY steals my money! and so on and so on. And they all seem to turn into that. We have enough complaint forums out there.
Then there is the incentivised forum – post and I will get you a better bonus. Post and I will get you some free monmey in your account. I want no part of that either – you end up with so many bonus hunters.
Also, there are very few forums out there that are actually profitable.
If I had a forum I would want it to be similair to this one, but for players. I would want it to be informative, discuss the best way to play the various games etc.
Building up something like that would take very active moderating, with several moderators joining in to actively giude posts and contribute. I just don’t have the time to do that. I moderate here and at Aff Community, and I post at two or three other forums fairly regularly. I consider these professionally important for me and wouldn’t give them up.
So, I have a lot of concerns. But – the thought is and always has been intriguing, if it’s going to be done right. Perhaps there could be individual forums with rss feeds making the posts from elsewhere appear….
I am intrigued….
Dom – you and I think along similar lines. I’d want it to be primarily discussion based and would be prepared to set rules and administer with perhaps one or two o6ther webmasters (who’d like to) moderating specific forums in a similar manner.
I’ve een looking into syndication MODs and could definately do something here. Also, have installed a mod that allows remote posting which i am trying to re-mod to also allow posting-by-email, auto-posting from RSS feeds along with otgoing topic notifications.
As you say, the key is to make it a proper discussion centre and there are ways to encourage this – I set up and ran one for musicians which is a difficult base and got it working well so feel i could do it here too.
I was thinking about banners and its probably best to keep affiliate marketing banners off it altogether to start with and concentrate entirely on discussion, but promote the websites of participating webmasters instead via Sigs etc.
kwblue: the filters option is a nice idea. I can mod it to display posts from a specific forum remotely easily enough but as for content matter it would require some sort of classification if it wasn’t in a specific forum. The answer here would be to set up three generic “casino game” forums for slots, table games and video poker to supplement Bingo and Poker forums, then you could plug into that.
However its best to start with as few a number of forums as possible to get people congregated, then to spread it out so perhaps one could compromise: start with the generic forum and then when its split, re-feed from the Slots forum?
Keep the ideas coming.
Simmo!
was thionking about banners and its probably best to keep affiliate marketing banners off it altogether to start with and concentrate entirely on discussion, but promot ethe websites of participating webmasters instead via Sigs etc
To me, that totally ruins any motivation to have a forum.
Why would I want to advertise other websites?
I would be interested if:
I had my own forum at my own site with my own banners
It was centered around all the different casino games, plus I can add my own forum sections like fantasy sports or skill games or whatever.
Posts on forum topics I share with others are fed in.
So that everyone still has their own forum, tailored to their own crowd, but we all can benefit from every post made in any of the forums that fits in our own topics, thus solving the problem of getting it going initially.
I have about 1000 visitors a day. I want to fly my own banners – in any other arrangement I would be getting the short stick.
I like the idea of the forum..
IMO, I would just frame the forum and have my banners around the frame. This would allow me to continue using my own afflinks as well as have the ability to use a well ‘stacked’ forum.
kwblue wrote:I like the idea of the forum..IMO, I would just frame the forum and have my banners around the frame. This would allow me to continue using my own afflinks as well as have the ability to use a well ‘stacked’ forum.
Yes that would work for both you and Dom kw. I like that idea…i’llthink how that could work.
Maybe I spoke too soon.
I am getting a bunch of second thoughts….
I like the idea, and would gladly help in any way I could…..
If sites A, B, C and D all use this same forum… would the owners of the sites B, C and D have the details of a member who registers to the forum from site A? This could be construed as database sharing which might land somebody in hot water if a player does not realise that he or she has signed up at a forum where more than just the owner of the original site will have his or her details.
just a thought…
Well, that was one reason why I was more thinking of individual forums sharing some type of feed exchange…to pipe in posts from the other forums.
So that all we would share is what is most needed for new forums – content. And that could be done selectively – like I may want a forum about fantasy horseracing which others don’t, and you might want sportsbetting, which I don’t, and so on.
The problem with that is that posters would have to agree to let their posts be displayed elsewhere – or do they? I think I see posts from various forums being piped into other sites these days…
If sites A, B, C and D all use this same forum… would the owners of the sites B, C and D have the details of a member who registers to the forum from site A?
excellent question.
IMHO what would be fair for the person running the forum, therefore paying the hosting etc, and fair for the other webmasters would be something like what was mentioned using frames (which I don’t know shit about but I think I understand them enough to say this) which keeps all advertising exclusive to the webmaster who sent the surfer; but the owner of the forum would get to have the database emails used during signup to the forum; and then make it understood to the surfers that their email addresses will occaisonally receive offers from ONLY one other source aside the webmaster that sent them: and that they’d only recieve …. a set number of these offers per month (to be decided upon what would not be annoying to the players or be done so often that it would appear the sender is doing his/her best to take all that player’s trade and leave nothing for anybody else.
In other words, I’d probably say okay to the above if I knew my players were only going to recieve an email offer sent by the owner of the forums say … once a month. I could live with that…. I think.
Lets face it; nobody wants to give up players, but that is exactly your risk anytime you expose them to another affiliate, whether by means of email or website.
and in order to sign up for the forum, somebody else aside from you are going to be privy to the email addresses. Namely the owner of the forum. Even the best intentions are going to be subject to the temptation of this information. And I believe that it is seldom the temptation doesn’t win out in the long run. So why not face the inevitable right up front and try and agree to a working solution that will satisfy both parties? Thus my idea about the once a month email offer.
what it boils down to for me; is that I give up minimum exposure to competitors as possible; as I’m sure others will agree. Tell me a working solution for that and I’d be interested for certain.
Simmo,
Im a beginning to like your style, you are definately an “ideas” man and you appear to have the technical ability also, as with the casino/affiliate feed.
I have this picture of you as a “just left college” type who studied hard and long in web techniques (im probably wrong hehe) and is putting his valuable education to very good use :hattip: keep it up, I like it.
Back on track the idea you are presenting is one a lot of affiliates would be interested in once any possible problems are ironed out, may I ask/suggest a white label type of message board ( I think this is what you are aiming at??)
If so the idea will be a winner, let each affiliate/webmaster brand the board which has all his links etc in, but just like a white label casino the “guts” are the same – Brilliant idea keep us informedOkay – i woke up with this blinding idea that should answer all the above questions (apart from ownership which i’ll come to) – although before I share I’m debating whether to shatter Rooster’s bubble or not
Anyhow, its quite simple. Cookies! When someone enters the forum from your site, a cookie is set with your site ID that is unique to your site. Every page a player loads reads the cookie and runs random banners from a text file of links that each site provides me. It also changes the logo, keeping the forum identity generic but adding your site:
IE: The Global Casino Forum @ Games & Casino
OR: The Global Casino Forum @ Oggs.cometc. That way, your users always see your site name, all links are set back to your site and all banners are yours, but posts are shared. In theory, this may also allow me to MOD it so only the forums you want are shown, but I’m not 100% sure oon that one.
Just as importantly, the data is centralised so its only in one place – thus the registration “legal” form can cater for the fact its still in one place but displayed on multiple sites or in feeds at a later date.
This also means in BB1’s scenario, the players know they have signed up via the Global Casino Forum so the once monthly mailing will be from a recognised source also.
Anyway, i’m gonna go practice this Cookie theory….may have something before half of you wake up
Cheers
Simmo!
