New technology is being introduced on a daily basis in all aspects of the World Wide Web. The people most affected by this are the core groups of people who build the pages and websites that create the traffic – Webmasters.
With several formats of webmaster forums available today – you may find it difficult to find one that best suits your needs. Are you looking for one that simply discusses new technologies? Or are you looking for a source that you can ask questions and get responses with some certainty that your answers will be qualified and valid? Both of these types of forum are interactive, however the kinds of people who frequent them are often completely different. The web forum as we knew it years ago still exists, but is being slowly replaced and incorporated with a new format. This new format introduces an incentive-based tiered platform where instead of information being passed from user to user and recorded – information is queried and users in essence bid to answer the question.
A perfect example of this new format is Experts-Exchange.com. Anyone can join this web site and have instant access to their forum-formatted site. As a user you can view questions and answers to previously asked questions, all categorized by topic and sub category. Again, as a user you can ask questions to the rest of the members and offer a point value to your question. Points are allocated based on your expectancy of difficulty or expeditiousness of the question. Many users will reply and you select the best answer – awarding your points to the winner. Mostly all the winner gets for his/her points is the bragging rights that they answered the question correctly, and the addition of points to their over-all tally.
In contrast, a typical forum such as WebDevForums.com is a simple meeting of the minds discussing opinions and technologies. It is a mutual respect and collaboration that keeps the members together. Forums list topics by primary categories, with sub categories and individual posts. In both cases there are forum moderators who watch the conversations and often post frequently to the forum. Moderators have the ability to ban users or edit posts and comments. Depending on the kind of forum, this is often done do to a level of respect and colorful language is reduced to the minimum.
You can easily add a forum to your website and is often free from an installer program or menu from within your shared hosting account. All you need is the desire to host a community forum – and let the good times roll.