There are literally thousands of automotive forums on the net. The majority of them are treasure troves of automotive tech knowledge, the most valuable resources of their kind available today.

However, some automotive forums seem to end up being dominated by low-grade chatty discussions that don't have much to do with cars. While they have a lot of member posting activity, they don't have much tech knowledge.

Here are 6 tips for keeping your automotive forums tech-oriented:

#1 PROMOTE YOUR BEST TECH CONTENT
Take your best tech content, and feature it all over your site. This could include:

• "sticking" or "bumping" good tech discussions to the top of forum pages
• featuring the best tech discussions on the front page of your forum, or the home page of your site
• turning good tech posts into articles or dedicated webpages
• featuring new tech info in your email newsletters

Or anything else you can think of. Good tech info will entice smart techy people to contribute more good tech info.


#2 DON'T LET YOUR NON-TECH CONTENT TAKE OVER
While non-tech parts of a forum are essential for members to hang out, they shouldn't be the dominant portion of a tech forum. If not properly managed, an automotive tech site can easily turn into an automotive "chat" site. Here are some tips for managing your non-tech info:

• Downplay your non-tech forums. Don't put casual talk forums at the top of the list of forums on your main page, and don't link heavily to them. On Hotrodders.com, we also exclude our non-tech forums from appearing on the Daily Posts and New Posts searches.
• Handle abusive users (trolls) with as little drama as possible. This prevents the emphasis of the forum from being taken away from tech discussions.
• Limit post counts to tech posts. For example, don't count posts made in non-tech forums toward users' total post counts.

Every automotive tech forum should include a general non-tech "talk" section. However, once that part of the site becomes the main focus, the exchange of knowledge suffers.


#3 SIMPLIFY YOUR USER INTERFACE
Forum software often includes numerous unnecessary features for users, such as bright red or overly large letters and a large selection of gimmicky animated graphics. Here are some basic ideas for a more professional look:

• Turn off or tone down large font sizes for user posts, as well as different colors. These lead to "posting wars" between users who eventually post as largely and as colorfully as they can.
• Choose your default "smilies" carefully. If you have a big selection of animated and obscene smilies, then you'll probably end up with animated and obscene discussions. The standard set of smilies is usually fine, with a few extra ones added in to make your forum unique.
• Don't rely on graphic-heavy designs, or complex new technologies. Stick with what will be compatible and easy to view for most people.

A simple, clean interface sets the tone for a professional tech-oriented discussion.


#4 USE TECH-FOCUSED ADD-ONS TO YOUR FORUMS
Many good forums include additional plugins, scripts, "hacks", and add-ons to enhance the user experience. Here are some ideas:

• Be careful with frivolous add-ons to your forum software. If they don't contribute to the tech knowledge on your board, they may very well detract from it.
• Examples of helpful tech add-ons: a classifieds section, a database of tech links, a product or company review section, or an automotive project journal/log.
• Examples of non-tech add-ons: a live chat, a video game, user points/purchase system, betting/gaming.

By choosing enhancements that fall along tech lines, you can support automotive tech knowledge as you add functionality to your forum.


#5 FILTER YOUR TECH FORUMS
In a perfect world, we wouldn't need to filter any discussions for what are perceived to be "bad" words. However, most good tech discussions would fall apart if they were filled with profanity or hateful communication.

• Use a standard profanity list to filter out certain words in the tech sections of your site.
• If you like, you can have a looser environment with less filtering, in one of your casual discussion forums.
• Be careful with the use of avatars and signatures. Since avatars and sigs appear with every user's post, an obscene or profane avatar or sig could alter thousands of pages of your site. Limit the use of avatars and signatures, or only allow them for trusted users.

Basic filtering in the tech areas of your site will contribute to an environment that's focused on tech, not talk.


#6 CHOOSE YOUR MOST KNOWLEDGEABLE PEOPLE FOR MODERATORS
Your group of moderators will have to include some of the smartest people on your board.

• Be certain to include people with three or more decades of hands-on automotive experience.
• Try to choose moderators with a wide range of automotive specialties and fields of interest.
• Make sure that computer tech knowledge is well represented among your moderators, in addition to automotive tech.

Placing decision-making abilities in the hands of the people with the most experience enables them to more easily transfer their knowledge to your entire community.


If you have any ideas for encouraging a tech-oriented environment on an automotive website, please post them in this thread.

Moderators should also have tolerance and an understanding of the idiosyncrasies of online forums. They need to understand the site's guidelines and goals. Heavy-handed moderators can easily kill discussions instead of nudging them toward site goals.

Hotrodders.com seems blessed with good moderators. Why? Where are the "cops" who just want to wave a badge of authority? Where are the exclusionary cliques that seem to form around moderators on some sites? Training? Selection? Since it seems to work, figuring out why could be helpful.

SELECTION:

The first essential rule seems to be to select good candidates. This means choosing people with topical technical knowledge, and good social and communication skills. Moderators need to be "moderate". Sometimes, you'll have a very smart member, and people will say: "oh, he'd be a good moderator". It's not always true -- sometimes very smart people are very strong in expressing their points of view. This is a great personality trait for a member, but moderators have to focus more on the sum total of the group discussion, rather than on the particular rightness or wrongness of one person.

I like to choose a balance of people from varying backgrounds and political beliefs. If the moderators, as a group, lean too much towards one particular set of ideologies, that's when the clique-ey atmosphere starts to take hold. Balance is much more important than "The One Correct Point of View" .

It's much harder to remove a moderator than to take on a new one. That's a lesson learned the hard way.

Now, we use a Moderator Application Form system. Anyone can apply. They fill out a form which includes some basic questions about their knowledge and experience, what they would change or improve about the board, etc. Then, our current moderators assign a 1-10 ranking for each application, and they enter some comments about each applicant. The administrator can see the average rating of each applicant, and all of the comments. Before we take on a new mod, we delete the application, so that the previous mods are assured that their ratings and comments are kept confidential.


TRAINING:

This one's tougher. Lots of boards have moderator guidelines, including Hotrodders. However, I've found that moderators tend to prefer to learn on their own, and learn better when they tap their own experience. People are usually accustomed to solving communication problems in the offline world. Online, a different set of challenges are presented.

A seasoned moderator will usually understand that the less moderation he has to do, the better.


CONSISTENCY:

A lot of the drama on boards comes from people saying that moderators abuse their privileges, or that different moderators favor different members. The key to avoiding this is consistency. That way, when a moderator has to handle an accusation of favoritism, he can show examples of how similar situations were handled similarly by other moderators.

Situations that are likely to incur disdain for a certain moderator should be handled by the administrator. For example, on Hotrodders, we have group discussions about how to discipline unruly members. However, the admin handles the disciplinary action, and communicates it to the board public. This way, the mods are insulated from "blame" for the situation.


Moderators make or break a site. Administrating a board is easier than moderating, IMO. Moderators have to exist as both members and as leaders.