How can we turn this forum into a group effort?

[Dan Szwarc]

The day may come where I no longer get enjoyment out of running this forum. I haven't been able to figure out a good way to pass this forum along to others or even form a group that operates it. I still have full operational control over every aspect including paying for the hosting, maintaining the software (although Nic Sanford has been a great help in the last year).

I need your ideas on how to do this. I need volunteers, graphic designers, programmers, and people who can manage this place without it being under the primary control of ONE person (me).

How can this be done? How are those large community-driven sites formed and maintained without ONE person going nuts and deleting stuff, closing accounts, etc? The software used for this place is phpbb.com. My understanding is that it is a VERY large group effort. How did they do it?

Do we need to operate like a corporation, which a president, CEO, accounting experts, HR, and the like? How do we form such and organization without it seeming like a bunch of time-consuming work?

Update: Here is a list of the "positions" I'd like to fill on this forum. I'll add people's names as they volunteer and commit.

Forum Admins: Master Access with the permissions to do just about everything on the forum including change user names, ban users, change forum permissions, create forums, grant access to others, etc.

Technical Leads Back-end: Those with the access and skills to back up and restore the forum, make web-server mods, implement phpbb updates, system transfers, etc.
Members: continentalguy, Chad Gasket, threexd

Technical Leads Front-End: People who are skilled in the languages such as HTML, CSS, etc. needed to edit templates, formatting, etc.
Members: continentalguy

Graphics Team: Those with the ability to make fancy artwork, color changes, and visual design modifications. They may need to be partial Technical Leads to implement.
Members: JonW, Ken Stevens, kevlemo

Moderators: Those with the ability to move, edit, and lock posts for a given forum or forums. They review content and help to enforce the rules and civility.

• Moderator Team:
• Barry Wolk
• JonW
• Stu Cohen
• CaptainDave
• toddallen

(I don't even know who my moderators are now, so if you are on the list, post or PM me to remind me.)

Board Members: When disagreement arises regarding how or what to implement, determine new rules, ban a member, etc., a board of directors will vote on issues. Board members can be hold other positions. This should be an odd number of people.

[JonW]

All of the other forums I belong to have various levels of admins. Dan, you could be a super-admin, with not a lot of day-to-day responsibilities. Yours would be the 10,000 foot view and you would have ultimate control. Under you would be admins of various rank who would hold different responsibilities. There might be admins who are over several forums and have admins of the individual forums who report to them. There would also be other volunteers to handle the programming and behind the scenes work. It all depends on how you want to set it up and how many people step forward and volunteer to help.

IMHO, I think you should have 2 admins that oversee all the forums. Their job would be to randomly scan the various forums to keep track of what is going on and to make sure the other admin, who are assigned to a particular forum or sets of forums, are doing their job. Any dispute resolution that cannot be resolved by the regular admins would be settled by the 2 supervisory admins. You would be the court of last resort and would have the final say. Admins would be assigned to forum(s) based on their interests. For example, one who is a purist would not be a good admin for a modified forum.

As far as the money, some forums charge a small annual fee to be able to have larger avatars or sig pics, or to be able to pick their own name under their avatar, for special badging under their avatar showing a premium membership level, or other premium features.

I'll be glad to help in any way I can. I enjoy playing with graphics or would volunteer to be an admin. I don't know squat about programming.

[Steve K]

The day may come where I no longer get enjoyment out of running this forum. I haven't been able to figure out a good way to pass this forum along to others or even form a group that operates it. I still have full operational control over every aspect including paying for the hosting, maintaining the software (although Nic Sanford has been a great help in the last year).

I need your ideas on how to do this. I need volunteers, graphic designers, programmers, and people who can manage this place without it being under the primary control of ONE person (me).

How can this be done? How are those large community-driven sites formed and maintained without ONE person going nuts and deleting stuff, closing accounts, etc? The software used for this place is phpbb.com. My understanding is that it is a VERY large group effort. How did they do it?

Do we need to operate like a corporation, which a president, CEO, accounting experts, HR, and the like? How do we form such and organization without it seeming like a bunch of time-consuming work?

Dan, all I can say is that I have computer skills, learn software easily and pretty intuitively, and have a fair amount of time since I retired. I would volunteer to become a trainee or pick up on some aspects of running the forum. I am especially comptetent in network management and could easily handle serving files and documents. I have a 6 GB open server running which could not host the site but could host all the documents with no file size restrictions for members to access. I know you are using dropbox, but that has drawbacks and limitations. Anyway to whatever extent I can help just let me know and if you want to give me some tasks on a trial basis to see how things go I'm game.

[Stuart M. Cohen]

I regularly check into only 2 other forums. One charges a small fee ($15/yr) to join. Members get more privileges than non paying visitors. I'm guessing the $15/yr helps pay the person who started the site (that would be you, Dan). I know that each topic has an admin (not sure if it's a paid position or not). So, basically that one is run like a business (owned by the founder).

The other site is just like this; no fee but each topic has an admin.

Email me if you want the sites and contact info; maybe you can talk with them. No need to reinvent the wheel, just copy it.

And ditto for me on the help; just let me know what you want me to do. I'm on here pretty much every day anyway.

[Sheradan]

I have been a member and officer with LLSOC for many years. We went from a one man show to a non profit corporation a few years ago. It's quite an endeavor but can be done. It helps to have a lawyer in the club.

[Barry Norman]

I have Zero skills in this department, but am more than willing to do what I can to keep this going !

[Dan Szwarc]

I have added some "titles" to the first post of positions I'd like to fill.
Post which ones you'd like to volunteer for and I'll add your name to the list. We'll build this list over time and I'll start to ask people to do things and assign rights, etc. Maybe by New Years, we can roll out a "new forum" with our team and create something that can last forever. Eventually, we'll need a treasurer to handle the funding that pays for the site.

[JonW]

I can do some graphics work, such as banners and so forth. Here's an example of a pic I made for one of the Challenger guys using his car.



I'd also volunteer as a moderator.

[Dan Szwarc]

Obviously, I need someone to make a nice banner at the top featuring classic 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s Lincolns. I don't know how it would be integrated. The artists and the programmers will have to work together to make a nice template.

[Steve K]

I'd do forum moderators and/or graphics work. I could also manage the off server storage for documents, manuals and all of that that is held in the dropbox or elsewhere.

[Dan Szwarc]

DropBox is just an interim solution to the file storage issue. In spite of my host's generous storage package, I can't have files that are over a few hundred MB nor can I use it for file sharing (terms of service stuff).

Chad, what do you know about HTML, php, or CSS? I would love to make you a technical lead and offload forum updates and stuff to someone.

[LithiumCobalt]

Dan, I'd like to volunteer wherever you think I'm needed. I'm an accountant by profession, and a CPA, to boot, if that makes any difference to you. I don't have any experience with programming or graphics but have been a moderator on a competing website. I'm on tlf.net compulsively everyday. Let me know where you need help and I'll be glad to pitch in.

[CaptainDave]

I'd love to be able to do more but don't have the technical knowledge. I could probably moderate some sub-section, or serve as a board member (I'm on some other non-profit boards now). We all owe Dan a huge "thank you" and should all chip in financially now and then. My nightmare is that one day something might happen that would fry all this content built up over the years. One thing I will always send in a contribution for is backup!

[Steve K]

DropBox is just an interim solution to the file storage issue. In spite of my host's generous storage package, I can't have files that are over a few hundred MB nor can I use it for file sharing (terms of service stuff).

Chad, what do you know about HTML, php, or CSS? I would love to make you a technical lead and offload forum updates and stuff to someone.

Dan I'm good with HTML but only marginal with php and CSS. I an a quick learner but would probably need to be able to look at things to see how its all set up before I could commit. On the issue of storage, I could offer download space for large files. My server has no limitations on size or function.

[Stuart M. Cohen]

Didn't know I was a forum moderator, but glad to help out! What section have I been following?

Just add me to whatever else you want me to do, but this time tell me, please.