Forum & Site Discussion

In this issue's Forum and Site Discussion section, we bring you two high quality articles. First, we have The Ins and Outs of a Forum Community written by Drok. In this article, he takes a  look at what makes a good forum, and why simply gaining members does not make you successful. Structure is the key. The other article, Top Ten Ways to Hack an Account by Richman99 goes into great detail on how you may be able to hack one of your friends, or, if you are more like me, enemies, on Sals. It isn't as hard as one might think!
That's it for Forum and Site, we hope you enjoy.

- Adam

The Ins and Outs of a Forum Community - By: Drok

What is a forum? Many of us take the name for granted, each day, as we log in to Sals.
Forum: n. a public meeting or assembly for open discussion
It's a place for people to discuss issues. That's how you define a forum, but what a forum is, is freedom.
Freedom to express ideas and individual tastes, for friends to gather and converse. It's the old schoolyard, in virtual form. This is what a forum is. But how do we reach a stage where we have a stage for freedom of expression? With people.

People are the key to a forum. Without them, a forum is a bunch of cleverly crafted PHP and CSS scripts. What makes a forum great isn't its skin, or the amount of mods it has, or the amount of boards it has, but rather the integrity of the members. This is what makes a forum. Fun, interesting, memorable members, people that you'd enjoy talking to, are what makes forums like Sal's such an amazing place. The topics of discussion and intriguing debates are great, sure. But without people to put them there, they wouldn't exist. The way your members is the determining factor, and the most crucial one.

So how do we go about building a fantastic community? A man once said to me "Rich and happy people didn't aim to get rich, they aimed to achieve their own goals". If your goal is to get more members than the next guy's forum, STOP. You will crash and burn. A well-structured community comes from building members slowly by attracting them with a central focus. Case in point: Sal's Realm of Runescape. Sal's member base was formed by Runescape players. This is the central focus I'm talking about, in this case it was Runescape. People flocked to join this simple community to trade their wares and discuss the game with like-minded individuals, eventually building friends in game through the forums, all via this medium. A bonus of this was people became happy because they became more productive in game, as the efficiency of their trading was increased by the Marketplace boards. Friends + Productivity = An unmistakable formula for happiness, because friends + productivity = teamwork, and who doesn't like teamwork (other than those loner kids who eat lunch on their own every day because they're too cool for us simpletons)? Runescape provided the platform for a great community.

From the Runescape boards on Sal's, the members began to breach into the other forums, such as the Scape Lounge. Eventually, the other General Discussion forums and subforums were created. Polls and Surveys, General Chat, Debate, Video Games, the Tech Forums. There was already a graphics forum, but the boom of players creating Runescape pixel art led to more Graphics boards being made. The forum was taking on a new role. People learned to debate and issues were resolved. They hung out in General Chat and talked about how to pickup chicks, and then went up to the Scape Lounge to shoot the breeze in Fun and Games. From the bonds that people had made in the Runescape forums, Sal's was elevated to a whole new level, where a broader audience could be reached. By this time, there was thousands of members, and the impressive range of boards Sal's offered attracted many more, and the forum grew exponentially. To this day it continues to grow, because the Forum Staff and members never lost their focus, the simple core that they expanded from has remained the same, and they never got lost in success. This is a critical part to forming a great community. Always stay on track.

However, not everything is peaches and cream (yum). With great power comes great responsibility, and this means taking care of the forum members, and protecting them from the mental abuse that occurs when people get mean. Inevitably, people will argue, because everybody has differing opinions. The world would be much less interesting if we all had no emotion and were one-track minded (Orwell, anyone?). So when these arguments spill into forum-wide conflict, it gets messy. It's the job of the forum members to report any outrageously angry behaviour to the mods, and it's the mods job to clean up the mess. This keeps the forum in harmony. If need be, weed out the source of destructive influence, because this leads to even more happiness, and the forum becomes balanced again. This keeps the forum running smoothly, speed bumps are a hassle. However, the key to building a strong community is not ruling with a iron fist, but rather learning to forgive discrepancies. Another point where Sal's is strong, as every member has equal opportunity to have their warn level decreased due to good behaviour (although just between you and me, it's a lot easier to get warned than have it decreased ;-) ). Being forgiving is a virtue.

One last way to improve your community is provide incentive to post. This doesn't mean bribe your members, or dangle the possibility of becoming a mod in their faces like the proverbial carrot in front of a donkey. Rather, Sal has provided a platform for submitting guides to his site, and having your name at the top of one of those guides is a powerful thing. It's also thought of as a fast track to being respected, due to most of the forum being Runescape players, and when a new quest is released, where does a Sal's member go for help? The guide section of Sal's site. If you are able to help a member, then that member will definitely have a higher regard for you. This applies to real life, too. Help a person and gain their trust. Help them again and gain their friendship.

For those who think they could benefit the forum by becoming a mod (although why one would want to be a mod is beyond me), here's a few tips:
Don't annoy people.
Be friendly in the most productive way. Submitting guides is a good way to complete this objective, both Runescape and forum guides. Neo Avatars and Beeboy come to mind as guide-writers who have risen through the ranks
Be helpful. Frequent the Forum Help forums, and help out the newer members there. Regardless of if you become a mod or not, the satisfaction you'll gain from helping others far outweighs any material gain.
Make friends.
Stay away from the Debate forum. It'll only make you angry, and then you'll break the first tip.

Don't aim to be a mod because you'll be able to close threads. Only for the right reasons do the virtuous prevail. Like I said before "Rich and happy people didn't aim to get rich, they aimed to achieve their own goals". The best way to experience Sal's is by being yourself.

Building a forum as successful as Sal's is incredibly difficult, and it doesn't happen overnight. Sal's has taken a little over two years to get to where it is now. It has side-projects, such as this newspaper and the SalCast. It has a very successful guide website, and an excellent forum built by an even greater community. I hope you enjoyed this look into what makes a forum work, and if it doesn't inspire you to go and make your own forum, at least you'll appreciate how fragile yet how rewarding Sal's ecosystem is.

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Top Ten Ways to Hack an Account - By: Richman99

April Fools! Yes, April is long gone, but that doesn't mean we can't talk about it! Salmoneus and the moderators made an April Fools Event three days before April 1. It was much more challenging than the last event, but many members still solved the puzzle and then while getting banned. Here's the scoop on Sal's 2007 April Fool's Event!

A subforum called the Trash Can was created. A puzzle, a scavenger hunt, where one clue led to another, was then made. One had to find clues and find the secret password to get into the Trash Can forum.

When April Fool's Day came, something happened, many Sal's Forumers, such as Steve and Un0 were "banned"! A huge uproar was caused by shocked members asking how they were banned. The funny thing was that even though they were "banned", they could still post! Many people thought this was a hoax, an April Fool's Joke, because it was impossible for members to be banned, yet still make new topics and post. It was just way too suspicious. Many forumers demanded an answer and the answers to the questions were revealed the next day, on April 2.

On April 2, all the members that were "banned" were unbanned, and it turned out that all this was just an April Fools Joke! The first ten members to solve the scavenger hunt puzzle and get into the Trash Can were the ones who were banned.

I had the chance to interview Cxkslei, one of the members who got into the Trash Can.

Well, you were one of the members who got into the Trash Can, what was it like in there? Was there a lot of spam?
There was, if I recall correctly, only 5 threads, when Team Veril broke through about 9 appeared in less then a minute. It was basically all spam and a request for a PIP to be added that someone made that said Trash Hunter with one of the creatures from Sesame Street, I think it was.

How long did it take you to finish the puzzle? It was pretty hard in my opinion!
A few days, overall I don't think we would've ever got through without a large collaborated team effort, a lot of it thanks to Mrcsupertrain.

Were you one of the members banned? If you were, were you asked not to tell anybody that it was all a hoax?
Yes. Actually, we weren't told anything, we came up with our own true plot. Unfortunately as you see Cameron went to the bathroom but used the administrators computer as the urinal (Evil Ugthanki!) so we were banned, and then Stove (Steve, but KB calls him Stove) invented a machine to bypass it. Actually we had no idea what was going on.

So, overall this pretty much was a great event, can't wait for next year's April Fools Event, eh?
Neo Avatars is FORBIDDEN from making another puzzle like that!

This is an event that will not be forgotten soon. Maybe next year Salmoneus, the Administrators, and Moderators will think of a brand new event, with even more suspicious happenings!

You can find the event topic here:
http://runescape.salmoneus.net/forums/inde...howtopic=125215

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