Back in February, I announced that the “Managing Online Forums” book website had launched.

I am very proud to announce that the book is now available and can be purchased online at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble.com and other retailers. If you are in the United States, it is being stocked nationally at Barnes & Noble locations, as well. You can check stock status at the closest store to you on their website.

“Managing Online Forums” is appropriately titled: it is truly a forums management book, but with principles that can apply to other types of online communities, like blogs, as well. From creating the infrastructure of the community and setting and enforcing policies to dealing with troublemakers and managing staff. This isn’t a programming book or a software book, this is all about managing the actual forums.

Here is a look at the chapters featured in the book:

Chapter 1. Laying the Groundwork
Chapter 2. Developing Your Community
Chapter 3. Developing Guidelines
Chapter 4. Promoting Your Community
Chapter 5. Managing Your Staff
Chapter 6. Banning Users and Dealing with Chaos
Chapter 7. Creating a Good Environment
Chapter 8. Keeping It Interesting
Chapter 9. Making Money

It also features three helpful appendices at the end that include online resources, a glossary and blank, general templates that you can use as a basis for your own user guidelines, staff member guidelines and contact templates (pre-written messages for you and your staff to use when contacting members).

For more information on the book, including a full table of contents, advance praise, interviews and reviews, an excerpt, downloadable document templates, an example forums setup and more, please check out the book website.

If you are interested in reviewing the book, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Thank you for reading and for your interest in the iFroggy Network.

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I know - two blog posts in one day! No way! But, it’s true, as we just launched the Managing Online Forums book website.

Managing Online Forums is a new book from AMACOM, the publishing arm of the American Management Association, slated to be published on April 28, 2008. I am the author of the book.

I wrote a long post about the book and it’s background over at my personal blog. But, to summarize, the book is all about the management of online communities. From creating an organizational structure and enforcing guidelines to dealing with users and managing staff members, with complementary sections on promotion, monetization and more. These are real life, battle tested, in use theories and solutions that are used on the iFroggy Network everyday. I’m very happy with how the book turned out and am very excited and proud to finally be sharing it with everyone.

If it’s a book that you may be interested in, please check out the book site. You can pre-order it now at most large online booksellers, including Amazon.com.

Thank you for reading.

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ManagingCommunities.com launched today.

I’ve been managing communities since 2000. As part of the iFroggy Network, I run several communities, including SportsForums.net, KarateForums.com, phpBBHacks.com, DeveloperCube, CommunityAdmins.com, PhotoshopForums.com and BadBoyForums.com. It’s something that I’m passionate about and I’ve been wanting to share random thoughts, knowledge and experiences on the subject in a specialized blog for some time. I’m the author of a new book called “Managing Online Forums” (more about that in the next few months) and with that coming out in April, I felt that now was the perfect time to start blogging on the subject.

Beyond just being the administrator, however, I’ve spent substantial amounts of time contributing to communities from all angles, as a member, staff member and owner.

The blog will definitely be random thoughts. It won’t have any kind of set style or format at the start. If I have to ban someone on a given day, I may talk about that. If I had a noteworthy troublemaker or a great experience, I may talk about that. And, hopefully, if anyone contacts me with questions, I can answer those in entries, as well. I’m looking forward to sharing my day to day experiences as a community administrator and I hope that I am able to help some people, in the process.

Thank you for reading.

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Today, KarateForums.com has reached 10,000 members. From my announcement at the site:

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I just wanted to take a moment to wish everyone, who reads this blog and supports the iFroggy Network, a happy holiday season and happy, healthy and successful 2008. Thank you for reading and for your interest in the iFroggy Network.

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That’s a pretty odd headline. But, it’s true! My personal blog has joined the iFroggy Network. In addition to joining the network, today it was also converted to WordPress with an entirely new design.

Previously, my personal blog had been sort of a “whenever I have time” sort of deal. If something is related to the network, my family, my responsibilities or my friends, I jump on it. Pretty much anything else falls to the wayside, including anything that is personally mine. As the site was always personal, it was always a bit of an afterthought. That’ll change now. With it being a part of the network, I’ll be able to justify dedicating more time to it.

One thing that won’t change is this: I’ll still talk about whatever I want, whatever strikes my curiosity or… whatever. Short posts, long posts. I am Strong Bad posts. Whatever I think is interesting, I’ll post about. I’ll just make more time to do it now. There have been plenty of times where I thought “hey, I should write a blog post about that” but then I said “err… it’s my personal site… gotta go update phpBBHacks.com!” Now, I’ll make those posts when I have ideas for them. So, I’m looking forward to it.

Thank you for reading.

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