Journals? How has it affected your community?

[Kathy]

I've had requests for a journal forum...and I'd keep it simple.

But I've run the idea past some of my admin/mods and a few were hesitant.

fearing we couldn't censor content (i'd require the journal is TOS compliant)
fearing it wouldn't benefit the site but make more work
fearing that once we started it, we couldn't pull it off if it causes a mess.

So, what I'm wondering....

Does anyone have any feedback about journals within your vb? I was thinking of:

1. Making it a forum (not a stand along journal)
2. Using the simple hack that forces the thread name to be "Username's Journal"
3. Allows only one thread per user
4. Allowing this as a benefit of my paid subscribers only (I was thinking this might increase member subscribers since its a good benefit/feature)
5. Allowing ONLY the user to reply (no general comments or replies within their personal journal)

Pros? Cons?

What am I missing? i think this could be a great benefit to our established community since our community is based on support during a tough time in their lives. Any drawbacks for those of you who have journals?

I've seen teen journals who allow replies and quite frankly that wouldn't work for us. Volatile replies, ugly comments doesn't encourage posting IMHO. I woudln't go for the "most entries in their journal list" because we aren't about compeition. It would be about personal reflection.

Input? thanks!

[Chris M]

My thoughts :

1.) Good idea - Not many people use this option
2.) Good idea - Tie it in with my following suggestion
3.) How about 2 - 1 "Personal" Journal, 1 "Public" Journal - Then let them choose what format their journal takes, either Public or Private, and create a 2nd thread with the alternate state
4.) Good idea
5.) As with 3, allow all paid users to view & reply to Public Journals (allow journal creator to delete entries they dont like - You could also allow them to "Ban" users from their Public Journal), but only allow Admins mods and the thread creator to view their own private journal

IMO, the only things that should be censored are things which are illegal, like child pornography or things regarding warez

Satan

[Andrew111888]

I think I've replied to you at vBulletin.com when you questioned my Journal forums at TeenAdviceCenter.com, but I am not sure if you read my reply, so I'll answer you here based on experience

1. Making it a forum (not a stand along journal) - Yes, good idea.

2. Using the simple hack that forces the thread name to be "Username's Journal" - No, I would say let the user name their journal whatever they want.

3. Allows only one thread per user - No... many of my members only use one thread for daily activities, but some like to create other threads if a day had something they feel a lot of members would reply to- this keeps it more organized.

4. Allowing this as a benefit of my paid subscribers only (I was thinking this might increase member subscribers since its a good benefit/feature) - I'm not too sure on this one. I would say no because if someone is having a tough time and wishes to speak about it in their own domain it should not be limited to whether they've paid or not. But that's just me.

5. Allowing ONLY the user to reply (no general comments or replies within their personal journal) - Should be up to them.

[Kathy]

Thanks for your input, guys!

I appreciate your thoughts. On the other swing of things, please understand that many things that might work for a teen site, won't work for an old lady site.

For instance, we don't want other people replying to the journals. This is a specific niche community for a specific kind of support....so one thread is plenty (believe me) and allowing others to reply is not acceptable. (Andrew, not to be mean but I would never allow the kind of member exchanges that I saw on your site. Allowing members to talk to each other the way that some of your members talk to each other is scary. If my members thought people would reply to them with those kinds of replies, my community of 30,000 members would quickly vanish.)

As for censorship and requiring TOS...I think this is where members might balk. Its the notion that its "my journal" so shouldn't I be able to write what I want? Freedom of speech and bla bla bla.

Although some might not consider censoring anything unless it is illegal, our community is a safe, non-hostile environment of women. (Atleast we work to keep it that way). To not censor and provide public guidelines for posting would not be responsible of me for my many members who joined because of the "kindness" factor.



Each community is soooo different! that's why I love to get feedback regarding the forums/journals issues since many of the things ya'll might allow, I couldn't. But perhaps things that we do, you couldn't do either.

The exchange of ideas is what will help me...good and not so good info.

So...do you think my members...who agree to a "kind" community...would see its okay to maintain the same TOS for journal forum?

Remember....this isn't a general topic site, nor one with young members. Its a niche...specific health concerns for women....online since 1998 with a reputation within the medical community offline and online for its excellence.

[Andrew111888]

Well, if you are referring to the way things go down in Journals, that's because they are usually not pertaining to advice. However, if a member feels harrassed by a certain poster in a journal, said member is barred from that journal.

An old lady site is very different from a teen site as you've said.

[Dean C]

Well doesn't the journal use the censortext function to censor any bad words you listed in your admin cp ?

- miSt

[Chris M]

The Journal Hack may, but we are referring to a Forum for Journals

As far as censorship goes, the minimum you should have is anti-illegal rules

Satan

[Tony G]

Sounds pretty good, well it might be a mess to stop it but you should give it a test run. You'll never know if it works until you've tried it out on your community. Every community is different and will use is differently.

[Andrew111888]

As stated above, we like to joke around a lot in our journals.... but to each their own.

[DiscussNASCAR]

we use them on www.discussanything.com but have limited them to premium members only. They are just regular subforums

they work well, give the people what they want