I have seen this on a couple of forums lately. Does anybody here require a new member to make an introduction thread before they can post on the rest of the forum?

I know that Lee’s bigboardadmin.com does, but that one makes some since.

Just wondering if this is a good idea or not.

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Personally, I don't believe in requiring a new member to post an introduction thread in order to post elswhere on the forum. While it's always nice when a new member posts an introduction thread, it should be their decision, and not the administrators.

Chris

Members at NF must at least post in the intro forum, to post in the rest of the board. most all the members post in there for thier first and are good and able enough to figure out how to make thier own thread (we WERE worried about that)

Before we had 1 intro thread that everyone used. but to help with stats i changed the way it was done, and it has been a great success with both stats and people feeling welcomed.

on the stats, if you break it down

1 thread: 5 new members thats 5 posts and maybe 2 staff welcomes = 7 posts

individual threads: 5 new members plus at least 2 staff welcomes each and the members tends to greet each other as well = 5 threads and 15-20 posts

just make sure you have a good staff that will jump in and welcome ALL that say hello.

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Personally I think that it's a bad idea to request someone to post introduction threads. I know that I general don't post intro threads when joining a forum and I would be put off if I was forced into posting one. I think that the vbulletin welcome headers hack is great if you want new members to post intro threads. For members that don't have a post you can have a message saying something like this:

"Welcome to [your forum]. It would seem that you are yet to make a post, why not introduce yourself in the introduction forum?"

You could also place a link to the forum in the header.

This is better because it allows the member to choose whether or not to post one, yet it gives them a bit of encouragement to do so.

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I could see on private forums like bigboardadmin this working very well, but I don't think it should be required on forums that aren't private.

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I havn't come accross this style of welcome, though the welcome post issue is starting to get to me. I am preparing to launch a forum, and am trying to limit the number of forums until I get some posts. To do this, I cut off anything flippant, including introductions. I can't decide whether to set up a single thread in the 'general chat' style area, or just let them rub rank in the 'dump' style forum.

I do, this is done because the site is invite only, and has personal information on it

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It depends on the site. I'd rather someone jump right into the content forums on my site.

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I would never make it a rule to post there. In a welcome PM I used to give a hint, but never made it a rule. I think it's just as bad as making a rule where new members have to make five posts before being able to see most of the forum.

Depends on what you are trying to acheive. If you don't want lurkers, then it's a good idea. Besides, that's what makes each of our forums different isn't it

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