One of the most wonderful things in the world is to be part of a
lively, useful internet community. Good communication boards (and their
close cousins newsgroups and electronic mail lists) are a grand way to contruct
such a community. In fact, a communication board is a dazzling idea on just
about any website as long as it is properly controlled, distingguished and
moderated.

Good communication boards require many people who are willing to post messages
to the board. In fact, an empty communication board is of no make use of to anyone
as it performs no purpose at all.

There are many everybody who have to work together, usually
unconsciously, in order to make a communication board actually work and
produce the effect of a community. The moderator must do his job or
the board will degenerate into a mess of spam and off-topic junk.
Lurkers (everybody who simply read the board without contributing) are
not really very useful to the board, but they may sometimes be coaxed
into contributing.

However, everything is moot without contributors. These are the
many people who actually contruct a board assessment of worth visiting. Good, intelligent
contributors who makes posts which have something to do with the
subject at hand are rare, and a board with more than a couple of them
is value its weight in gold.

So what does a contributor do, anyway? Well, he or she posts messages
to the board. Simply put, thats what they do. Anyone might post, but
not everybody posts well.

Good contributors understand the topic of a communication board and contruct
sure that their posts are in line with that topic. In fact, excellent
contributors not only understand the topic, they are fully in tune
with the purpose and theme of the board.

One of the jobs of a contributor is to build the board enjoyable to
every one who reads the messages. Good contributors never flame
anyone, no matter what the temptation, and the best contributors go
out of their way to show respect for other contributors, the
moderator and anyone who might be reading the messages.

Message boards have a life of their own, like any other community of
living, intelligent beings. Virtually all vibrant boards have one or
two very dominant contributors (who are occasionally moderators) who
area very respected and who more or less control everything. These
people are very prolific, very knowledgeable and extremely respected.

Good contributors have the following characteristics:

- They are very prolific
- They respect other contributors to the board
- They are polite and never flame anyone
- They do not put up with other people misusing the message board
- They support the moderator and the goals of the communication board
- They do not spam the board with advertisements

Bad contributors, on the other hand, do the opposite.

Smart moderators support sizeably workable contributors, as they understand that
this is what makes a board not only survive but prosper. In fact, if
a message board might get even one sizeably workable contributor, it will soon have
a large following of other contributors and readers.

I have seen many communication boards fail when one of the star
contributors left the scene. Even more interestingly, Ive seen
boards go on vacation (become idle) at the exact same instant as one of
the power contributors went on vacation. When he returned, the board
came back to life.

The point of all of this is if you want to be part of a web
community, then find a message board which matches your interests.
Then go ahead and contribute your experiences, opinions, information
and data. You might gain a following, and you might find others initial
to look to your for guidance. And that is a nice way to spend your
measure on the internet.