Etcetere

Sorry, I think I just had a nostalgia trip there.

Tell me about it.

DUDE. You have no idea how much I've missed you and your blog. I loved your stories, MOCs, and general ramblings. Here's hoping you stick around even after you get some help with your website.As for what made BZPower great... I don't know how this would help a general community as opposed to a fansite, but I feel BZPower's close ties to Lego (in the form of exclusive reviews, interviews, and of course the Ask Greg feature) really helped it stand out from the crowd. BZPower's rules against linking to other sites with forums have always been restrictive (albeit justified), and if it weren't for that thriving relationship with the source of its fandom, I doubt it ever would have taken off the way it did.

 

BZPower's clear and comprehensive rules were also of benefit to the site, in my opinion. A site without any sort of regulation can be more inviting at the start, but can quickly devolve into chaos if users abuse the site's leniency. And banning users for being troublesome alone can seem arbitrary, and will drive off users. BZPower's community was so great in part due to the staff fostering intelligent and engaging discussion, and discouraging antagonistic or unwelcoming behavior, and the site's rules played a big part in that. So set clear guidelines for what constitutes spam, what constitutes flaming, what content is inappropriate, and what penalties users risk if they ignore these guidelines.

 

The web has changed since BZP's heyday, though, and many rules like the prohibition against linking to other sites with commenting systems start to stand out as anachronistic. Commenting systems are everywhere these days: news sites, image hosting sites, and more. And while that means there's a lot more bad out there (just look at the typical comments on the web's most popular video site), there's a lot of good content that can be missed if there's a blanket ban on engagement with other communities. For a modern site to thrive, I would suggest integration rather than restriction: yes, it will necessitate even more moderation, but the end result should be worth it.

 

Finally, don't forget to give users some freedom to determine what they do with the site! BZPower's COT forum and blogs may not have always stayed on-mission, but the community they fostered played a huge role in establishing and maintaining social ties between users. And BZPower wouldn't have gotten those and other privileges if not for the staff being open to suggestions and feedback from the userbase. A community website should remain open to change, so that it can adapt to suit a changing community. Just recently, BZPower added a feature called the "tracker" that allowed users to propose improvements to the site, and it's already had amazing results.

 

Again, I hope you stick around even after you get the answers you need (even though I understand that starting a community website of your own will be no small task). BZPower is always welcome to more users, both new and returning!

A post loaded with helpfulness Lyichir, I appreciate it!

Ok, a further question, because it's pretty unanimous that WE made it great

How did we manage to get so many great people with quality creativity/dedication?

Is Bionicle an inherently creativity-inspiring storyline?

Did the tight forum moderation procure quality content?

Amazing that 7 years later I read all these names and memories flood back. People really got involved on a devoted level!

I got on BZP soon after Bionicle first launched in 2001 when I was 11. I stayed on up till 2007 when my interest in Bionicle simply waned. But during those years the friendships I made and the community I was a part of actually very close to my heart. Fast forward to today, 11 years later, I'm a missionary in Mexico and I want to create an online community for youth in Latin America to work together for social justice. - I won't mention any more details, because if I remember correctly BZP rules forbid talking about other forums. What I do want to talk about is how the idea intimidates me because I see dozens of heavily-funded, big-name projects that failed to do the very same thing. But then I remembered BZP, and how it was an incredibly successful and thriving community, and how much it was a part of my life. Maybe I could learn a few lessons from how things worked here? Miraculously I remembered my old yahoo address and could recover my password, and here I am. So my question is: What made BZPower such a great community?What made it more successful and interactive than others? I personally think that it is mostly because BZP was community-invented. Nearly every BZ innovation was birthed out of the users, not out of the "designers" producing new "features". Contests, RPGs, entire categories and sections, were created because someone started an idea that others caught on to, so the administrators gave it a permanent place.