The Pitfalls of Discussion Boards

Lots of rumbling about discussion boards of late.
See at least three live journal rants on them. And Lord knows I've ranted about them myself at different points. So last night, struggling with insomina, I got to thinking about Discussion boards, how they function, what works, what doesn't work concerning them and thought what the heck - I'll attempt to write a livejournal entry on it.

First a little personal history regarding my own background on discussion boards.

( how I came to live journal, no ranting here, promise )

The boards I've visited, posted on, lurked on range from voy to newsgroups to registration locked. The newsgroups and registration locked boards have the advantage/disadvantage of restricting poster behavior.
Voy? Just about anything goes.

Actually here's the list, which is limited to my observations, I am not a computer expert nor have I ever moderated a discussion board - so forgive any errors: ( Discussion board list )

Each board has it's own personality.
Some work like email, some like an electronic bulletin board that you click on. Some a long series of messages in which you get all at once the moment you hit the top one. They also have their own rules, standards of etiquette and pitfalls both electronic and personal.

Of all the posting boards? Voy is probably the most persnickety and chaotic. It is the demon board. It will go down at a moments notice, driving the moderators crazy. Delete posts without warning. Re-organize things. And archive posts before people have a chance to read them.

The other problem with voy is unlike the other discussion board formats, it doesn't have any safeguards in place to keep the riff-raff in line. Moderators have to stay on their toes.

( voy posting boards and dealing with the riff-raff and polyposters )