Featured Forum – Era & Eric Lévi Fan Forum

Hi, today we’re talking with Jesus (Ihesus) admin of the international fan forum, Era & Eric Lévi. Jesus has been very helpful to Lefora. He completed translating one of the most requested languages on Lefora – Español (Spanish). Jesus spent many hours and we are thankful to him and all the other translators that have helped Lefora expand into other regions. I’m sure many Spanish speakers are thankful to Jesus as well.

Hi Jesus, could you give us a brief background on Era Ecic Levi?
Well, Era is a music band created by the French composer and musician Eric Levi in the year of 1995-96. Era has been recognized for the song ‘Ameno’ as a very successfully song in the Mastercard theme song in the FIFA World Cup in France in 1998 and all over the World. Now Era has 4 albums, the last one is called ‘Reborn’ (you can listen on my forum). Some people say Era is New Age, others say Era is pop-rock. For me it’s just great music.

Do you have any goals you would like to accomplish with your forum?
Of course I do, to be one of the largest forums of Era on the Internet and give this music to people who want to learn about them. On our forum, we have people from México, the United States, Egypt, Russia, Brasil, etc. No matter what language you speak, we’ve got an answer too.

Were there any reasons why you choose Lefora over another forum service?
Before choosing lefora, I’ve tried some others, like miarroba (one of the biggest but only in spanish), tuforo, etc… and also yahoo groups. But no one has the features and the capacity that lefora has. Here I can post in guest mode. I can embed videos, create my own widgets or… upload files; all this together like nothing else.

How did you find the experience of translating Lefora into another language?
I always wanted to help others and this was just a coincidence. I read the post, left a message, and then I translated the site. It was nice, it is a new and great experience to translate an entire website to another language. I had never done this before, except on my own website). Doing this felt really good because I know there are thousand people who want Spanish. It is something to help ‘feel at home’.

Anything else you would like to share?
Lefora has grown very fast, and with reasons, because the service, is really impressive. You can receive support almost immediately (if you need it), there are always someone who will help you. There are other admins that can help you as well, like a workgroup. Lefora is the best place to host a forum and it is very easy to use. I am very happy with my decision to host my forum in lefora. Performance is quality and lefora is both.

Featured Forum – SuSE Unbound Forum

Today, we’re talking to mattb4 from the SuSE Unbound Forum. Matt has been very active in our support forums, helping other forum admins and providing feedback.

Hi Matt, do you you have 3 simple tips you could offer for running an active forum?

1. Find and enthuse folks that have a like philosophy. Their contributions will create the life necessary to have an active Forum.
2. Be ready to inject into your Forum unflagging attention. Never leave someone to feel that no one is paying attention to their postings.
3. Have fun yourself.

I noticed your forum was linked from the Wikipedia SuSE article. Do you know if that’s been a good source of traffic?
It has helped bring in some. All mentions through out the Internet will help others to find your Forum. Ultimately, Word of Mouth is the strongest advertisement.

How else have you been promoting your forum?
In the Linux World, Forums have been instrumental in helping people that are new, into learning and adopting a Linux Distro. Linux has created many groups of folks that share the idea of Open Source as well as perfecting their skills with using it. You tend to get to know through participation many savvy, smart, and clever people this way. So by accessing this group there is a source of potential members.

What are some of the reasons you originally choose lefora over another forum package?
It has potential and I feel the folks behind Lefora are dedicated to improving the experience and providing a high level of service not readily obtainable by some of the other Free Hosting services. Many features have been added in the relatively short time since I started suseunbound.com.

Anything else you would like to share?
For those contemplating starting a Forum, be not discouraged, keep adding fresh material. Understand that you need to be active and creative in making your Forum interesting. Also keep track of what might be going on at Lefora. Promote features to your users so they know what is available.

Most importantly, if you can get good people to help like I have with my 2 Admins: Deltaflyer and Feathermonkey (Who handled the css for the Forum) and Great Moderators: Bozo and Badgerfruit, who add many hours of their own time. Plus many regular members that find a place, you will be successful.

In conclusion; My Thanks to the good people at Lefora for providing the place to create my Forum.