Well, the first topic for "Answer or Next" is the question, what do you think holds a community together? This is an excellent question and I will enjoy writing about it and discussing it. (Be it in comments or by Neikos' reply.)

To begin, I'm going to divide this blog post into sections for the sake of organized OCD. (Because I'm like that.)

So here we go!

Staff Members

What is likely the most important part in keeping a community together is it's staff members. Staff members can range from moderators, to admins, to of course the owner(s) themselves, all of which are important to not only the community but holding it together properly.

The moderators dedicate their free time and effort to a community they enjoy, they are volunteers who take time out of their day to keep the community a safe place to chat and hang out in. The go around stalking checking the different sections to make sure that no rules are being broken. Of course they aren't omnipresent, so they don't always get everything. That's where user reports come in. (We'll address this later.) This is important because if things were not controlled by them, the community would fall apart due to people breaking rules and causing a ruckus. This makes for a terrible community that will likely end up unpopular among the internet.

The admin's do all the work the moderators do, and more. They are in charge of keeping the site working well inside while guiding the moderators and other staff along the way. They make many large decisions and have a great influence on things like changes and/or adjustments to the forum. So while handling reports, scanning the message boards and handing out warnings and bans, they also watch for glitches and serious problems in the site. If there were no admins to do their job (

The owner is the greatest factor of the staff, at least in my opinion. I owned a website myself once for a very short time, and even a small little thing is difficult to maintain. The owner not only does all the previous staff members jobs, but also has access to the website files and deep inner workings. Member database, images, complete control panel, bills, handling issues the admins simply don't have access to, etc. It's an incredibly tough job especially on a community as large as this one. (Which is why Feld0 is praised so much by many people, considering his age.) Without the owner, the website might as well not exist really. Without an owner, there is no community, end of story.

Members

Yes! People like you and me help hold this community together! Shocker eh? Not really. The normal members of the community provide the greatest interest, and things to look at and talk about. This ranges from art, interesting and in depth topics, and just all in all friendly chatter.

Some more in depth things would involve different types of users. Funny users provide people with ways to laugh, talented users provide things for people to look at and enjoy, and others just all in all provide great friendships and discussions. This forges an amazing friendly community to stay in and helps keep it interesting.

Now of course, it's difficult to avoid the bad users, but those are normally taken care of. To an extent the bad users are a sign the community is growing as a whole and can in fact HELP it. We learn most from bad experiences because we see where we can improve on things. (At least from my perspective.)

Content and Changes

Another important part of keeping a community together is providing new and interesting content and/or changes often. If the site remained with the same logo and graphics, same layout, same settings, and nothing unique ever happening then the place would become very boring. Often it's the admin and owners job to make sure things happen around the place to keep it fun.

Feedback is technically a part of this, since suggestions and feedback lead to adjustments to improve and enhance the server. Staff listen to the feedback and consider it carefully. If a users request is acknowledged and used then people feel the staff members listen to it's users and hold a better respect for them.

Some content can range from online games of Minecraft, WoW and TF2, to simple gatherings, meetups and online events. (Like the synchtube we hold on here on a regular basis.) These are excellent ways to develop a community that keeps together and lasts a long time.

Features

The features a forum has can be considered a wide topic. Features can range from what kind of message boards and categories they have, to simple things like status's and blogs! (One thing I find really great and unique about this site.)

When new features are added there's a definite explosion of activity. People rushing to try the brand new added tools and fun things to screw around with such as the new blogging system recently added to this forum. These features make people stay around and enjoy it more than other forums, so they have more fun with it.

Organization within the boards is important too. It helps people more easily understand what goes where, and where to go to talk about what they want to. This keeps things from becoming cluttered, unfiltered, unpredictable and completely random.

In the end there are a lot of things that make a community great and strong. There's probably more I missed but this should give you an in depth look at things. I hope you all enjoyed reading my look at this topic!

Over to you Neikos!

What are some things you consider when finding a good community to use?