If the administrator bumps a person who wants into the private forum, that person will lose several months' effort to be gained admittance into the exclusive online gathering. A possible application of this strategy in action for a news organization might be to create a second tier of discussion forums where reporters and editors participate actively. To gain admittance to that vaulted forum, members of the public must meet this type of screening to ensure that they aren't the types to disrupt the exclusive discussion. Sullivan thinks that some of the problems being encountered by those trying to run public discussion forum lies with their inexperience with the online discussion medium. Back before the Web, many BBS operators used rigorous tactics to control discussions on their boards, he points out.
Online community is an increasingly visible component of many media sites.
While the concept dates back to BBS's and the first days of the Internet, corporate and media sites are just beginning to take online forums seriously and perceive them as an eventual revenue source. The advent of tools like SmartConf and its competitors, including Well Engaged, Web Crossing and others, is the first step toward publishers finding business models that take advantage of online discussion forums. An alternative URL policy Following my last column about newspapers that prohibit Web addresses, or URLs, in their print classified ads, new media consultant Mark Potts wrote in with an interesting twist on the URL topic. He points out that NBC television affiliate WRC-TV 4 in Washington, D.C., does not give out URLs on air other than for its own Web site. If on the TV news it is necessary to broadcast a URL to an outside site, viewers are told to surf to the WRC Web site and pick up the URL there.