You will need to establish clear rules and policies as to what is acceptable by community, and sanctions that will be imposed on those who violate rules. What kind of things are unacceptable for users to post? Personal attacks, bigotry, and profanity should not be allowed. Will you allow off-topic messages? How far off-topic?

Get all new members to agree on rules and put a link to rules on all pages. Also provide a form that makes it easy for members to report violators.

Have clear polices for what penalty will be for violating rules and deal with violator as quickly as possible. Start by emailing individual and politely request that they review community's rules and policies pages. If that doesn't stop violations, enforce penalty.

Many web users conceal their true identity and use a pseudonym instead. They pretend to be who they're not and this is prone to abuse. Sometimes this results in exploitation of minors. There is not much you can do to learn members true identities, but you should verify email address of new members by sending a message to which they must respond.

Enforcement of rules could involve subjecting their messages to approval before posting, suspending their posting rights, or banning their membership in community. Email them, letting them know that they are being penalized and why. Let them know what they need to do to get penalty lifted.

If you want users to have confidence when they join community, you will need to post a clear privacy policy. It should describe what personal information will be collected and how personal data will be used. Put a link to privacy policy on all pages.

You should maintain a topic about website itself where members can talk about bugs, rules they would like to see, or features they wish for. Here, new members can post questions about how to use their computer, web, or community website, and receive help from more experienced users. Visit that topic regularly yourself.

One decision you need to make is whether messages be archived and for how long? Will you archive all messages, including ones that are just frivolous chat or gossip and are not worth saving? Will you allow members access to archives? Will you be only one who can delete messages or will members have authority to delete their own messages?

You can start your message forum on a site that offers free message boards and as your community grows move to your own Web site. Below is a list of some websites that offer free message boards or free message forum code.

Boards2Go (www.boards2go.com) provides free message boards hosted on their servers. There is nothing for you to set up. Boards2Go's message boards can easily integrate to your website's layout. Your visitors will never know they left your website. All configurations may be made via our web interface administrator area.

Web Wiz Guide (www.webwizguide.info) provides free ASP forum code, and The Free Country (www.thefreecountry.com) Provides Free PHP Forum Code.

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Something, perhaps a combination of ignorance and arrogance, prevented this allegedly educated man from bothering to check on meaning of this new word. It was, therefore, paraded about for all to admire. The use of new favourite word escalated until no document was considered complete without it.

I was horrified and embarrassed. I squirmed, anticipating day when another (better educated) lawyer or a client would broach subject of this inappropriate word. Fortunately, I moved on before day arrived and hope that my association with this word abuser has been forgotten.

A very public example of this kind of thing occurred to Georgie Fame who was a song writer and singer (and still is) in 1960’s. Georgie Fame and his band, The Blue Flames, were very popular and, when they released a record, it was played all time everywhere. This song was about bank-robbing duo, Bonnie and Clyde, and included a verse about them stuffing their loot into a canvas bag. Unfortunately, when Georgie Fame wrote words to song, he got a word wrong. Instead of referring to a "burlap" bag, he used word "dewlap". (In case you don’t know, dewlap is loose hanging bit of skin under throat of oxen, dogs, turkeys, etc ( you know bit I mean.) I couldn’t listen to that song without picturing villains stuffing bank notes into a cow’s mouth and that definitely ruined dramatic impact for me.

This error did not go unnoticed by rest of world. Georgie Fame admitted in an interview that somebody had told him, before song was recorded, that "dewlap" was not right word but he brushed them off and didn’t bother to check. Once song had been recorded and released, it was too late to do anything about it. This failure to check (even after a warning) became about as public as a mistake can be. If nothing else, it proved that people do notice these things.

I don’t know exactly why dictionaries went out of fashion but I’d bet money that it was due to pressure by "don’t be shackled by correctness, creativity is all that counts" brigade. I never understood why you can’t be correct and creative at same time but I’ll stay at bottom of trench until that argument is over. My suggestion is that you become a closet dictionary user. It’s still legal and completely harmless. If you fear discovery, you can cover your dictionary in brown paper or pretend you just keep it to prop door open, or say it was a present from Granny. Whatever you do, use dictionary if in doubt. If idea of owning an actual paper dictionary makes you too nervous, you can find one online at http://www.thefreedictionary.com/. Never take a chance and assume you know meaning of a word just from context in which you heard it used.