Introduction
PHPBB is one of the most popular open-source bulletin board software packages available today. Managing a large forum can require a lot of time-consuming moderation tasks like approving posts, banning problematic users, and editing content. This is where a tool like Write For Me Pro can help automate and streamline many of these jobs.
What is Write For Me Pro?
Write For Me Pro is a premium plugin for PHPBB that adds powerful automoderation, content curation, and post generation capabilities. Some key features include:
Auto-approving/denying new forum posts based on predefined rules. This can filter out spam and off-topic content automatically.
Banning users based on a points system that assigns penalties for certain actions. Users can be banned automatically once a threshold is reached.
Fetching posts from external sources like RSS/Atom feeds and automatically publishing them to the forum on a schedule. This populates forums with fresh content.
Generating automated “lazy posts” based on predefined templates with variables filled in from content databases. For example, daily sport scores or weather reports.
Curation tools to manage a team of virtual or human “writers” who can generate and submit content. Submissions can be reviewed and approved/denied in a dashboard.
Powerful API for developers to integrate the plugin with other systems, automate complex moderation workflows, and more.
Reports on bot/virtual writer usage, banned users, pending posts, and other moderation metrics.
This allows forums to be heavily automated and moderated with minimal human involvement once the rules and workflows are configured. It handles many repetitive tasks so moderators can focus on more strategic community management.
Installation and Configuration
The Write For Me Pro plugin is designed to integrate seamlessly with PHPBB. Installing it only takes a few steps:
Purchase a license key from the developer’s site. Licenses are available for both commercial and non-commercial use cases.
Download the latest plugin package file from the developerdownloads section on the PHPBB website.
In the PHPBB admin control panel, navigate to Customise -> Manage Plugins and click Install. Select the downloaded package file.
Activate the Write For Me plugin once installed. Enter the license key when prompted.
Configure the plugin’s various options through the new Write For Me menu in the admin control panel.
The configuration page allows setting permissions for bot/virtual writers, content sources, auto-moderation rules, post generation templates, and more. Comprehensive documentation is provided to understand each setting.
Sample Automated Workflows
Once configured, Write For Me Pro can automate many day-to-day forum tasks with little to no oversight required. Here are some examples:
Approving all forum introductions that contain at least 50 characters and flagging any with keywords like “spam” for review. This filters spam intro posts.
Fetching top news headlines every hour from an RSS feed and publishing them automatically as forum discussions with attribution. This keeps forums fresh.
Generating a daily “Deals” post using a template that pulls in live product data from an e-commerce database. The deals rotate daily.
Assigning “points” to user actions like profanity use, account age, number of posts etc. Banning users automatically if their total reaches a threshold.
Running bots that follow specific posting schedules and only interact with other bots/virtual users. This can simulate real discussions for testing purposes.
Curating a team of virtual writers managed through the administration panel. Writers can submit content proposals that moderators review and approve/deny in a queue.
With these and other automated workflows, Write For Me Pro essentially acts as an AI assistant that reduces the manual effort required to run busy forums at scale.
Drawbacks and Considerations
While a powerful tool, there are some caveats to consider with Write For Me Pro:
As with any automated system, there is a risk of edge cases triggering undesirable outcomes until rules are finely tuned. Testing in sandbox mode is recommended.
Over-automation could potentially reduce the “human touch” on forums and impact organic engagement if not carefully balanced.
Server requirements may increase based on the complexity of workflows, number of virtual users, and frequency of automated tasks.
Upgrades to future PHPBB versions may cause temporary incompatibilities until the plugin is updated by the developer.
There is a learning curve to fully leveraging the API and customizing workflows for unique use cases. Training may be required.
A paid license is needed, so it requires an ongoing subscription cost versus free plugins. Pricing is discounted for non-profits.
When used judiciously, Write For Me Pro is very capable of reducing heavy workloads on forum administrators and moderation teams through automation. Its powerful feature set can scale PHPBB installations to handle large volumes of traffic and content.