Quote:Why your forum is failing!
Lets think of your forum more as a resource, not as a forum. IF you ever plan to make your forum succeed, your traffic will NOT be from advertisements, your traffic will be from GOOGLE (and Bing, if anyone uses that). Your forum is not something where you should tell people to join it, it's something that people should WANT to join. You need to imagine your forum from the point of view of a random visitor, not as a owner. YOU want your forum to succeed, THEY want something they can rely on for information. Therefore, instead of mindlessly begging randoms to join your forum, you need to offer something unique. No one wants to join your forum with 3 posts, 5 members and a countless number of empty forums. Your visitors would be more inclined to see forums where they're all filled with SOME content and some members. This can mean you posting countless threads, either way, that works. Making accounts (around 5) and having discussions between accounts is also a good way to generate traffic.
Read the rest of the article
here.
http://crueltruth.com/?p=26
I haven't read your post yet, but I wanted to let you know your bottom link it incorrect.
(2011-05-16, 09:35 AM)KuJoe Wrote: [ -> ]I haven't read your post yet, but I wanted to let you know your bottom link it incorrect.
My apologies, fixed.
I respectfully disagree with the design comment. As long as it's readable it does not matter much. People here on mybb think my forum looks awful, yet it's one of the fastest growing mybb sites.
I also disagree with the general discussion forum comment. If you look at my forum it's obvious why.
You should add bad/insufficient hosting to the list imho. I will not wait 4-5 seconds for pages to load. Everybody is on broadband nowadays, and expect sites to load fast.
Basically it boils down to a lot of luck. When someone starts a forum, someone should look for a small group of people that "seed" the board. If the admin is the only registered user, and there is only 1 rules post, nobody will join. imho.
(2011-05-16, 10:06 AM)Disturbed Wrote: [ -> ]I respectfully disagree with the design comment. As long as it's readable it does not matter much. People here on mybb think my forum looks awful, yet it's one of the fastest growing mybb sites.
I also disagree with the general discussion forum comment. If you look at my forum it's obvious why.
You should add bad/insufficient hosting to the list imho. I will not wait 4-5 seconds for pages to load. Everybody is on broadband nowadays, and expect sites to load fast.
Basically it boils down to a lot of luck. When someone starts a forum, someone should look for a small group of people that "seed" the board. If the admin is the only registered user, and there is only 1 rules post, nobody will join. imho.
You must understand my article was striking points for the general public, not for people with substantial skills. Also, your forum came to mind when writing this article. It completely defies some points in the article, but you must remember, your variables were different. The forum was executed correctly, and is actually more focused on conspiracy chat, we both know someone who wants birthday ideas will not ask your forum, but for someone to talk about war conspiracies and such, your forum will be chosen.
Good article. I wholeheartedly agree with most of your points - especially the one about people incapable of taking criticism. This is a major problem not just here, but everywhere on the 'net. People post their site up for a review but go off it when somebody dares to leave a negative comment about the fact the site looks like it was designed in the '90s or whatever. That really grinds my gears.
(2011-05-16, 10:09 AM)The Elite Wrote: [ -> ]You must understand my article was striking points for the general public, not for people with substantial skills. Also, your forum came to mind when writing this article. It completely defies some points in the article, but you must remember, your variables were different. The forum was executed correctly, and is actually more focused on conspiracy chat, we both know someone who wants birthday ideas will not ask your forum, but for someone to talk about war conspiracies and such, your forum will be chosen.
It is a very good article, with very good points. Just wanted to add that it's not always as black and white as you kinda make it look.
Imho the ingredients for a succesful site are :
1.) admins/moderators with the right attitude. No one likes a dictator. Be lenient with bans. Start with 1 days bans, only perm ban very repetitive offenders.
2.) Good hosting.
3.) A group of people to "seed" the board.
4.) luck.
Maybe you can include them in your article lol. (3. you already kinda covered though)
Very enjoyable read. One thing I would like to see you discuss is the various levels in which people guage success. Everybody will guage it differently depending on the website/topic. While some consider 100,000 posts or 5,000 members "successful", others might be see 3,000 posts with 10-20 dedicated members a success depending on the topic.
I run a forum with 65k+ posts and 29.9k members and I don't consider it successful at all.
(2011-05-16, 10:25 AM)euantor Wrote: [ -> ]Good article. I wholeheartedly agree with most of your points - especially the one about people incapable of taking criticism. This is a major problem not just here, but everywhere on the 'net. People post their site up for a review but go off it when somebody dares to leave a negative comment about the fact the site looks like it was designed in the '90s or whatever. That really grinds my gears.
Thank you very much, glad you enjoyed the article. I also agree, terrible designs are my demise unless the content is worth it.
(2011-05-16, 10:28 AM)Disturbed Wrote: [ -> ] (2011-05-16, 10:09 AM)The Elite Wrote: [ -> ]You must understand my article was striking points for the general public, not for people with substantial skills. Also, your forum came to mind when writing this article. It completely defies some points in the article, but you must remember, your variables were different. The forum was executed correctly, and is actually more focused on conspiracy chat, we both know someone who wants birthday ideas will not ask your forum, but for someone to talk about war conspiracies and such, your forum will be chosen.
It is a very good article, with very good points. Just wanted to add that it's not always as black and white as you kinda make it look.
Imho the ingredients for a succesful site are :
1.) admins/moderators with the right attitude. No one likes a dictator. Be lenient with bans. Start with 1 days bans, only perm ban very repetitive offenders.
2.) Good hosting.
3.) A group of people to "seed" the board.
4.) luck.
Maybe you can include them in your article lol. (3. you already kinda covered though)
I liked how your statement attracts the reader with the "recipe for success" yet ends with luck. It's definitely true, there is no set way to succeed.
(2011-05-16, 10:41 AM)KuJoe Wrote: [ -> ]Very enjoyable read. One thing I would like to see you discuss is the various levels in which people guage success. Everybody will guage it differently depending on the website/topic. While some consider 100,000 posts or 5,000 members "successful", others might be see 3,000 posts with 10-20 dedicated members a success depending on the topic.
I run a forum with 65k+ posts and 29.9k members and I don't consider it successful at all.
Thank you, glad you enjoyed the article. I'll note that down for my next article. I don't want to spam this forum with articles.
I also agree, everyones perspectives are different.
Good points. This should be stickied to the showcase board. I just wanted to provide sorta a counter example to your argument that you shouldn't 'get people to join your forum'.
When I started Covert Codes back in 2008, I made a forum, made a bunch of guides, tutorials and content available for download, and first invited a few close contacts which I knew might like the topic to join my forum.
I explained to them in 1-2 minutes what the benefits of joining my forum were, they read a few posts, liked them and joined. It was this personal invitation of 10-15 members that got my initial flux of members and discussions going. This was enough to attract members that I didn't know, one thing led to another and Covert Codes became self-sufficient.