slip
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pmmsn | | I want a big forum! (11th Apr 09 at 3:17pm UTC) | | | I want to see big forums popping up on VF! Much like they were early-mid last year. What are the things that big forums need to come up and survive?? | |
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Nick
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pmwww | | Re: I want a big forum! (11th Apr 09 at 9:10pm UTC) | | My forum was big until I sorta gave up on it and shut it down, when it suddenly died. but now I gave control to someone else and it is slowly coming back.
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RuhRoe
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pmxfire | | Re: I want a big forum! (11th Apr 09 at 9:24pm UTC) | | First of all they need the main admin to be committed to the forum. I've seen a lot of forums (including my forums  ) that the main admin has not put time into it. They just want to make it then come back when they want to again. I think if you make a forum you should at least devote 10 minutes a day on the forum (maybe less if it's not active).
Second is that the person making the forum needs to find something that interests a lot of people. If people aren't interested in the main idea of the forum, then they don't want to come to that forum as much.
Thirdly is the design. If you want people to join your forum you want them to just glance at it and say "That looks like an awesome place!" The easiest way to do that is to get a good template. People are more likely to spend there time in a place that looks all organized and creative. It's just like a restaurant. You go there for food but you care how the place is. You don't want to sit in a chair that has crumbs all over it and eat on the table that has keptup. No, you want a clean and good looking restaurant so you can eat and enjoy your enviorment.
Then there is the coding. The more convenient it is for the member to get around the forum and do all the functions they want, the better. Coding helps organize and simplify a whole lot of things. It's just like your bedroom. When you code something it's like cleaning things up in your room. You are organizing and making it easier to find all your books and games.
After that you need to advertise in a place that isn't Virtual Forums or any other forum related! I can't stress this enough. If you get a person who has been in vforums or proboards for 10 years then they will just look at your forum and say "Eh it's okay. I got a lot of other choices though." But if you get someone who hasn't been to many forums then he will look at your forum and say "Awesome! This must be the best forum ever!" So the best way to advertise is without forum advertising websites, and you should start putting them on more search engines like google. It's still a good idea to advertise your forum on advertising forums but don't just rely on advertising forums alone.
The sixth thing you have to do is have the appropriate number of boards and categories. If you are just starting out you don't want to have too many boards. The max number of boards you should have is 10-12. Going over that can make it hard to post in and members won't be able to keep all of them active. It's good to start out with a small amount of boards so your members can post a lot and not have to look through a lot of boards just to find something. After the boards are active you can add more when the boards you have are active and have a decent amount of posts per week then you can slowly add boards. Over crowding your forum doesn't help anything. It just complicates a lot of things. | |
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ashkir
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pmskypemsnyahoo | | Re: I want a big forum! (11th Apr 09 at 10:14pm UTC) | | | I find that if max boards around 10-12 on main page is good. Blocking everything from guests make me go -shrug- and /leave. I recommend keeping each category three or four boards as well displayed on main page. I have a pet peeve for making it an exact number. XD | |
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RuhRoe
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pmxfire | | Re: I want a big forum! (11th Apr 09 at 10:46pm UTC) | | Blocking everything from guests make me go -shrug- and /leave.
Yeah. I think that forums should allow everything to guests but posting. Restricting guests from boards doesn't make them really excited about the forum. | |
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Nick
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pmwww | | Re: I want a big forum! (12th Apr 09 at 3:05am UTC) | | I always allow guests to view every board, but they are not able to post. They will be able to post in guests board or advertising board.
I know of a forum that the main admin is not there anymore, but before the admin left, he had good staff members, so that did not matter. The forum is still running strong. It's a PB forum. I think I have it in my bookmarks, but I'm not sure. I have allot of Final Fantasy forum's bookmarked. | |
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