New Forum Owner Tips

[Shawn Gossman]

If you could give some new forum owners tips to make running a forum a lot easier and better, what tips would you give them?

What tips do you wish you knew when you first started running a forum?

[Gaz]

One of the tips I would suggest is for the admins and moderators to never look at how many total members they have as a way of measuring the success of a site.
It's all about participation rates and building a vibrant community.
I've exchanged messages with admins at some sites on The Admin Zone years back and they'd say they had built a 1,000 member online community. When you check further they've got maybe 20 active contributors which was a total false economy.
It's still the step of making the site relevant to your target audience, turning lurkers into members and members into contributors that is the real measure of the site.
In recent years I've found some ways of achieving the members into contributors part.
Currently we've got about 250 members and we are down to about 110 active contributors.
I'm reasonably confident that once we get VB6 running correctly we can add at least 30 more genuine and regular contributors which will help.

[Shawn Gossman]

One of the tips I would suggest is for the admins and moderators to never look at how many total members they have as a way of measuring the success of a site.
It's all about participation rates and building a vibrant community.
I've exchanged messages with admins at some sites on The Admin Zone years back and they'd say they had built a 1,000 member online community. When you check further they've got maybe 20 active contributors which was a total false economy.
It's still the step of making the site relevant to your target audience, turning lurkers into members and members into contributors that is the real measure of the site.
In recent years I've found some ways of achieving the members into contributors part.
Currently we've got about 250 members and we are down to about 110 active contributors.
I'm reasonably confident that once we get VB6 running correctly we can add at least 30 more genuine and regular contributors which will help.

110 out of 250 is pretty dang good!

[Gaz]

110 out of 250 is pretty dang good!

Over the years I've deleted and cleaned off many inactive accounts. At one stage we had about 300 active contributors and the site was humming. I'd be really happy to get it back to 150.
We have some boards that members need to have a participation rate to gain and then maintain access to and that helps incentivize people.
We are also very clear in our welcome message that it people want full access then they need to participate. It upsets some but sets expectations for others.

[Wayne]

I've exchanged messages with admins at some sites on The Admin Zone years back and they'd say they had built a 1,000 member online community. When you check further they've got maybe 20 active contributors which was a total false economy.

Exactly this. It’s never about the headcount; it’s about the vibe. My all-time favorite forum had maybe 55 active members. Those 55 were hilarious, chatty, and produced just the right amount of chaos to keep it interesting. Honestly, I’ve never had more fun on a forum. Proof that quality beats quantity every time.

[Shawn Gossman]

Exactly this. It’s never about the headcount; it’s about the vibe. My all-time favorite forum had maybe 55 active members. Those 55 were hilarious, chatty, and produced just the right amount of chaos to keep it interesting. Honestly, I’ve never had more fun on a forum. Proof that quality beats quantity every time.

I think a lot of new forum owners forget that.

Take this forum for example, us three are having a good time talking about running our vBulletin forums. To me, that's an established community. Real posts by real people who were drawn here for real reasons.

[Gaz]

I look at this as an opportunity to share some views and gain some ideas. While it's a very small forum at the moment, it could easily build into something quite vibrant. If we can all play a part in that now, perhaps in a couple of months there will be a lot more making a contribution.