What makes a forum die?

[Hitoban no Fokkusu]

No, there was only one skin before this one, and I thought it was getting old, so I changed it. There's only been one revamp in the history of the site (about two years in august).

Actually, I went back and looked at the rules, and there never was a word minimum. XD So never mind on that one lol.

That is a good idea...and it might solve our inactive alphas problem. Thanks a lot Spartan.

[xcessive]

I think what ruins most forums is the abundance of similar forums. There are what... thousounds of RP forums right now? Why would people join YOUR forum. For graphic design forums, i think its that proboards has its own graphic design section which is killing most design boards.

[Rainen Smiles]

Personally I think that forums can become inactive because people get bored of their characters as well. I started off on one site, and the admin made a second follow on site from that one and I joined that as well, the problem was, the admin ended up disappearing and eventually both sites died, but because me and some others had become friends on the site and liked Rping with each other, we made a site that we are all co-admins on and it seems to be going well.

We also have a habit of telling each other when we are going to be away so that we know who will still be on to do general maintenance to the site.

I think we're going well so far because we have four co-admins, and that means that we don't just have one person who's got complete power. And we have a habit of Rping with everyone. Most of us have two or more characters as well, so there's usually lots of different threads that other people can reply to.

I think sometimes you just have to have people on the site that have the energy to make people want to post with them and keep it going.

[Short of Daybreak]

I also notice that graphics seem to be an issue. If I were to open another site again, even after the failures, the first thing I may want to do is have an amazing scenary. No one likes plain Default, or cheap looking graphics. For me, I don't mind, as long as the colors don't burn my eyes. And I don't like too many graphics or codes, because it slows down everything, and takes longer to load. However, I do admit, when I see amazing visual on a forum, I will be awestruck, and drawn in to take a look.

[*lemondrops.]

I've been a member of, staff member on, and owned my own forums multiple times since I've begun to role-play. I find that it's often a few event that just set off a series of behaviours that end up in the forum dying.

One of the obvious ones is the administrator's failure to advertise. If the admin just posts on a few sites and expects the members to start pouring in. . . well, there's the first mistake you can make.

I've also found that if admins just constantly sit back and not get involved with their members, but instead just expect everyone to start posting.

-- I've got more. I just ran out of time!

[♥Ciara Renee]

In my long three years of roleplaying, I've noticed that I've become a very picky person when I'm looking for sites. Lately, I've been reading this discussion, and it got me thinking about what I think makes a site die. When I first started roleplaying, I joined this werewolves site, and it was amazing... but then, I got tangled up in this plot, and when I tried to put my own little spin on my character, they tried to tell me what to do instead. Of course this didn't help when I was a beginner, and they were all advanced. I gave up trying to please snooty people and left. It was ridiculous. When someone is new like that, you don't just shut their ideas down. That makes them feel like an unwanted loser. It can also ruin their want to continue roleplaying.

Another thing I noticed is people try to blend some plots together. Now I can see if you mix Underworld with some Teenage werewolf thing.. but you don't put Twilight with CSI Miami.. okay.. WAYYYY too far apart. That has to be the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard of. I think it would be way too hard to keep up with that, myself, even after three years simply because I can't wrap my head around the entire plot. SHEESH!

Blinding skins, a poorly developed layout, and a hard to navigate board are also things that "turn me off" to a site.. I mean, how am I supposed to find where to sign up for something, or read the rules when you have weird titles and no descriptions, no quicklinks, or an unorganized board? I can't.. that's that. Unfriendly members, Staff that are never on, and a lack of activity also shut sites down.

I hate activity checks. It's sad, because if the sites unactive anyways, you're only deleting people who really don't care. If the sites unattractive and confusing, people aren't going to join anyways. And the Originality, as everyone's said already, it a M A J O R factor. I have been on so many HSM sites as I gained experiance, and it was sad to say that it burned me out. The same thing on nearly every site... I hate HSM now because of it. I tried Werewolves, and a Vampire site but because they had crappy staff and members, I left.

Lately, I've been with High School and College roleplaying games. I've gotten tired of seeing "TWILIGHT" this and "HEROES" that.. why don't you do a show that hasn't been covered by everyone else in the rpg world.. Sure, you want to put your own spin on it, but seriously? I got hooked on Superman Returns, and started looking for a rp over that.. couldn't find one.. Because I couldn't, I made one.. and, I don't have very many people yet, but it's unique. Also, how many HS rpgs do you know that are in Maine, or Colorado? There's not many. It's either "CALI OMG!" or "MIAMI!" and.. I think that gets boring every now and then.

Unique is best, in my opinion.. and I'm not shutting down any of the aforementioned site types.. I'm just saying, if you're going to do it, make it DIFFERENT so people want to join.. Otherwise, you're just like the other 10 million people who did the same thing, and the sites never going to take off...

[throwback]

My forum has been running smoothly for a couple years now, I think it all depends on what you classify as dead.

I may not have a lot of members but the members I do have all get along with each other and show respect, and we have become a pretty tight knit group because of it.

So really I think it all depends on your outlook. would you rather have tons and tons of members or a small tight knit group of members.

[Jackaroo]

I think quite a few things kill off a forum:


Plot ideas if it's a role play. It needs to be original if it'll work. Not something you've stolen off of another forum. They just don't work at all.
Admin: If the admin is stuck up, then no one will join, they need to be able to have a laugh with all members and try not to let little 'cliques' form on the forum.
Layout: one of the biggest things which makes me join is the skin. If it's unappealing, I don't join.

Members; The key to a forum. If they suddenly disappear, the whole forum goes poof. D=

[Hera]

What I think that it's important is to have good staff members. It's kind of hard to make everything on your own, sure, it's not impossible, but I remember that during the first week of my site or so it was hard to be in IC threads, advertise and make the site better. (The site is only two weeks old). Now I have a friend of mine from another site I rp on that's helping me. And everything it's much easier now. At least I can see the difference.
Also, names of the boards and categories are relevant. I mean, I was doing advertising for my site and I had to check every board description twice to see where the plug-in board was. And hiding almost everything for the guests won't bring too many members. I didn't want a rpg forum of my own but I've seen so many sites that wouldn't let me see anything if I didn't join and that was annoying.

[Kaos29]

As an admin of a board that has been around since 2004 and has gone almost inactive since the middle of 2007, with a few pick ups in time in there, I can say that members are more of a problem than admins.

Why? Because sometimes, members, especially when they know each other, may not get along and bring it to the board. This single-handedly killed my board when one member who I would love to throw in net for lacrosse practice with no gear was liked by some of the board and the other admin by a random attack on the board for allowing someone he and some others didn't like on the board. He stole our members and left, with his board now 100% dead and full of ToS until he recently cleaned it out. Our board did somewhat recover for a time here and there, but never fully.

No matter what we did as admins, we always had a ticked off clique. Two members couldn't get along and everyone chose sides. I kicked off the problem member I mentioned earlier, but the people he took were top posters. They wouldn't buy it, but he was a liar and he was stringing them along and trying to start internet relationships with the female members of our board. I had discussions and there were pictures proving him as nothing less.

Now I am starting a new general board based off my website, with a subsection for my lacrosse team. I don't know how well it will work out, but it eliminates some of the problems my RPG board had. My other admin (now my wife) might start another board based on an idea and try to bring members to that, and see where it takes us.

[>>Phoenix<<]

Mar 15, 2009 11:26:48 GMT -8 Patrick [ASE] said:

People are always making threads about a lack of membership or that their forum is dying. One of the options always seems to be to delete their forum.

What makes a forum die in your opinion? Is there anything that seems to lead up to a forum death/deletion? Or do you think that some admins just get too nervous too fast and delete their forums without serious thought?

What advice would you give to admins to avoid forum death/deletion?

In my opinion; it may be pure boredom.
People will start a board & may accumulate a few members but tire of it & let it lapse while others wonder what happened to the admin.

Another reason could be that the theme is to either too obscure, archaic or over done. Just because the admin may think a topic worthy of ongoing discussion doesn't mean that others will feel the same way.

There are others who might feel the need to delete their boards if they believe that their ideas are not shared by the masses. They don't see the potential for healthy debate & only want a board of robots who will agree with them.

Still others may start a board with a great topic in which many people would love to participate... IF they knew it existed. If you want to share, you can't keep it secret.

[imo pop,]

lots of things make a forum die.

inexperienced admin: lets face it. most of our first forums were a mess because we didn't really know what to do. we created horrible neon skins which we look back on years later and go 'what was i thinking!' and we generally just have a really messy board. don't get me wrong this isn't everybody. some people wait and can create skins and run a forum properly before they create there own board but a lot of people don't.

inactive admin: if the admin isn't active neither are the members. unless its a really big forum that has been around for ages and has over a hundred members the admin really can't get away with not logging on at least once evey two days. members won't post if the admin doesn't.

inactive members if members give on up on a forum or for what ever reason stop logging on nobody else joins. the admin could log in and start ten threads a day. if nobody replies the site dies.

admin not advertising well if the admin doesn't advertise how are you going to find the site? people don't just happen across boards you have to give them access to the URL

unoriginal ideas there are millions of HP sites out there. a lot of them the same and most future ones have a new dark lord rising. that gets boring. marauders ones are all the same too: voldemort rising lily/james falling in love etc.. then a lot of them follow the fifth-seventh books. i myself have a HP RP but mine is set in a different timezone (all of harrys years).

there are more reasons but these are the main ones. well i feel anyway

[worcnagrom]

Ok I'm new here, but I'm just going to throw this out there. I've been going to this forum:

robbannasophia.proboards.com for about 2 or 3 years. Since its opening in 2005, the forum has always been thriving and it gets new members every so often so lack of members is not the source of our problem. Our problem is very unique in my oppinion. It's that our one and only admin has abandoned us. she left behind 2 regularly active moderators, which have limited powers (they can't ban which is necessary for them to do so). One moderator, unable to handle the stress of it all, eventually deleted her account. And then ther was one, who, rarely, is ever on. I know what your thinking: "How can a forum without authorities, keep conduct within the boards. Well, thats just it. You'd think that a forum without an admin and the mods absent would attract posers and spammers, but no. It only drives people away. We lost members. and we are gaining members now, but they never post. We lack posts. I am disheartened by this since I still post, along with a few other members. This month marks a year since our admin last logged on. How can someone, an admin of a forum, one day, log on for a few minutes, then, just disappear forever. It is very immoral to hack an admin's pass, but things are serious and I would hate to see a forum die, one that was once thriving. What do we do now? The members that are left behind and members still joining. Is our forum dead? Is there any way that proboards can give me, or another trustworthy person, the password, so the forum may be saved. SOS!

[Bloody Hell]

I rp with certain people on sites.. it started off on some CampRock RP site and we all just started talking and that was last summer and we still RP to this day but when a new site gets made we all tend to go to that site... but some people don't always give up and stay on a deader site if there in a good plot... I'm usually one of those I can't give up sites easily I'm usually one of the last people to leave a site.... Know the groups got a bit bigger we reconize eachother's names most of the time anyways

But, we include new members I was new and they included me now I'm not rly new anymore... but I join other sites besides just those ones.... but it seems any site that I join most don't really rp with new members like I will make a post then nobody joins and or talk on the c-box it's just kinda like hey and then I try to start up something and they completly ignore me and stuff that makes me feel unwanted and stuff so I leave some what and on more advanced sites it seems as if nobody ever replies I rather have a bad reply then no reply at all thats why I usually join not advanced sites..

But, I make sites and when I can get a decent site they actually stay active for a long time although i'm only on my third sites the other two I got sick and I didn't think id be able to rp so I was upset and just flat out deleted them and no it wasen't a cold it was bigger then that. But, now I'm starting up another site but my skins bad nad I have a feeling my skin is partially the reason for nobody joining... but I have yet to advertise it to some people I usually rp with though but I'm trying to make it out in the open then just in the small group... but as long as I get some decent active rpers I'm happy!!

[mhpurple]

hmmmm.......No participation on forum topics...invalid answers just to paste their signature and vulgar threads are main reasons even some times moderators strict theory comes into picture for the reason