What makes a forum die?

[Säge]

There's no doubt that excessive drama can do wonders to kill a forum, and leave a sour taste in everyone's mouth.

Having the same old bland topic to talk about doesn't help either.

[Sven]

To be honest theres a big one that no body has really posted. The fact that ProBoards Support does everything, so theres no reason to leave this board is there? It's like a massive general board that everyone uses because its like the core of the forum world.

Graphics boards struggle as PBS has it's own.
General boards struggle as PBS has its own.
Coding boards struggle as PBS has it's own, as well as a lack of coders.

The only boards that actually thrive away from PBS are the RP boards, and they fail because usually an RP admin can't design, nor code, so they use either shoddy graphics or hotlink graphics and only using codes from the code database.

Aside from the fact that there is millions of them. If PBS stayed what it was meant to, a support board, these forums wouldn't be dying. There would be more art based forums, more coding based forums, more general forums. Why? because you'd actually have to leave PBS to post there.

EG: Theres a poster in this very thread who doesn't even own a forum, yet why are you still posting here? Because theres no good general talk forums because they have all been devoured by PBS.

The admins need to rethink the use of the support board IMO, remove all the specialised areas from it and leave it as a support board.

THEN you can start whinging about fail admins and fail members. Until then though, PBS is the main blame in my opinion.

[JamesK]

Inactivity makes a forum die...no-one there to look after it!

[Pro—Poster]

I agree with James Kealey is some ways. Inactivity is the number one cause that can make a forum die, but no just because an admin decides to abandon it. I mean, there are plently on logical reasons why admin cannot run their sites anymore. Like for example, time and personal issues. We all lead lives beyond Proboards, I presume? Also, inactivity among members. The admin cannot do it all by his/herself, and when the admin sees decreased activity among members and even staff members, that can cause an admin to be discouraged and shut down their forum. Either way, inactivity is a bad thing, so please, get on once a week and post on your favorite forums. I know you would hate to see them die.

[HoudiniDerek]

Apr 7, 2009 23:21:25 GMT -8 Sven said:

To be honest theres a big one that no body has really posted. The fact that ProBoards Support does everything, so theres no reason to leave this board is there? It's like a massive general board that everyone uses because its like the core of the forum world.

Graphics boards struggle as PBS has it's own.
General boards struggle as PBS has its own.
Coding boards struggle as PBS has it's own, as well as a lack of coders.

The only boards that actually thrive away from PBS are the RP boards, and they fail because usually an RP admin can't design, nor code, so they use either shoddy graphics or hotlink graphics and only using codes from the code database.

Aside from the fact that there is millions of them. If PBS stayed what it was meant to, a support board, these forums wouldn't be dying. There would be more art based forums, more coding based forums, more general forums. Why? because you'd actually have to leave PBS to post there.

EG: Theres a poster in this very thread who doesn't even own a forum, yet why are you still posting here? Because theres no good general talk forums because they have all been devoured by PBS.

The admins need to rethink the use of the support board IMO, remove all the specialised areas from it and leave it as a support board.

THEN you can start whinging about fail admins and fail members. Until then though, PBS is the main blame in my opinion.

Very interesting concept. While I don't necessarily disagree with aspects of it, I find others harder to accept. I know of many sites out there that exist and are still very active, even if they have overlap here. A lot of graphics forums, especially well-established ones, still have a lot of members and activity there.

As for General Talk ones, many people that remain here a lot of the time divide their time between these and others. I know I divide my time between forums. Some things are more likely to get discussed here rather than there and vice versa, but that is the way of the internet and the specific meshing of people you have in both places though.

I think it is a good thing Support has expanded over the years from just Support issues to everything else they do. Overall, they provide an example of how well a forum can be run and what it can do in several different areas.

I think that if PBS is responsible at all it is because it keeps admins here advertising, getting their forum rated, etc. It gives them a multitude of options to improve their forum so they stay here promoting it rather than interacting on their forums.

Very well thought-out concepts. I had not looked at it like that before.

[Kaythara]

I have created a few sites of different RP sites to experiment with what works and what doesn't. I believe that the fate of a forum depends solely on the site's ability to keep people interested. Everything that has been previously said here adds up to that. Here, I'll be talking about RP sites.

Skin and ease of navigation are factors, of course. If you grow tired enough of looking at a painful or simply unchanging skin or get frustrated with poor organization, you will come to decide that remaining just isn't worth the visual anguish. However, appearance is more about getting members to join rather than keeping them around. There are much more important factors to consider.

Generic Premise:

So many posts here bleat about how fandom RPs are terrible due to being unoriginal, but there are so many generic fan sites out there for a reason; they do attract members. A simple vague Harry Potter site will tend to bask in the glow of high member counts upon opening provided it was advertised well, but after a while member vanish as quickly as they appeared. Why? A great community will provide the uniqueness a site needs; members will make their own plots with each other, propose activities, and lure more members. The reason a site with cohesive members dies is because one or two key people will leave and the rest are disheartened. The plots they created must be ditched or revamped, many threads will die, and it doesn't feel worth it to start over.

Then you have the juvenile community. They don't care about story anyway and wallow in selfishness by creating Mary-Sues, treating the place like MySpace, and getting upset with any staff member who cramps their styles. These people will cause such drama they chase off good members and eventually each other, leaving the site a smoldering ruin.

Original Premise:

A purely creative site bears massive risks. The creators can work hard to make a visually stunning place with a truly original premise and advertise like admins possessed. The reason they do not get members is simple and bitter; other people are simply not interested in what the admins are. The reason the site dies entirely is very few people join, too few to make for interesting plots for very long.

What about those fan sites that go for more spin-off than canon? Depending on how original the idea is, it can suffer the same fates as the generic and truly original forums; you can get one that only the creators are really interested in or you can get a "creative" non-canon idea that everybody else has done.

Members:

Members have a tendency to chase each other off. They might cause drama and leave or be a poor enough part of the community that others feel the need to get away. Unless very small, a close-knit base will, intentionally or unwittingly, discourage new people from joining. It's like moving to a new grade school; how many of us are really willing to be the new kid? On the other hand, a scattershot group of members makes it hard on itself. With no consistency in posting activity and nature between characters, the forum has no cohesiveness and nobody will feel a sense of loyalty to keep them around.

Staff:

Yes, like everybody else, I believe that a great deal of blame lies with the admin. It is the admin's job to keep people intrigued by drawing in new members, keeping old ones in check, and finding a balance between continuity and newness. A failure to spread new ads in all but the most active of sites is what lends to a dwindling, stagnant, or too cliquish base. Favoritism breeds hard feelings while being too loose or too tight with rules causes loss of respect and plunges the site into disarray. Constant changes frustrate members and make them feel like perpetual newbies, lost and annoyed at the admin for taking away any sense of security. On the other hand, no changes at all allow people to grow bored with the same-old same-old; an admin cannot rely solely on members to provide their own amusement. Staff must be carefully to ensure that if the admin becomes temporarily inactive, members still feel secure.

In essence, the admin is the principal of a school. He or she must delegate with confidence and always be there to keep things running smoothly while wielding their power with careful discretion. Remember, while a student has to suffer through the chaotic nonsense or police state of school, forum members do not and many will take any reason to abandon ship rather than put up with any stress.

[sincity61]

One thing a lot of you haven't mentioned is be creative, We choose our forums name for one reason. What happened if the show died. Seeming we were a general csi forum. Sadly it's dieing and along went our good members. We tried to add other shows it didn't work so well.

So we asked our active members what they wanted to do and this is what we all came up with. Seeming everyone loves crime why not keep it and make it into a gaming forum with crime as the key factor.

Back to what we came up with. We are closed for a revamp that all our members who were active put in a little input and will reopen under a different topic. ;D


Anyhow we took a csi site that was dieing due to the change in characters and revamped it into a crime/games/rpg site and it seems to be going over. Just reopened, guess you really need to be versatile in todays world, this is a main focus I am finding to keep members, staff and yourself happy.

that is why I say it's all in the name of a board, why close it down and open up a new forum. Frankly it's a ton of work. When you can just close down for a bit and revamp and see how well it works.

Cheers all

[brandolyn]

members with a grudge.
We had a members that copied our member list and made his own board.

[tinkerman]

I think some really excellent points have been made here! (thanks for the tips folks!)

I've only got 3 months and a bit experience of running a Proboard but was a member of other forums before that (and still am!). My observations on "What makes a forum die" would be these:

* The Admin/Moderator - its wrong to worry about being important, inventing rules and enforcing them, and not enough about developing their people skills and working on making the forum attractive and INTERESTING! If the wrong person is doing this job, the forum will NEVER succeed....

* The forum needs to be "kept fresh" - its difficult to come up with a magic formula that fits all as this is very much dependent on what the forum is seeking to achieve and where it is proper and appropriate to focus energy....however words such as "innovation", "new" and "energy" spring to mind.....

* The most important thing to me is that a forum has to fill a need. Its the basic marketing principle of "how do I attract members?" and "once they join, how do I keep them?" Very few people will continue to support a forum out of a sense of duty - it has to be a place where they want to go, they enjoy when they are there and they intend to go back to.

I have absolutely no idea whether my forum will be successful in the long term (however one defines "success"), but these are pretty much the principles I'm using to guide me.

[hcfwesker]

Bugs ... with only 3 months in the game since opening, your forum is doing marvelous!!!! i am a forum reviewer for a HUGE promoting site, and i can say your forum is very pleasing to visit.


Now, for my analyisis on the topic ... it's based on the leadership skills of the admin. wether they're willing to sacrifice alot of time and effort into making their forum successful. i always laugh when admins give up after the first few weeks of their forum cause it's not booming with business.

forums are popular, and you may have came from a popular forum, but just because you make one yourself, doesn't guarantee it'll ever be as possible,

it's what you make, and add to it, on almost a daily basis, that'll keep it going.

and advertising, in the right places, is key

[Warner Bandicoot]

What makes a forum die? Well, if it isn't advertised on sites that let you show off your forum, it will lack members. Forums that have overrated catergories (examples: Twilight, Harry Potter, High School Musical, Spongebob) will lack members because there's too many of them. Sometimes there will be forums that have underrated categories that people won't bother staying because they've never heard of it.

[sincity61]

Sometimes it's to many rules that can turn off membership. Right now we are going through a no you can't post over PG-13 fan fics. Getting members to understand that they really need to read the rules when signing up for forums and then it makes us the Admins have to play a bad guy and members leave. Most people don't like to get scolded. Random seen it happen on so many boards is the rules and keeping forum at a PG rating but also keeping your members happy and understanding these rules.

cheers ;D

[xcessive]

Apr 8, 2009 6:23:15 GMT -8 HoudiniDerek said:

Apr 7, 2009 23:21:25 GMT -8 Sven said:

To be honest theres a big one that no body has really posted. The fact that ProBoards Support does everything, so theres no reason to leave this board is there? It's like a massive general board that everyone uses because its like the core of the forum world.

Graphics boards struggle as PBS has it's own.
General boards struggle as PBS has its own.
Coding boards struggle as PBS has it's own, as well as a lack of coders.

The only boards that actually thrive away from PBS are the RP boards, and they fail because usually an RP admin can't design, nor code, so they use either shoddy graphics or hotlink graphics and only using codes from the code database.

Aside from the fact that there is millions of them. If PBS stayed what it was meant to, a support board, these forums wouldn't be dying. There would be more art based forums, more coding based forums, more general forums. Why? because you'd actually have to leave PBS to post there.

EG: Theres a poster in this very thread who doesn't even own a forum, yet why are you still posting here? Because theres no good general talk forums because they have all been devoured by PBS.

The admins need to rethink the use of the support board IMO, remove all the specialised areas from it and leave it as a support board.

THEN you can start whinging about fail admins and fail members. Until then though, PBS is the main blame in my opinion.

Very interesting concept. While I don't necessarily disagree with aspects of it, I find others harder to accept. I know of many sites out there that exist and are still very active, even if they have overlap here. A lot of graphics forums, especially well-established ones, still have a lot of members and activity there.

As for General Talk ones, many people that remain here a lot of the time divide their time between these and others. I know I divide my time between forums. Some things are more likely to get discussed here rather than there and vice versa, but that is the way of the internet and the specific meshing of people you have in both places though.

I think it is a good thing Support has expanded over the years from just Support issues to everything else they do. Overall, they provide an example of how well a forum can be run and what it can do in several different areas.

I think that if PBS is responsible at all it is because it keeps admins here advertising, getting their forum rated, etc. It gives them a multitude of options to improve their forum so they stay here promoting it rather than interacting on their forums.

Very well thought-out concepts. I had not looked at it like that before.

Actually not a lot of well established design forums have any/some activity anymore. Look at ssd, xdd, g101, even PV is dying.
All graphic design forums are suffering.

[Hitoban no Fokkusu]

Apr 7, 2009 23:21:25 GMT -8 Sven said:

To be honest theres a big one that no body has really posted. The fact that ProBoards Support does everything, so theres no reason to leave this board is there? It's like a massive general board that everyone uses because its like the core of the forum world.

Graphics boards struggle as PBS has it's own.
General boards struggle as PBS has its own.
Coding boards struggle as PBS has it's own, as well as a lack of coders.

The only boards that actually thrive away from PBS are the RP boards, and they fail because usually an RP admin can't design, nor code, so they use either shoddy graphics or hotlink graphics and only using codes from the code database.

Aside from the fact that there is millions of them. If PBS stayed what it was meant to, a support board, these forums wouldn't be dying. There would be more art based forums, more coding based forums, more general forums. Why? because you'd actually have to leave PBS to post there.

EG: Theres a poster in this very thread who doesn't even own a forum, yet why are you still posting here? Because theres no good general talk forums because they have all been devoured by PBS.

The admins need to rethink the use of the support board IMO, remove all the specialised areas from it and leave it as a support board.

THEN you can start whinging about fail admins and fail members. Until then though, PBS is the main blame in my opinion.

Interesting point, but I don't really agree with it. Sure it may take away from the other boards, but if POS wasn't here with all the codes, my board would suck because I don't know where else to go to get good codes. I think the codes and advertisement board should stay, and most likely this board as well. The general board I don't really go on that often, but it's a very good form of advertising as well. People get to know you, so they check out the sites you have in your signature etc.

So, some agrees and some not-so-muches. But kudos for bringing it up and thinking outside of the box.

[Îrøñ Måidëñ1]

Apr 7, 2009 17:55:49 GMT -8 Säge said:

There's no doubt that excessive drama can do wonders to kill a forum, and leave a sour taste in everyone's mouth.

Having the same old bland topic to talk about doesn't help either.

boring people that assume others have to provide them with everything and that their participation on a forum is only going to happen when they're catered to. Instead of participating and helping the place grow.