Getting members to a closed forum

[christine1970]

I looking to create a forum where members can't just sign up by email straight away for security reasons. It's a forum to do with LGBT issues and there have been a lot of sock accounts and trolls joining various other forums. I've been collecting names and emails of those who might be interested on various social media platforms as I'm thinking of using the function where you enter someone's email and they get a registration invite from the forum. However, I'm starting to realise that this is going to take quite a while to get enough people to make it worthwhile so a couple of questions.

1, How would you gather potential members if you don't want to allow immediate sign-up? Put out a shout on Facebook, Twitter etc and check them out before inviting them on board?

2, How many names would you get before launching the forum if you were doing it this way?

[Scott]

Hi christine1970, since this is not really a technically issue, but more opinion, I'm going to move this over to the Open for Discussion board.

[Michael]

Hi Christine,

You could absolutely go the invite route. If you disable registration (Admin>Settings>Login and Registration) then you can send out email invites to specific users (assuming you have their email).

However, I think its worth mentioning that this might not be the most efficient route as you'd have to send each invite individually. It's also worth mentioning that people usually have a hard time joining something without getting to preview the site to see if it's something they'd be interested in. A lot of forums start with a core group of members who were already interested in communicating and others gather around them. You can always leave some sections of the forum visible to guests with specific board permissions (Admin>Structure>Categories and Boards, then the Permissions tab for each board) so that people can preview what sort of environment they're looking to join and then you can approve their account (using the restricted registration feature). They can also provide a message with their account creation request (this is a toggle on the same Login and Registration setting page) where they can link to their social media profiles so you can confirm their identities.

In regards to the number of people? I'd aim for 8. You really don't need many. Its more important that you:

1. Get people talking! If there is nothing on the forum to respond to, the forum will stay dead.
2. Don't have too many boards/categories. If I have to think too much about where to put my post/thread, then I'm less likely to make one.
3. Create a safe and comfortable environment. This means different things to different communities! Sometimes its the colors of your favorite sports team, sometimes its just a shared topic of discussion or a friend you all have in common.

Be bold! You'll make mistakes along the way but its all about figuring out what works for your community. If you have people having fun and enjoying themselves, more will follow.

[christine1970]

Thanks for the advice. I've got 60 interested so far but I'd assumed I'd probably need more. I did tell them all that it was early days so I might wait for a bit longer as I've got quite a few other messages out waiting for replies. 

I hear what you're saying about streamlining categories. I know one or two forums where some of the categories haven't been posted in for what seems like ages. What's you're opinion on off topic categories? I thought maybe four: 1, general 2, books, tv and music 3, tech and 4, sports, leisure and hobbies

[Michael]

Oct 2, 2018 15:00:28 GMT -8 christine1970 said:

Thanks for the advice. I've got 60 interested so far but I'd assumed I'd probably need more. I did tell them all that it was early days so I might wait for a bit longer as I've got quite a few other messages out waiting for replies. 

I hear what you're saying about streamlining categories. I know one or two forums where some of the categories haven't been posted in for what seems like ages. What's you're opinion on off topic categories? I thought maybe four: 1, general 2, books, tv and music 3, tech and 4, sports, leisure and hobbies

I'm always of the opinion that less is more, especially when you're starting out. You can always add in new subgroups later if necessary!