LSM
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« on: July 14, 2009, 03:14:22 PM » |
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Hi. Longtime lurker, occasional BBS admin and BBS user/participant since BBSs were mailing lists.
The single greatest mistake any upstart forum makes- and they ALL make the same mistake- is subforum overload.
Early on, the LAST thing you want to do is divide the 'discussion center' into a billion little fragmentary pieces. To be honest, an upstart forum usually doesn't warrant more than three or four subforums, but it's almost like an addiction with the creators- the need to fabricate innumerable subforums addressing every single dynamic of topical minutiae. This causes the discussions to languish, and the positive lollapalooza effect of traffic begetting traffic begetting more traffic is totally lost.
In the early stages, activity is just so critical... You cannot water it down with forum overload.
IMO, the forum should be designated into five subforums.
Pure Geoname.com Discussion (city or townname.com only)
Other Geo Discussion (other TLDs, geo/keyword names, city-state names, etc)
Geo Strategies, Development and SEO
Ask An Expert
Buy, Sell, Trade
A reorganization and jettisoning of unneeded subforums, combined with a promo blast amongst existing members should really help to spark up activity. Look at it like this. It's free to add new subforums. When they're needed, you can build them. When they're unneeded, they actually do harm to an upstart BBS, so don't have them.
In any forum, you will have a center of content-contributing members. THese are the guys that write the stuff people want to read. They're the ones who actually put stuff out there that's worthwhile, as opposed to just posting snark and chaff. Develop this resource. You definitely have it... Forums take work and require strategy to succeed. "If you build it, they will come" is for the movies.
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