Forum Ownership General Chat

[Deleted member 165]

For those that have ever created and owned a forum you know that the creating the forum is really the easy part. The real work comes when you finally open it up to the public. In fact this is really the hardest part getting it off the ground and finding members that will enjoy the content you presenting for that niche. Trying to manage the content from not being overbearing and driving the members away to making it interesting enough to capture new members that will start adding their own content and taste to your forum.

You also need to look at the expense in creating the forum and running it. When doing this one need to take note that the forum you have today might not be the forum you have tomorrow, the cost of the forum can increase as your forum gets more popular and grows. My first forum I stared in 2006 and is still running today Triumph Motorcycle Forum - TriumphTalk. This was started on one of these free forum software site (I don't even remember what it was now).

Once I got a better idea what forum ownership was about I purchase the domain name and really had to start from scratch on shared hosting. On a small new forum I would say shared hosting is the way to go as this is normally your biggest cost of the forum. At that time I was also still using free forum software Simple Machine, Today there are a few free forum software's that can be used that are really nice and well worth using by the new forum owner.

As my forum grew I moved it over to vBulletin and at that time was really the premium of forum software. It was really when they progressed to version 5 that things started falling apart for them and they had many of their customers moving over to xenForo as I also did.

At the onset of my forum I was lucky and had a good group of founding members and still have a few of them active today. When starting a forum if you able to get a small group of members active when you open your forum up it can help tremendously in getting your forum up and running. So with this my forum grew from strength to strength but this also brought along it's own problems. As your forum grows you will eventually need to look at moving away from shared hosting and then this is where it starts becoming pricey to host a forum. You then also have the other expenses to consider such as domain name, paid add ons, and possibly some custom work down in other avenues to further improve your forum for your members.

So now I am starting all over with my second forum GoPro Forum and I hope it will become something nice in the future.

So when you stumble on that small forum that is just starting out take the above into account before you just move along, even that huge very active forum had to start this way. If everyone just passed it by maybe it would not be around today.

So @ Gemma congratulation on this forum it is really neat and interesting and thank you for taken the trouble to do it for everyone

 

[Deleted member 63]

At the onset of my forum I was lucky and had a good group of founding members and still have a few of them active today. When starting a forum if you able to get a small group of members active when you open your forum up it can help tremendously in getting your forum up and running. So with this my forum grew from strength to strength but this also brought along it's own problems. As your forum grows you will eventually need to look at moving away from shared hosting and then this is where it starts becoming pricey to host a forum. You then also have the other expenses to consider such as domain name, paid add ons, and possibly some custom work down in other avenues to further improve your forum for your members.

This is very much my story, save that I don't "own" the forum even if I feel like I do. We regard it as a community owned forum with me as the "head geek". And we are very much not growing right now and I doubt we will ever need to move off of shared hosting at this point.

Short version: We met on an old forum run by a Canadian religious denomination who eventually decided it no longer met their goals and closed it down. We did not want to lose our community and did not like their offered alternative of an FB group so we spun up our own site using some donations from members (which is still how the place is funded today).

So @Gemma congratulation on this forum it is really neat and interesting and thank you for taken the trouble to do it for everyone

Indeed. I came here mainly to learn from another site run by another, more experienced, Xenforo admin but found a rather nice place to hang out. So seconding this sentiment.

 

[Deleted member 165]

I always say your forum is only as good as the members that you have active. Forums have changed over the years and these days with the Facebook generation a forum is really hard to get going. What I find forum people can also do Facebook and understand the concept but most Facebook people cannot get into a forum.

When I look at Facebook especially for an information source I find it really hard to actually follow any source of information posted. It is not like a forum where you have one thread and everything relevant to that topic is found in the one thread. Facebook you might find some information today but try and reference that again in about a week and that is just about impossible.

 

[Gemma]

I think the first forum software I helped out on doing moderator duties was PHPNuke away back in 2003 or 2004 then I started my own site using vBulletin 3 then upgraded to VB4 for a while before leaving the forum scene for a while.

In 2013/14 I returned to online activities and built a forum as a means to "escape" some personal grief and traumas. I've run 3 sites using xenForo, all general chatter sites and they have mainly been "playgrounds" for me to learn some basic stuff as well as giving people somewhere to chat or interact online away from social media sites. I've no real computer knowledge or qualifications so everything I do with layouts is through trial and error and studying the code via the browser inspector.

I've been quite lucky with my members and activity levels, most of them are real-life friends who are scattered all over Scotland (and have followed me on my forum journey) with occasional registration and participation from further afield ( ) and although I know a lot of the membership I don't think there is any element of a clique (other than maybe in my Fitness Social Group).

I see a lot of sites nowadays using forum promotion, post exchange or pay to post websites but I really don't see the point in that - I'm sure I've probably offended some people in the past by saying that I think it defeats the purpose of creating a forum to then just have the same people register that register on dozens of other forums and post the exact same content - I'd rather not have a forum than go down that route. I don't advertise my sites anywhere either other than a post on XF.com and one TAZ (though maybe I should).

Indeed. I came here mainly to learn from another site run by another, more experienced, Xenforo admin but found a rather nice place to hang out. So seconding this sentiment.

Thank you. Don't think I'd ever call myself more experienced when it comes to computers or site management.

 

[Deleted member 63]

Thank you. Don't think I'd ever call myself more experienced when it comes to computers or site management.

22 years in IT (really more, since I was also in charge of IT as a librarian) makes me very knowledgeable about a lot of computer stuff, but forum software and sites were pretty much new territory for me when I finally took the reins at WC2 (another founder did the original Xenforo installation and managed it for the first couple years). Listening to folks like you at XF Community is how I've learned.

 

[Deleted member 165]

When I started Triumph Motorcycle Forum - TriumphTalk back in 2006 I was lucky as I had a good few members join me from the start. Back then also not knowing much about forums I was learning as I went but having that core group from the start helped tremendously when it cam to a bit of fresh content and a few told others and it slowly grew. As I mentioned before I still have a few of those core members active today.

After a few years as I got into the concept of how a forum operates as far as marketing it and growing it further it became much easier to do. One day I just did a search on "Triumph Motorcycle Forums" on Google and to my surprise I noticed we appeared as the 3rd listing on the first page of Google and have stayed there ever since. So these days I don't mess with any SEO settings on that forum at all.

Between Triumph Motorcycle Forum - TriumphTalk I have had a number of other forums covering different areas and topics. Some have lasted longer than others over the years. Now I think as I have two copies of XF I use the second copy more to play around with the software and setup forums. If they don't work out I am not that disappointed as I just enjoy the task of setting them up in different ways. I would normally let a new forum run for around a year just playing around with it and if there is no real action I would consider closing it and starting a different one.

So now GoPro Forum is my new venture and I am enjoying the setting up process once again.

 

[Deleted member 26]

I generally agree with the "Forum Promotion / Post Exchange" comment - despite meeting a handful of people from those communities that I'd consider to be friends.. It may seem hypocritical given that I briefly helped with posting packages, but I haven't really returned to those forums beyond 'the job'.