Shawn Gossman

What does/did day one of launching your forum look like? You just launched your forum. What do you do on day one? Are you focusing on content creation or marketing? Maybe both? What does the first day of a forum launch look like for you?

I got away from forums for a few years due to my health. I never made teeth cleaning a habit as a kid. So, take that and add being a heavy coffee drinker to smoking 2 packs of cigarettes a day - needless to say, the inside of my mouth went to hell very quickly. I started getting extreme infections. It was hard to eat anything and nothing worked for the pain. I started drinking heavy just to deal with the pain. I also thought about ending it. :( However, I finally broke down and went to the DR. At first, we thought it was cancerous, and I took a few doses of chemotherapy in pill form. Then it was determined that I had some morphed version of the worst type of gum disease you can have. So, I had 16 teeth pulled in one day (while I was awake and feeling most of it) and got a top denture. It completely fixed everything. I quit forums during that because my life was breaking down. So, I was biking at the time and trying to get healthier. I ended up started hiking too and that changed everything. I don't drink anymore. I don't smoke anymore. I'm healthier than I've ever been. I even found my wife through hiking. Life is awesome now. But I still had a void in my life because I missed forums. Forums give me feelings of excitement and happiness. I just love the aspects of building a community. So, I came back and now I'm enjoying it again without giving myself anxiety of trying to be the biggest forum. I'm just taking it for what it is and going from there.

Welcome Jimmy. I too am really into the outdoors. I hike all the time, bike, camp, kayak, spelunk, you name it. Look forward to seeing you more on here!

I typically won't entertain the idea of letting them come back. You would have to do something really bad to get me to "fire" you from the team. If I do fire you, then don't expect me to trust you thereafter, There have only been a few people I've "let go" from moderator positions. All the ones I have on my forums now are great! :)

Yeah, it finally did after like 12-15 hours. 2008 and 2009 were bad years for Southern Illinois as well. We got thunderstorms during the ice storm the other night, it would have heavier freezing rain showers, too. Hearing thunder with ice falling is pretty sketchy LOL Glad there wasn't an ice tornado :P

We got the ice here in Southern Illinois. Maybe about a half-inch. No power for about 12 hours. Quite a few tree limbs down. I have a short trail in my woods. I'll have to get the chainsaw out to make the trail passable again.

Dark Chocolate :D

I been a member of FP for like 15 years or so. I feel like I remember when it was using phpBB... Am I right about that? Anyways, great place :)

Sure - here and there. I typically just respond to as much as I can when I can. I try not to get too excited these days over stuff like this. If folks truly love the community, they'll come back and you'll keep having these boosts :) But what's important is that you actively respond.

Wasn't there a Forumansion long time ago?

Welcome Cam :) Good to see you here!

I think AI can be used as a resourceful tool for community admins. But I think once you use it to create your content or members, then you kill what a community is altogether. I think if forums owners jump on a trend of really using AI for all the content and membership of their forums - that might be the one thing that kills forums for good. I have a Facebook group with nearly 50,000 members. It's super active and popular. FB and me had a secret Zoom meeting LOL about AI bots in groups. After it got officially released, I asked my audience if they wanted me to utilize it and even the social media crowd was against it. I think more people are against AI that what everyone thinks.

I jumped on board with DIVI lifetime, so I've not had to choose any sort of WP theme in ages.

I'm keeping my metric goals simple and easily achievable. Membership Goal: 100 members Most of the forums I have are over halfway to it. AAF is taking its time though :D As for a main goal - just build a community of friends. I really don't want to have a goal beyond that because that goal keeps forums fun.

I've had a few in the past and my host has always been straight up with me. I probably should jump on the Cloudflare boat. I have it on my outdoor blog.

Beautiful theme!

I usually pick up a paid theme. I use PixelExit for XenForo and Sultan Themes for vBulletin. Most of the time, you can customize premium themes easier and make them feel like your own. I considered getting a custom theme by PixelExit. It starts at $1,500 a theme, and that's not the amount I wish to pay. But I'm not knocking them. I'm sure it's worth that but I just don't want to invest that much into a forum when their regular premium themes are good enough. I'd love to learn how to make a theme myself. I need to do that.

Skywarn Forum (2010 to 2017) I started the forum in 2010. There was another bigger competitor (Skywarn Online) who sent me a message asking why I needed to reinvent the wheel. I kept going anyway. I got it to several thousand posts and members by 2016. The following year, I acquired Skywarn Online (for over $1,000) because the former owner wanted to quit forums but not see his creation get wasted. I merged it into mine, which resulted in a forum with over 7,000 members, over 100,000 topics, and nearly 200,000 posts. Good content, too! Back then, I didn't back up like I should have. A database error occurred, and I lost everything in the process. It never recovered. I've recently started another Storm Spotter Forum. It's not as big, haha. Here's a screenshot of the forum before I lost it all. Thanks to Wayback. [ATTACH type=full" width="802px" size="1165x847]1131[/ATTACH]

I like this response. If the complaints are legit, they might be the best thing for your community. If they're just negative Nancy about everything, it's best to cut them out because they're going to eventually turn the community into a toxic cesspool. I have even implemented rules against being constantly negative. Some people are miserable and that's just who they are.

Homeboy by Eric Church.

Another Admin Forum https://anotheradminforum.com/ Just another forum admin forum. :P

I've been using VPS for years. I actually went to a dedicated server and had a lot of issues, I went back to a VPS, and that really was my best option to begin with. I'd love to do a home server just for the experience. Maybe I'll try it one day. I need to find a good smaller learner one. Any suggestions? I haven't used shared in quite some time. I remember back when I used WebTV to host my first website which was about WebTV tricks and secrets. Then, I used Tripod, Lycos, and Angelfire for a long time. Eventually, I bought an account on Freepgs.com, which is no longer functional. It was low cost but gave you ad-free space and MySQL features.

Dreamhost has its own custom control panel. They recently upgraded it, and it took some getting used to. I didn't like the new one at first, but it has grown on me. It's really easy to find everything.

I remember when you used Linode. I've always used Dreamhost myself. More than 15 years. They get a lot of flack but have always treated me right. They're also quick to give me support and they even explain to me what happened if I get downtime.

House shoes. My first pair. My wife doesn't like my cold feet to accidentally touch her in bed. Is it really an accident? Nope LOL