Could collaboration be the key to making forums busy and thriving again?

[Cedric]

If you’ve been around the admin community - on forums like Administrata, Another Admin Forum, Forum Promotion, and others - you’ve probably noticed something: it’s often the same familiar faces. We’re a group of dedicated community builders, each striving to grow and maintain our own spaces. Doesn't matter if it’s a general chat forum, gaming, entertainment, or even another admin-focused forum, the niche doesn’t matter - we’re all working toward the same goal: creating a welcoming and active community.

I've often had an amusing thought. Let's look at the bigger picture. Right now, many forums feel like tiny villages in a big, quiet world. A world that, let’s be honest, isn’t as bustling as it once was.

Now imagine this....... what if all those villages joined forces? What if we worked together to build a thriving city? Combining our efforts with other admins in the same niche to create something far more dynamic and engaging than we could alone. Think about the energy, the activity, and the opportunities that would come from a united community.

It’s food for thought: could collaboration be the key to making forums busy and thriving again?

 

[Arantor]

Cedric just levelled up.

 

[Cedric]

Cedric just levelled up.

No but seriously. Imagine only having one forum to be part of where everyone is present, instead of 5-10 different small forums where you always see the same people.

 

[Arantor]

But seriously. What you’re talking about is an idea that’s been floated a few times and makes a heckuva lot of sense for certain niches where the fragmentation hurts rather than helps.

And then we can start talking about sensibly getting our own take on federation sorted out and making the discovery gap smaller (which is a variation in the mix, that is closer but not as close as a union)

 

[Cedric]

It would surely drive more engagement. If there's less place to flood to as an audience, then the audience is closer together which results automatically in a bigger engagement since the audience grows.

It's simple, imagine if Administrata, Forum Promotion and Shawn's AAF merged. Instead of having three audiences where half is jumping from the one to the other, we'd be seeing way more engagement. In reality this isn't as simple as it sounds though. But yeah. It's an amusing thought.