Engagement Do you read all the posts on your community?

[Cedric]

Do you read all the posts made in your forums? I try my best to do so. For the first 4 months, I didn’t miss a single post. However, as the forums grow more active, keeping up with every post becomes challenging. That said, I’d estimate I’ve read about 90% of the posts on Administrata—just not all of them.

When I’m away and return to find I’ve missed a batch of posts, I still make an effort to catch up. If it’s been more than 24 hours, I’ll often go through each section individually to read what I missed. I believe it’s important to read as many posts as possible because there might be discussions that directly concern your forum or even yourself. Plus, there’s always the chance of rule-breaking posts that need to be addressed.

So, do you read all of your forum’s posts? How important is it to do so? Is it worth spending two hours catching up on missed posts, or should that time be invested in developing the forum instead?

 

[Shawn Gossman]

I try to. Sometimes, it takes me a little bit. I'm a lot busier these days than I was long ago.

 

[Bawse]

I read most the posts, not all. I mostly focus on the ones in my main sections.

 

[Ravenfreak]

I do try to read every post on my communities, I'm also subscribed to almost every topic I've replied to so I get notifications whenever someone replies to one of those threads.

 

[Cpvr]

I generally read all the posts on my community as I have most of them set to watch, so I receive notifications when there’s a new response.

 

[Sara]

Yes i do and so do the rest of the staff. We prioritize engaging with our friends/members on ours.

 

[Bryn]

I only read the niche-related posts, so no.

 

[InMyOpinion]

My current forum is yet to be open to the public but in the past on my previous forum I wouldI try to read as much as I can, but once a forum started growing, keeping up with every post became almost impossible. In the beginning, I was super diligent about reading everything, but over time, I had to prioritize. Then, would focus on key areas—staff discussions, member concerns, and any high-engagement threads—while skimming the rest when I had time.

I do think it’s important to stay on top of things, especially to catch rule-breaking posts or to understand what the community is talking about. But at some point, spending hours reading every single post might not be the best use of time. If I fall behind, I’ll check the most active discussions first rather than trying to catch up on everything.

That said, I admire anyone who manages to keep up with 90% of their forum’s posts—that’s some serious dedication especially when you have a very active forum.