Foundation The Things that can Automatically Kill a Forum: How to prevent them from happening

[Bryn]

Yet it has made many forums redundant.

Exactly that. Same with shoutboxes as said earlier.

Meanwhile, a wee chat thread wouldn't do any harm, would it?

 

[Cedric]

Exactly that. Same with shoutboxes as said earlier.

Meanwhile, a wee chat thread wouldn't do any harm, would it?

@Al begs to differ, but a chat thread wouldn't do harm. It's great for some community bonding and keeps off topic posts in one place.

 

[Cory]

Point number 4: Never add a Discord server.

If it weren't for using my Discord server for live notifications of new resources, I'd sack it in a heartbeat.

 

[frm]

Before Discord, we had chatboxes or shoutboxes, which were often debated for their impact on forum activity. For years, it’s been recognized that these features can draw attention away from the core forum, causing a drop in engagement.

At least with a chatbox, you can have a "bot" post the last 20 messages in a thread and keep it going as long as chat keeps going. This will give you some visibility on search engines for what is being discussed in the chatbox, to then discuss it outside of the chatbox in the forum.

Expand further on that, have the bot pick up on keywords/tags and link to forum content (either a search of that phrase or a link to the tag used). This will give an easier gateway to discussions on the topic being discussed in chat.

 

[Wise Owl]

The thing is, Discord isn't forum software though...

I know it is not. But they already made a forum feature as part of it on servers.

 

[Arantor]

They call it a forum, but it really isn't, it's just a way to collect a bunch of clumps of chat together. In the strictest Darwinian sense I guess you could 'call' it a forum but it never feels like one.

 

[Shawn Gossman]

They call it a forum, but it really isn't, it's just a way to collect a bunch of clumps of chat together. In the strictest Darwinian sense I guess you could 'call' it a forum but it never feels like one.

That's what I've always felt it was, just a "modern" version of an IRC channel.

 

[Nomad]

The most important thing needed for the survival of your forum is organic activities. Organic activities means you have users who posts on your forums because they want to not because they are being compensated in some ways. If you cannot build organic activities, it is no way your forum can survive. Even if it survives, your forum lacks activities and it will be ghost town. When Meta created Threads, did it beg people to join the site? No! People started joining winningly. But sadly, on forums, it is quite difficult to build organic activities.

 

[Cpvr]

The most important thing needed for the survival of your forum is organic activities. Organic activities means you have users who posts on your forums because they want to not because they are being compensated in some ways. If you cannot build organic activities, it is no way your forum can survive. Even if it survives, your forum lacks activities and it will be ghost town. When Meta created Threads, did it beg people to join the site? No! People started joining winningly. But sadly, on forums, it is quite difficult to build organic activities.

They also received significant media attention, which forums rarely get unless the owner proactively launches a press release or marketing campaign.


If Threads weren’t owned by Meta, it’s unlikely it would have gained so much publicity so quickly.



For forums, the key to sustained daily activity is providing valuable resources and fostering organic content that genuinely engages users.



This could include post exchanges or encouraging friends and family to post. Every possible tactic should be utilized, especially in the early stages, to build momentum. The more active your forum appears, the easier it will be to attract new members.

 

[Nomad]

They also received significant media attention, which forums rarely get unless the owner proactively launches a press release or marketing campaign.

I don't know if you remember a site called Bubblews. The owner was invited on Bloomberg. It was just a paid to post site where users could earn from the views and engagements on their 400 character posts. You get media attention if you are offering something interesting. Sadly, most forum lacks "interesting" element.