Getting a forum up and running

In the "Bye Bye Forum" thread, someone asked how to get a forum going. The person has had an SL forum for a long time but it doesn't get used. Also, there's a Forum Cartel forum that doesn't get used either, which surprises me. Since this forum is very likely to close soon, and because it isn't easy getting a new forum off the ground, I thought I'd post some of my thoughts about starting a new forum. These are just my views.

Don't start a forum just because you want to be in charge. It's common in human nature, but it's the wrong reason.

Only start a forum if you see an actual need for it, or it's never likely to get off the ground. There may be a need for a forum to take the place of this one that the existing alternatives aren't doing, or the existing alternatives may be doing the job just fine and there is no need for a new one.

This is the important part:
Once the forum is set up, it needs to be seen to be active, so it needs people posting. Initially, it will need friends and the owner(s) to post just for the sake of it, so that the forum doesn't appear to be dead, and it needs them to be posting pretty much all the time - not 24/7 but multiple posts each day from each person. In other words, force the 'activity' and make it appear to be an active forum. That hasn't been done in the two forums I mentioned, and they are both effectivley dead at the moment. Even the owner of one of them didn't respond to the 1 post that I left there over a month ago.

To get new people in, plug it - plug it everywhere you can. If you have land or a store or a club, put a sign up. Put it in your sig line of every forum you use, if that's allowed. Plug it everywhere, and get your friends to do the same.

Don't assume that people in general don't want your forum just because they don't come. Plenty of people will use it if they know that it's there and they can see that it's active. But putting a forum up and posting about it a few times isn't likely to get it going. Unless people are crying out for the forum, the activity needs to be conciously forced at the start, just to encourage other people to use it.

ETA:
I forgot to mention that the intitial forcing of activity needs a fair number of people or all the threads can have the same one or two people showing as the last poster, which isn't particularly good. So it needs a fair number of people and sensible posting to avoid that happening as much as possible.

Great advice Phil. Could you post a link to the Forum Cartel forum?

My pleasure

http://www.forumcartel.com/phpBB3/index.php

there is also 2LF.informe.com which has a group pf mods from the cartel group. no one person is in charge, and member input and advice is desired, to start.

it's not being used (yet) because we are all still here.

i, personally, won't frequent SLU because they are such a hostile bunch. SCII is ok, but doesn't have the feel of THIS forum. i haven't been to the cartel site, at least i dont think so, but maybe i'll go peek.

i was hoping 2LF would take on the persona of THIS forum. with an RA and general conversation, both. only time will tell, however, but it's certainly worth striving for. we already have a neverending thread started.

anything's better than that lame blog. you can't even post pics there.

Forum Cartel website...

I am trying to register but being told i have no Sign Up code, but "slacks communicator 0.4c" already delivered the code and the website is not accepting it.

How do i register, who do i contact?

you're the second person to have said something along those lines in the last couple of days.. I don't know where this started but if you want to see hostile and pond dwellers in action go check the xsl board for the last few months of its existence. *That* was hostile and downright poisonous in parts.

The code delivery seems to be broken. It didn't deliver one to me. Slack sorted it out for me when I posted the failure in another thread. He (or she) is the one to contact.

I like both 2LF and SCII. I think 2LF has more potential of having the same feel as these forums. SCII seems already well established with its own community and it can get raunchy at times (though not as raunchy as SLU), so I feel a bit of an outsider. But I could fit in if this one closes.

I think I have been to the Cartel forum but it was inactive at the time.

I'll stay here as long as the climate is friendly and it's open. I only have time for one SL forum - I do have other interests too. (I know it's shocking.)

I do appreciate the ideas for getting new forums off the ground. I thought of starting one myself, but realized I don't have energy.

I haven't looked at all the alternatives, but I've seen enough at SLU to know that I dislike it, and I've heard enough about SC2 to know that I'll dislike that one even more.

Briana, the code/username pair is case sensitive. I'll reset it so that you can sign up as Briana Dawson (it's linked to briana dawson at the moment).

What keeps *this* forum from being hostile, other than the fear of being banned, is its size. Nobody here has so many friends that they can't be criticized. No matter how old you are or what your post count is or how good your script-fu or how many widgets you sell or how helpful you are in the basketweaving forum, there are plenty of people who just don't care. Your friends can't bully every single person who might disagree with you. Any new (i.e. small) forum will have to contend with personality issues more than the official (i.e. large) forum does.

As I thought it would, SLU has become less clique-ish as it has grown. At least the topical forums have. Most of the activity there seems to be in the off-topic forums, which I generally don't read. One thing SLU is very good for is critical discussion of SL. Lots of pointless bashing, but also some thoughtful discussion by people who know what the hell they're talking about. There are lots of experienced SLers and content creators there, and precious little of the creepy defense of everything that's wrong in SL. There, for example, if you defend search the way it is you rightfully won't be taken seriously.

What's going to be permanently lost by this forum going away is the critical mass that makes the content creation forums so useful.

Oh i didnt know that i was there as lower case!

Thank you

I'm coming to TROLL!

Hmmm....broken, unintuitive and complicated forums are not better than the broken, unintuitive and complicated blogorums. You go there once, it doesn't work, and you never come back.

That's definitely a problem when trying to get a forum up and running. It seems that Briana's problem was very different to mine, and it's been, or being, fixed so that other people don't encounter it. My problem seems to have been a one-off glitch. Your point is spot on though.

At the risk of being a kill-joy, don't bother starting a forum unless you have enormous amounts of time on your hands and the emotional maturity to handle moderation.

If the last time these forums were closed (General Discussion) is any indication, at least half a dozen alternative forums will spring up in the next couple of weeks. Just about all of them will fail. You don't just start a forum and it floods to life. Forums are little communities and those communities take time and they take careful nurturing in their infancy. It is also inevitable that the person starting the forum will rub a few people the wrong way, unless you are prepared to take some heat - don't get into the kitchen. It is extremely difficult for the moderator of a forum to be an active social participant because the minute you put your moderator hat on, you become an ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE. It's just the way it is.

There will always be a set of people who don't like whatever moderation decisions you make. If you moderate too quickly, you are a moderator nazi stifling free speech. If you don't moderate quickly enough, you have no balls and don't take care of your people. There is no winning. You don't get to be friends with your forum community, you are there to govern it. Government means being impartial when it comes to following the rules. The rules are the rules, and your best buddies and pals will push them from time to time. A moderator who allows this to happen is a moderator with a forum that will soon be just an insiders clique.

The corollary to "the quickest way to lose friends is to go into business with them" is "the quickest way to lose all your friends is to moderate a forum for them."

Think long and hard before you undertake this task.

Excellent post, Isablan.

However, if you are the type who can sit alone in an ivory tower, and shed your wisdon and guidance to all around you, ruling your Queendom with an absolute yet benevolent hand, it could be fun. Hmmmmm...

yes Isablan. this is so true. i, personally, have actively operated 8 forums in my day, 3 of them simultaneously. i do still moderate 2, but one of those has become nearly inactive (yay. and i say that because the premise it was based on faded away for everyone long ago, and there is no real draw for new members anymore, so it's been slowly rescinding to nothing, and the core group that bonded there has stayed together elsewhere unrelated to the original intent - that i am not a mod) and the other i am a co-moderator. because of the "team effort", we mods are still able to actively socialize, yet maintain a very balanced forum.

in 2LF WE have created a moderating team hoping that will alleviate some of the situations you just described, in effort to duplicate the same atmosphere i have with the forum i mod now. that's the plan.

for those interested in running a forum, it may seem off topic but there is a lot of business sense in it for any venue - read Desmond Shang's "how to be a land baron" initial OP. you'll have to stretch your brain away from barony and into modding, but there is a lot of common ground that he laid out very nicely.

you rang?

How to be a Land Bar0n version 2, teh simplified!

1. get a land
2. ...
3. Profit!!!

Its a full time job thats for sure and very wise words indeed

it's that pesky yet enigmatic #2 that keeps people from obtaining #3