Making a Forum

[ordersomething]

Has anyone here had success in making a forum?
I want to make one about poetry, specifically about hexameter.

[Yusio]

I have once before, but i eventually got very very very bored of it. Starting one is hard because unless you magically get 1,000 members, activity on the forum is limited and threads often either won't get replies or threads will only get posts like once every 2-3 days, unless you have really active members that are online 24/7.

[fab]

There is a lot of work, with generally low income (ROI), but depends on the nature of the forum. Starting a forum, generally needs paid posters to start off with, and eventually an active group. I had one active forum, but got exhausted from it. If you have a few interested people to start off with, who will post, and act as mods, that will definitely help. Try researching how many people http://google.com/insights/search/#c...e=&clp=&cmpt=q are searching your topic.

[draggar]

Building one up is hard and if there are already successful communities out there for your subject, it will be even harder. If you're dedicated enough, then it could work. When all is said and done, don't be shocked when you spend months talking to yourself.

Submit it to social bookmarking sites (Digg etc..), blog about it, even find related blogs and comment on the blog but plug your forum somewhere. (Don't just say "Check out my forum at....", that'll get you spam flagged quickly).

[fab]

(Don't just say "Check out my forum at....", that'll get you spam flagged quickly).

Yes, I get this all the times, it drives me crazy. If you comment on a blog, first make sure it's relevant to your topic (should be obvious). Second make a meaningful, content rich comment,as Draggar said, then add your link.

[draggar]

I get that too, Fab. I see on one of my "sites" (blog) there has been a lot of chatter about a local radio sports caster getting canned and the masses are upset about it. That post is getting 3-5 comments a week. If someone posts something meaningful and plugs their site, I don't mind but if they just say "Check out what I had to say here:" or something like that, I hit the spam button.

Also, don't worry about ads and fancy skins / templates. Get the forum up first and get it going. Talk to yourself, (you will have to do this for a long time for traffic to be built up, but Google likes frequent updates). On my site mentioned above I have 62 posts - at least 57 are me.

[fab]

One of the most important things is, which is the same with blogs, is that you really need a passion for it. Like I had a forum on my site, which had regular activity, but I couldn't keep writing about teen-agers MMORPG stuff.

If you love the topic, and like Draggar said are willing to write constantly, then eventually you will get some other similar people.

It's worth trying to get a couple of friends acquaintances who love to write about the topic as well.

I tried a few times here, but couldn't find enough other people.

I'm not motivated enough to keep writing to myself.

[Carter]

I run a vBulletin forum in past in Italy (domain forum) and it's hard run a community.
The two big problems are:
1- Populate the forum (open new threads and have a reply soon so in Google can work well).
2- Let the rats out of the forum (scammers, spammers, ignorant peoples).

If you want run a successful forum are you ready to sleep 2/3 hours a day the months after you start?

Just an advice: find some serious partners (mods) alone is too hard.

[ordersomething]

Thanks for the advice.

[Carter]

And remember the most important thing is the originality.
There are millions of forums out there...if you start a new community give to peoples more than the other forums or it's better don't start and focus on some different business.

Good luck with your new project!

[500,000]

Oh. I going to start a forum

[jrbeilke]

Just started my own forum recently and I can tell you it's a real pain to get going. Like everyone else has already said, be prepared for long hours developing the site if you really want it to take off. You're going to spend a lot of time talking to yourself (multiple accounts can disguise that you are talking to yourself), and also a lot of time is going to be needed promoting the site and building quality backlinks. And most importantly, Good Luck!