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Do you own a forum?


Guest Jupiter

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Guest Jupiter

Do you?

 

I used to. Not any more.

 

Forums take a lot of time, promoting and advertising. Which is why I don't and I'm not an expert in forum software or getting indexed on search engines.

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Oh dear me no, I don't think I am cut out for it. I am a very active member on another forum and just that can end up eating a ton of my time, I can't imagine how much time it would take if I ran the thing too.

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Nope, I've never owned a forum. I really couldn't imagine owning a forum, and trying to be active on this one, it just wouldn't work. >_< (Maybe if I stopped watching 15+ shows per season I could probably find time, but why would I do that? :P)

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I do. Since 2009, I've been a lead administrator on a site. The site has gone through a lot of changes and even died a few times. The previous owner got busy with college and such, so I ended up owning it and rebooting it with a few friends/old members in early 2014.

 

It definitely takes a lot of time to organize things, but it can be a lot of fun if the community is made up of cool people. Being good friends with your staff is super important too since you want to avoid drama. I think of them as family.

 

I'm picky about forum software and still unsettled with my current choice—Vanilla Forums. I really dislike my site's current theme, but I've been too busy with work to be able to rewrite the whole thing. On that note, my favorite forum theme insofar has been this forum's. We're looking to start from scratch—including the forum software—when we're all free. More time consuming than hard.

 

So yeah, forums require a lot of time.

 

Here's a question for those of you that don't own one: If you had to make one, what would be its focus?

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Here's a question for those of you that don't own one: If you had to make one, what would be its focus?

Hm... that's a really good question. I would have to say a Touhou/Anime forum, putting the looks of the site above the actual content. :P Most Touhou forums nowadays have been around for a while and use dated software, as well as have communities that are hard to get plugged into.

 

I would probably end up writing the whole thing from scratch, and adding things like full AniList/MAL integration. I would probably add a few other things as well, but I'm too tired to think of anything else at the moment.

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Here's a question for those of you that don't own one: If you had to make one, what would be its focus?

 

A great question, to which I shall give a horrible response. It would be a forum dedicated to female anime characters with animal features, and/or guns.

 

At least I'm honest~

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Guest Jupiter

Here's a question for those of you that don't own one: If you had to make one, what would be its focus?

 

I too am an administrator on a promotion and feedback forum. I have a lot of experience being a staff member as I have been on several forums. I may be good at that. But one area I am very lacking is promoting and advertising. Which is key to a forum's success of getting members and activity.

 

I owned my very own anime forum 6 months ago.

 

If I had to make a new forum it would probably just be a discussion board or a forum based on forum promoting.

 

To be very honest, I've found that there are too many anime forums to compete with and you have to know quite a bit about what people want. I have found that forums based on discussion and debate with a variety and not just anime have done most forums owners very well.

 

As much as I like anime, it is not a choice I would choose again for a forum community. Most of today's anime forum's fail horribly. It also is not a choice I recommend for people starting out. A lot of people that come on to the forum I administrate at have multiple forums.

 

Why do these people have multiple forums? Because often one fails while the other may succeed. Often both fail.

 

If you can make one and make it look presentable and have a wide variety of topics and have some people posting to make your board look active. Than your board may stand a chance. It some times takes some boards up to 5 years before the board starts supporting itself with active members. A lot of the time members are on and off.

 

A lot of times the Owner.....has to do post exchanges with other forum owners to get content, whether or not the members of their own forum would know that....is up to whether the owner chooses to tell them. Even at times staff members under the owner are not aware that a member who just joined is actually a forum owner doing post exchange (with the owner of their forum) to up activity and will often believe they are a very active member for a few days.

 

It takes more to run a forum, especially if you have people on as staff.

 

But I did all that. I don't want to own a forum. I know how it is. You have to devote a lot of time. I'm only willing to be a staff member and help out around a forum rather than own my very own. Its different when you own your own forum.

 

I don't own one mainly for the sole reason is that I don't want to deal with it. I'd be dealing out time I don't have.

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Yes. And you're all in it it. ;)

 

@Jupiter and @Cake is spot on that it takes a lot of time:

  • Forum upkeep: keeping the forum software and its associated add-ons up to date.
  • Server upkeep: database backups, domain and security management.
  • SPAM checks: we've come a long way with anti-SPAM but still need to dedicate time to remove any that get through.
  • Advertising: word of mouth, old fashioned pin-up boards and online advertisement banners.
  • Content: discussion topics, posts, etc.

This forum is funded from the funds I get from my full-time work, so I've dedicated decent resources towards it to ensure it is ad-free and runs smoothly and also allows me to source premium add-ons to extend the functionality of the forums over time.

 

But the drawback of full-time work is there are times where some days you just are unable to attend your own forum due to your mood. i.e. a bad day.

 

I've been playing with forums since I was young (2003). I've used various forum systems and hosts from ProBoards, IPB (Invision Power Board), SMF, MyBB, IPB3, and now XenForo. Interestingly I've never touched vBulletin from an admin point of view, I couldn't afford it at the time. xD

 

I find forums fun, so I will continue to use them and run them. But I would not recommend forums for businesses due to the current popularity of social media. I've found that I've had to explain how to use a forum to many people I met on FaceBook which took me back a bit, but it made sense as a lot of people these days probably haven't been exposed to forums as much.

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Yeah, I used to as well. Used to have these little forums running on free hosts that I didn't have to pay for (I think one of them was a Spider-Man forum). They didn't really work out, despite gaining what used to be a small community. Paying for hosts can take quite a sum out of my pocket, and my bank account's always empty, so that's no help to me.

 

It can be pretty fun though, being an admin of your own forum, making your friends moderators, and posting the content that you like.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Too young to own one and too evil to even make one. :P

Nah I don't own one and why would I even make one? Joining lots of forums is already hard work how much more owning one? It's too much of use of energy and I'm really no cut out for those busy stuffs owner undergone with in owning a forums.

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  • 5 months later...

 

I find forums fun, so I will continue to use them and run them. But I would not recommend forums for businesses due to the current popularity of social media. I've found that I've had to explain how to use a forum to many people I met on FaceBook which took me back a bit, but it made sense as a lot of people these days probably haven't been exposed to forums as much.

 

 

I agree.

 

Many website owners suffer the facebook threats.

Many anime boards even put up hentai sections to compete facebook.

Many facebookers become brainwashed and unable to understand internet anymore.

 

 

The facebook also kick its users out when they least expected

then call (threaten) for users' classified documents such as ID card or bank account or the fb will take the users' contents as their contents.

 

 

About a forum however, I think it's a good choice to gain programming skills by modifying something inside the code.

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Don't have one. Felt like owning one but then again, I'm too lazy for that. :P

Here's a question for those of you that don't own one: If you had to make one, what would be its focus?

Obviously anime! :D

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I used to...but they were bad ideas...my life was a mess at the time, during a horrid year (2014 was not a good year for me), and being jobless.

 

I wish I never created them. I'm not sure they still even exist. They never got any members anyways, and they were closed offlast I checked.

 

If I owned a forum now? I don't know, to tell the truth, though I'd kind of want it to be inspred by another forum, with an intricate fanon that takes any games involved for a ride and does anything and everything to explain inconsistencies. But at this point, I don't think I'm cut out for it.

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I only had my own forum once in the late 90's and early 2000's that has been long gone. I was really young at the time and it was a cool experience. I ended up only getting 200 members before I closed it but I had 20 active members. It was an anime and gaming forum. I remember the skin I made was horrible. :D

 

It takes a lot of work and dedication to own one so I wouldn't do it now. I defiantly wanna thank optic for these wonderful forums. (y)

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  • 2 months later...

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