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+--- Thread: [Guide]: Five ways to NOT have a successful forum. (/Thread-Guide-Five-ways-to-NOT-have-a-successful-forum)
[Guide]: Five ways to NOT have a successful forum. - rapscallionismgritt - 06-20-2013
# 1: Hiding all of your content from guests.
The logic behind this is if you hide all of the content of your forum, it will make the potential user want to join to see what you're hiding from them.
I do not recommend doing this, however you can hide some of your content from guests for protection again leeching, etc. Show enough of your forums content to a guest that will make them want to join, rather than hiding everything so that they can't even get an opinion.
# 2: Disregard how content can slow the forum down.
Diplay huge images, Shout Boxes, Widjets, YouTube Videos, Music Players, Pop-ups upon visiting new pages, ect.
If you do the above, your members, and yourself will notice a drastic difference in usability, and loading times.
I personally have very fast internet connection and it is easy for me to load even the worst cases of these forums, but you have to remember that not all users will have internet matching to yours.
# 3: Frequently change the theme, & settings of your forum.
If you do this, stop. A forum should have custom theme, that is unique to the owner. If you are adding new plugins / features, stop neither frequently changing your theme, or adding features / plugins with bring you the traffic you do not have, it will only cause problems and frustration among members who disagree with what it added.
SO, if you are going to change your theme, make sure that it is custom coded, or at least a paid theme that is not common, and appeals to your members likes. I would stick to lettings members(the majority) suggest which plugins, & features should be added. I do not mean every single suggestion, if there are several requests for a certain feature, it would be a good idea to add it.
# 4: Quantity over Quality
This should be self explanatory, but I see forums every day with pages upon pages of useless boards and low quality posts.
A new forum should have no more than fifteen - twenty boards in my opinion. I will be writing a guide similar to this subject later on today explaining my opinion.
If you are going to have a "Forum Games" section for the stupid counting threads, and trolling or whatever, disable posts being added to post count, or you will have nothing more then a boards of thousands of spam posts, and a shitty forum.
# 5: Begging for donations
If you own a NEW forum, do NOT ask for donations right away, you have little content and it would be pointless to ask your members for money when they are donating to something that is very new, and could potentially fail.
In my opinion, forums that do so come across as people just begging for money, give your fourm time to mature and grow, and eventually you will have members come to YOU to donate.
I hope you enjoyed reading this thread, I am considering extending the length of this thread to ten, instead of just five. I would appreciate it if you left some feedback.
RE: [Guide]: Five ways to NOT have a successful forum. - overindustrialize458326 - 07-23-2013
Very nice guide, I actually agree in all of them. Especially in quantity over quality. Some forums are just filled up with Forum games, and most of them are senseless.
RE: [Guide]: Five ways to NOT have a successful forum. - dyslogia737 - 07-23-2013
I agree with that Forum game one. It turns into a huge spam center.
RE: [Guide]: Five ways to NOT have a successful forum. - Probayoneting863 - 07-30-2013
Quote:(07-30-2013, 03:44 PM)Coalition Wrote:[To see links please register here]
Just because a page does not load instantly does not mean the user has internet. It depends on the hosting.
What do you mean? Also that's why I hate HF sometimes because it takes forever to load sometimes, at least it's just me I guess. :nerd:
RE: [Guide]: Five ways to NOT have a successful forum. - maloriemalory3 - 07-30-2013
Just because a page does not load instantly does not mean the user has internet. It depends on the hosting.