How do you cure bookworms?

Adam Howard

Well-known member
So how do you cure your forum from bookworms. I define bookworms as members who log-in and read, read, and read some more (maybe click the like button once in a while). They hardly post replies and offer little or no new topics. Yet the log-in 2 - 3x a day, every day & spend 1 hour or more reading your forum.

So how do you get bookworms to interact with the community more?
 
Why not send them a friendly PM asking them why they don't engage? Not every 'bookworm' is going to have the same solution.
 
As the above said... some are who they are and they won't change.

BUT when they do post, I make sure to Like/Quote their post as much as possible to encourage engagement in the forums.
 
Lurkers is what my forum calls them.

That's what I would called them too, bookworms is too nice a word really.

I do understand and sympathise with what the thread starter means here. Sure you can't force any lurkers to post, but it does get a little tedious after a while when you keep seeing them coming back all the time but never posting. After all, your running a forum to get posters, not bookworm people when all said and done.
 
You can prune their accounts, If they want to just read they can do that as guests. Pending on the permission you've set obviously. (y)

Ps. if they don't want to interact with the community, I don't want them too either.
 
At the end of the day we are each in our own world and to assume we understand another's day-to-day is crazy. For that reason you really can't expect any individual to do more than they already are. To do this and be proper about it you would have to get to know one first or it would be quite presumptions to assume that they are not doing everything they can already. Besides it's better to have regular visitors reading, than making new threads just for the reason of making new threads.
 
Besides it's better to have regular visitors reading, than making new threads just for the reason of making new threads.

But that isn't what running a community is all about though. If you want readers run an HTML Website that doesn't allow replies, but community software is all about people posting and taking part in discussion. That's why people choose to run one rather than a Blog or a Website.

If everybody that visited your forum never posted and just read instead in that case, what would be the point of running a forum board?
 
But that isn't what running a community is all about though. If you want readers run an HTML Website that doesn't allow replies, but community software is all about people posting and taking part in discussion. That's why people choose to run one rather than a Blog or a Website.
Getting together with the guys is the purpose of hanging out, doesn't mean the quiet guy can't sit and listen while everyone else is doing their thing. Forcing someone to post is totalitarian and the conversation that comes out of threads made without considerations usually ends up down a bad path. Some people just don't have a lot to say...I am obviously not one of them but there is many out there that just do things their way and you have to deal with it or get rid of em. Simple as that...it just depends on what your motives are as well as theirs.
 
I don't mean that every single person should join and post, you do get some that have never used a forum before and are nervous about doing so. I just mean generally speaking lurkers that read and never post are not such a good thing for community because they're never contributing towards it to help things grow.
 
I don't mean that every single person should join and post, you do get some that have never used a forum before and are nervous about doing so. I just mean generally speaking lurkers that read and never post are not such a good thing for community because they're never contributing towards it to help things grow.

You can't make someone do something they don't want to do, and if you do it is not genuine and then you are building your community upon false pretenses which in my opinion is growth yes...but then again you can describe cancer in terms of growth. You have to let them ride...you focusing your attention on them is not doing anything for your community...they may tell a friend one day about your site and that person may just be a talkative mofo. Forcing someone to do anything is bad karma in the pot. Tell them what they can't do and let your community decide the rest.
 
I don't mean that every single person should join and post, you do get some that have never used a forum before and are nervous about doing so. I just mean generally speaking lurkers that read and never post are not such a good thing for community because they're never contributing towards it to help things grow.

Posting content on your forum is for people to read correct?

If no one is joining, posting or creating new threads then there are more problems then some lurkers floating around. I feel I am a lurker somewhat as I do read forums more than post but if something interest me then I speak my mind.
 
On some gaming sites I visit, they implement this "reply to see this message" thing. So the user has to reply something in order to read or download. I don't know if such mod exists for Xenforo.

Replies generated this way are almost like spam, at least they say "thanks" most of the time.
 
On some gaming sites I visit, they implement this "reply to see this message" thing. So the user has to reply something in order to read or download. I don't know if such mod exists for Xenforo.

Replies generated this way are almost like spam, at least they say "thanks" most of the time.

Mark.B uses something similar to that, he only shows the first posts to guests and displays how many replies are made that you have to register to see and read the rest.
 
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