I want to start a new community forum

[JoyFreak]

I'm looking to start a new community forum but wanted people's opinions. I want to start my own admin forum because I have interest in SEO, pagespeeds, guest posting and all that kinds of stuff and I think I can share my knowledge in that area. Just wondered if there's room for a new one as I know there are a lot out there. If I were to start a new community, what would be a good niche to go into if I want it to build momentum? Just looking for opinions and ideas at the moment.

 

[Old Nick]

Your project as you describe it, ie sharing your knowledge on specific subjects such as SEO, forum administration, etc ... would seem more like a specialized blog rather than a discussion forum.
You obviously know the difficulty of creating new communities and particularly on this subject which is widely covered. But I guess it's running a forum that you like and therefore a blog will not satisfy you so good luck if you were to embark on this new adventure.

 

[cdub]

I'm looking to start a new community forum but wanted people's opinions. I want to start my own admin forum because I have interest in SEO, pagespeeds, guest posting and all that kinds of stuff and I think I can share my knowledge in that area. Just wondered if there's room for a new one as I know there are a lot out there. If I were to start a new community, what would be a good niche to go into if I want it to build momentum? Just looking for opinions and ideas at the moment.

Might be a market for something new since taz was bought out. Maybe? Maybe not. Seems like a competitive space.... But it could work if you put work into it.

 

[Pepelepew]

Why not join an existing forum and share your knowledge or just share your knowledge right here

 

[JoyFreak]

Thank you so much for all your positive feedback guys. It’s really great to hear some of your thoughts and ideas. I’m currently mid way through my MSc in Forensic Medicine but I’m hoping to slowly start this project in early spring this year. I have some ideas on the design and quite excited to show it off. I will be populating it with some of my own resources before fully making the site public. I also have an idea on the domain name. I will probably contact some of those who have expressed interest to test it out and give any feedback on it to improve it before making it fully public.

Definitely wouldn’t be selling it to anyone down the line because I’ve always had a passion to run a successful forum. I enjoy what I do and I’m not looking to cut that short. I also have no interest in earning anything from it.

Keep the ideas coming in guys.

 

[alternadiv]

I know you now have your idea planned but I'm going to copy/paste my response from the TAZ thread just to have it on this forum too. And like I said on TAZ, I'd be interested in seeing it before it goes public to provide feedback.

You're asking about an admin forum specifically, right? Like another TAZ or a general web dev forum?

Either way, something that could make it different... create a less professional environment for a change.

You've obviously seen the recent activity on TAZ that is basically talking about TAZ itself, forums in general, and other meta topics. I remember reading a post that said it best: Most of us having been doing this for years and/or are burnt out on "how do you moderate your members" type threads. Ironically, I think the example they used was "what should my next forum be about" threads like this one, lol.

So yeah, most of us are still here to talk about industry news/drama, to ask for casual advice from one experienced admin to another, and to just shoot the **** with people (usernames) that we've known for years.

That being said, I think it would be interesting if it was an admin/web dev forum for us to let loose a little bit. It could be as simple as having literally only two sections: on-topic and off-topic.

It could have a satirical vibe to it. Valuable on-topic discussion mixed with loose moderation and friendly banter (and XF vs. IPS memes?).

An old webmaster forum called WickedFire used to be just like this and I always found it to be an interesting option for people like us. It's still online running the legendary vB3: https://www.wickedfire.com

I was recently messing with a test board based on this idea (only for fun though). I think I have a list of possible names, one being Tired Admin Zone, lol.

Edit: Here's the thread where I was talking about this: https://xenforo.com/community/threa...l-witty-names-for-a-blog-about-forums.200281/

By the way, @JoyFreak - I don't know if you were around back in the days of this, but do you remember AdminAddict? It was a forum I made as an alternative to TAZ. At the time, former TAZ owner "The Sandman" was very generous with his ban hammer so a lot of forum owner regulars wanted an alternative.

 

[Ingenious]

I think there's some scope for an admin-related forum, I'm unsure why there aren't more. I was a former long term user of TAZ but asked for my account to be deleted because I got fed up with a user hawking their own agenda on almost every thread. Also I'm a forum admin with 20+ years experience and found TAZ turned into a place where spending hours giving advice was a thankless task but post some funny one-liner and you'd get loads of likes, it was almost as if experience and knowledge became frowned upon.

I'm sure there are a lot of old-timers and vastly experienced people like me out there willing to post in an admin community where it is valued.

 

[RandallC]

@sixlxvi been along time since I seen that forum going. Wow the memories of the old admin/webmaster forums.

I say do it. Taz was sold and will change to fora or die one or the other.

AdminCommunity has since seen the days of activity.

Digital point is busy but not geared toward forum admins. Mainly webmasters and search engines.

Hundreds of other admin/webmaster forums are dead.

I know the guy just started adminforum.org back up but unless he starts getting members it will be hard to gain any interest.

It’s been 2 weeks I guess since I was able to get to forumPromotion.

 

[Cam!]

Seeing what you've done with JoyFreak, I think you could make an awesome admin forum. I'd be a fan.

 

[UGTeam]

@sixlxvi been along time since I seen that forum going. Wow the memories of the old admin/webmaster forums.

I say do it. Taz was sold and will change to fora or die one or the other.

AdminCommunity has since seen the days of activity.

Digital point is busy but not geared toward forum admins. Mainly webmasters and search engines.

Hundreds of other admin/webmaster forums are dead.

I know the guy just started adminforum.org back up but unless he starts getting members it will be hard to gain any interest.

It’s been 2 weeks I guess since I was able to get to forumPromotion.

Hi Deathstarr.
I was a webmaster on the biggest forum of all time and that was wjunction, and i have had a lot of people asking why did Katz WJunction change to blogs and took away the best ever theme design for admins forum but i still got the vb theme live for now here at spiderswc.com that forum ran on vB 3.8.6 for many years and then the owner sold to someone who completely killed the site, so i have re designed the site from vB to Xenforo 2 and kept that admin feel and the integrity of the site, i loved being on that site for years but vBulletin is dying so i placed the theme on XenForo but with somethings i couldn't do the same layouts, but i have captured that old wjunction admins theme at wjunctions.com and soon a lot of webmasters will hear about it and get that great feeling back.

 

[Wildcat Media]

I'm looking to start a new community forum but wanted people's opinions. I want to start my own admin forum because I have interest in SEO, pagespeeds, guest posting and all that kinds of stuff and I think I can share my knowledge in that area.

Keep me in the loop! I'm another of those XF "oldtimers" dating back to 2010, and was moderating at CompuServe years before most of the general public even knew what the Internet or World Wide Web were.

By the way, @JoyFreak - I don't know if you were around back in the days of this, but do you remember AdminAddict? It was a forum I made as an alternative to TAZ. At the time, former TAZ owner "The Sandman" was very generous with his ban hammer so a lot of forum owner regulars wanted an alternative.

That might be why I never felt comfortable at TAZ. That and a lot of the posts from less knowledgeable members bashed XenForo or other platforms just because they didn't understand them. Nothing I posted seemed to be respected either. I bailed from there years ago. Ironically, I won my first XF license from TAZ back in 2010.

 

[alternadiv]

Ironically, I won my first XF license from TAZ back in 2010.

Ha! I won my first vBulletin license on TAZ in 2006. I was 13 years old at the time and felt so cool for having a vB forum instead of a free phpBB forum. That license went on to become a decently popular forum with 65,000 posts by the time it closed. Good times.

 

[Wildcat Media]

I ran forums on phpBB since 2002 and yes, they were a total nightmare. The worst was the spambot traffic. I cringe now whenever I visit a forum that still uses it. It makes me want to donate an XF license to the owner, and set it up for them.

 

[alternadiv]

I ran forums on phpBB since 2002 and yes, they were a total nightmare. The worst was the spambot traffic. I cringe now whenever I visit a forum that still uses it. It makes me want to donate an XF license to the owner, and set it up for them.

Completely agree. And MyBB was an (unfortunately) underrated free alternative. Especially since the vB 3 setup was so desired at the time, because MyBB was close to the same but for free.

 

[Wildcat Media]

There was also SMF (Simple Machines Forum) that I think I used on one project--it had a few features I liked. My earliest though was a port of Matt's wwwboard script called WebBBS. I still have some posts that are trapped in WebBBS that I can't export. (vB unwisely changed their importer to work with a newer fork of WebBBS that is incompatible with the original.) I had another script to import WebBBS to phpBB2, but it only worked half the time--worked for a couple of forums, but not on others.

XF is a bargain based on how much easier it is to live with.

 

[JoyFreak]

Hi everyone,

I feel that I finally have the time to pursue this.

I currently started a health and wellness website (Wordpress) and was planning to add a forum portion to it. But I don't know how well that will do with a community forum, I was going to use it for asking health and wellness related questions and answering it.

Though I have already purchased a domain for the admin site and wondered if people still feel the same about a new admin community? I see there are a few new admin forums popping up and feel like it's a slightly oversaturated market at the moment.

What do you all think?

 

[Wildcat Media]

I see there are a few new admin forums popping up and feel like it's a slightly oversaturated market at the moment.

I would feel more comfortable in a forum where I actually knew some of the other members, vs. going cold into a forum with an unknown atmosphere. However, a few dozen of us doing what we do here at XF's forum isn't exactly going to draw a lot of traffic either--it's not going to pay the bills. Maybe combining it with articles (advice, how-to articles, etc.) could provide content the others don't have. And there's no guarantee the others will last long at it either.

I don't mind starting up small, little-used sites/forums if I can tag them onto an existing server, where my only cost at that point is buying the domain name. If that's all the risk involved, I'd certainly give it a try.

 

[JoyFreak]

I would feel more comfortable in a forum where I actually knew some of the other members, vs. going cold into a forum with an unknown atmosphere. However, a few dozen of us doing what we do here at XF's forum isn't exactly going to draw a lot of traffic either--it's not going to pay the bills. Maybe combining it with articles (advice, how-to articles, etc.) could provide content the others don't have. And there's no guarantee the others will last long at it either.

I don't mind starting up small, little-used sites/forums if I can tag them onto an existing server, where my only cost at that point is buying the domain name. If that's all the risk involved, I'd certainly give it a try.

Yeah that was the idea. It’ll be a blog with a lot of admin/seo articles/resources and the forum will be a bit more personal and involved.

I was thinking making it so you can only register with a work email address, so no gmail/hotmail and all those free email services to stop spam and keep the community actually a forum with webmasters on it.

 

[eL_]

What's the name of community?

 

[JoyFreak]

What's the name of community?

I will disclose once it’s ready. I will be able to start on this from the 14th and will share with everyone soon.