What advice would you give to a community owner/leader wanting to give up?

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woody said:
2011 averaged 32 per day, 2016 averaged 30 per day, 2020 averaged 41 per day, 2024 is averaging 37, 30-50 is the range per day. Lately, it's growing.

Activity levels changed when I made the XF switch, since "likes" helped stop the "me too" replies. Content to noise ratio continues to improve.

Overall revenue is projected for a 23% increase this year over last year, and about 5% over the previous 2021 record.
Yearly revenue was $780.77 for 2004. Hosting/software/etc pushes $25k yearly now.
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Super excited to see strong forums getting even better! I do believe quality forums that offer value can still find a way to grow on the internet.

On another unrelated note, I almost fell out of my chair on your expenses. Do you earn $25,800 with expenses of $25000, or earn $800 on expenses of $25000?
 
AjayJunkies said:
Super excited to see strong forums getting even better! I do believe quality forums that offer value can still find a way to grow on the internet.

On another unrelated note, I almost fell out of my chair on your expenses. Do you earn $25,800 with expenses of $25000, or earn $800 on expenses of $25000?
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Check the dates. 2004, NOT 2024. 2024 is more per day than 2004 was for the entire year.
 
mjda said:
If that's what it takes to get it active, yes...my main point is that you can't come on here complaining about your site activity when you're not active on it either.
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this is confirmation you don't realize how communities and large websites are managed...
Google no longer likes forums very much because they rarely have interesting and informative topics, but they are more a place to "chat quickly" so if you have a forum with thousands of posts (in my two forums I have more than 900,000) there will be various indexed posts which, although few compared to the total, will still be enough...
For this reason an admin is much better off using his time writing interesting articles on a worddress site...
Writing posts in the forum to which no one responds (since there are very few users) is just a waste of time and certainly does not increase the number of forum members.
As I have already said several times, the forums that work are those that deal with topics that cannot be discussed on Facebook.

I am very fond of forums and have had 2 for many years but I am very happy that nowadays they are 99% practically useless because with around 30 new discussions per month a forum cannot be defined as active because I know what it means to have an active forum seen that years ago I had thousands of active discussions per month.

After 20 years of forums and sites (I also manage various medium/large sites) I feel like blaming mainly the developers of the forums because they have never renewed themselves and are stuck at 20 years ago!
The strength of social media is that they keep you glued to them thanks to the fact that for anything that might interest you they send you emails and notifications...
All this cannot be done with forums after 20 years...
If you don't understand these things it means you don't know how to manage large communities and many users because either you don't have them, I have managed communities with little competition on Facebook.
 
woody said:
Only one major one, and a few small ones. I split a server with my sysadmin, and my costs include management and bandwidth. Generally serve 12GB a month. The server is a year/two old now, but included all the latest/greatest at the time.
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I don't know what the prices are like abroad but in Italy, to manage around 100 GB of traffic per month and 15 GB I spend no more than 500 euros per year.
 
My main site does just fine on Google search and is plenty active. Brings in around $12k per year and I pay $102.50/month for my server. I'd say I'm doing just fine.

Plenty of people do what I do on social media but you won't see me complaining about it. I utilize social media to help bring new people to my site every year.

So, yeah, blame whoever you want to. The truth is you're relying on the software developers to do something to make your site grow and thrive but it's on you to find a way to make that happen. If you can't, or consider it a waste of time, it's your fault. Find a way to make your site(s) offer something folks can't get on social media, such as regular and unique content.
 
mjda said:
My main site does just fine on Google search and is plenty active. Brings in around $12k per year and I pay $102.50/month for my server. I'd say I'm doing just fine.

Plenty of people do what I do on social media but you won't see me complaining about it. I utilize social media to help bring new people to my site every year.

So, yeah, blame whoever you want to. The truth is you're relying on the software developers to do something to make your site grow and thrive but it's on you to find a way to make that happen. If you can't, or consider it a waste of time, it's your fault. Find a way to make your site(s) offer something folks can't get on social media, such as regular and unique content.
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you boast so much about making money and having no problems managing an active forum in 2024 and to us users who have large forums with thousands of users and Posts that we claim that in recent years almost no one uses the forums anymore you tell us that we are the ones who don't use them we know how to manage but it turns out you don't want to show us your beautiful and active forum...
 
Ricsca said:
As I have already said several times, the forums that work are those that deal with topics that cannot be discussed on Facebook.
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Not true at all in my experience and observations. I'm a member of various HUGE and VERY active forums that focus on topics that absolutely can be (and are) discussed on Facebook. But the forum format and organization is MUCH better than the linear discussions on FB groups. Forums are more archival and searchable for information. Linear random conversations on Facebook are not nearly as searchable or archival.

Ricsca said:
The strength of social media is that they keep you glued to them thanks to the fact that for anything that might interest you they send you emails and notifications...
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Disagree here, too. Most people don't want email alerts or notifications from social media groups or forums.

I've been very active on various forums and social media groups for... well... since before a certain someone claimed to have invented the internet. Yeah... since the early 90s. Of all the forums I've been a part of, none have died. All have grown. Big time. On the other hand, I have also been active on FB groups that have died. Go figure.

I'm relatively new to owning / managing a forum.... just 2-1/2 years now. But it's thriving and growing. Slow and steady. A marathon, not a sprint. It's grown organically without any advertising. I'm footing the entire bill for now. Perhaps it will turn into a business. Maybe. Maybe not. We'll see. I'll keep my "day job." :-)

I am quite active on my own forum. I regularly post threads that are designed to provoke participation. It works. I am passionate about the topic, as are the other members. Like attracts like.

With the increasing woke government-directed censorship on big tech social media sites like Facebook, I predict (heck, it's already happening) that the pendulum will swing back to privately-owned forums. I'm already seeing it. And I plan to ride that wave. Surf's up, baby! :cool:
 
PatriotGB said:
With the increasing woke government-directed censorship on big tech social media sites like Facebook, I predict (heck, it's already happening) that the pendulum will swing back to privately-owned forums. I'm already seeing it. And I plan to ride that wave. Surf's up, baby! :cool:
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You are dreaming...
 
For a guy who manages a community of 1,000,000 people on social networks, I find that you have a lot of time to debate with those who do not listen.
 
Mr Lucky said:
Where is the evidence for that?
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Seriously? They outright admitted it on national TV. This isn't a political forum, so I will abide that. But, yeah... a certain gov't entity announced it on TV that they were working with FB on what content to delete. And that is all I will say. Do your own homework. It's easy to find.
 
PatriotGB said:
Seriously? They outright admitted it on national TV. This isn't a political forum, so I will abide that. But, yeah... a certain gov't entity announced it on TV that they were working with FB on what content to delete. And that is all I will say. Do your own homework. It's easy to find.
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Yeah, hard to believe anyone doesn’t know the .gov colluded with big tech to censor conservative speech. It’s why Elon bought X!!
 
From What advice would you give to a community owner/leader wanting to give up? to hard to believe anyone doesn’t know the .gov colluded with big tech to censor conservative speech in only 4 pages. :cool:
 
Ricsca said:
For this reason an admin is much better off using his time writing interesting articles on a worddress site...
Writing posts in the forum to which no one responds (since there are very few users) is just a waste of time and certainly does not increase the number of forum members.
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Which to your second statement, has no members. So why not write that article as a starting forum post / article post, and boost the forum?

You are making blanket statements, which honestly, you should just stop doing. Every forum is different. Google loves forums just as much as any page on the internet. There is literally billions of posts made daily which Google has to filter the good from the everyday from the junk. An article to Google is no more than junk until established otherwise, just like a short few word post on a forum in response to a longer post. In essence, comments.

Some forums, each post is much longer in context, which makes some very large discussions per page. Stop taking your experience and making blanket statements as though fact. Fact is specific to your websites and your experience with them, not EVERY forum. Seriously, your blanket comments are more trollish than factual or informative.
 

MSN

www.msn.com

nypost.com

White House, Big Tech colluded to censor ‘misinformation’: lawsuit

Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry and his Missouri counterpart Eric Schmitt charged that the Biden administration worked in tandem with Facebook and Twitter to censor “misinformation.&#8…
nypost.com nypost.com

www.newsweek.com

The FBI Colluded With Twitter to Suppress Free Speech. Where's the Outrage?

We've learned that federal law enforcement must follow the Constitution with the diligence and discipline of a marathon runner in training.
www.newsweek.com www.newsweek.com

reason.com

The 5th Circuit agrees that federal officials unconstitutionally 'coerced' or 'encouraged' online censorship

The appeals court narrowed a preliminary injunction against such meddling but confirmed the threat that it poses to freedom of speech.
reason.com reason.com

MSN

www.msn.com

I could list HUNDREDS of other verifiable articles. Maybe you don’t know because you don’t live over here?

Appeals court slaps Biden administration for contact with social media companies​


 
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