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

[Ricsca]

Eh? No clue what you're going on about. But do carry on.

Obviously you're all good at chatting, then when you're asked to put into practice the fairy tales you tell, it's another matter... provide you with a site with a fair amount of traffic and thousands of users on social media since it's so simple for you to manage and run start a new forum why don't you?

 

[Max Fridman]

Whenever certain discussions are opened. You can see two sides (apart from the off topic that never fails) clashing:

• One that argues that the forums are dead and there is no point in investing time in them.
• One that argues that forums are alive although less active than in the first 10 years of 2000.

Both claims are partly true. I personally have been managing and working with communities for about 10 years. And of course surpassing social media activity is virtually impossible. As a matter of numbers.

However as I have often repeated, it is not necessary. You don't need to be McDonald's to have a successful restaurant. You need to have enough customers to move forward and grow your “value proposition".

I aim to have 1,000 active users and millions of readers. Not millions of users and billions of readers.

So here is the advice I can give to those who want to embark on this adventure in 2024:

1) You have to figure out what your mission is. What do you want to give that is new compared to other websites and other places of discussion.

Specialize in giving intrinsic value to your discussion space. Opening a forum “for discussion” is pointless. They can do that elsewhere. Open a forum because you are a person who has “expertise” in a particular area or you are a person who aggregates people around you who have “expertise” in a particular area. It will make a total difference whether you succeed or fail in the venture.

2) You need to be or have a good development team to keep the platform up to date.

Forums are perceived as “old” if you don't put effort into keeping them up-to-date, modern, with a nice design and with custom solutions to optimize them and provide specific “services.” It will not catch on.

3) You need to have a good understanding of how search algorithms work, SEO, content optimization and most importantly create a content production process.

If you don't create valuable, well-positioned content you will never open acquisition channels.

4) You need to figure out how to sell your discussion space through various channels: YouTube, Instagram, TikTok.

Creating content on Google is a start. If you don't commit over time to diversify, users won't come “organically” like they did 10 years ago.

5) You have to be aware that it takes money, lots of it. As with any business. The cost has increased because the competition has increased. There are many of us, we are better than before, and we are bigger than before.

If you think you can compete in a market without spending money, you have already failed at the start.

6) You have to be aware that it is a difficult market. It is not enough to buy xenforo, a server, a cdn and a domain. This is not the year 2000 is 2024.

Before, it was enough to put a website on a search engine to find users, content creators. Now it is not enough. And there seem to be few who understand that.

7) You need to be aware that you may not necessarily be able to live off your community. And it doesn't have to be your primary goal, at least not initially.

Starting a site is first and foremost an investment of time and money. Then you have to aim for survival. A site that can sustain itself. Already that is a great accomplishment. A site that generates an income is a great accomplishment. A site that starts a business is a great and outstanding achievement.

There are these success stories: @Forsaken, @Anomandaris

• Anomandaris took over a forum and made it among the most successful in his niche and works there full time.
• Forsaken manages and invests time and money in various online realities.

And there are no big companies behind it like there are for MacRumors, Tom's Hardware, etc. But people. Often individuals.

These are just the basics. If you're not willing to invest that much time and money in it. Make a blog on Wordpress. Maybe you'll make more money, in less time. If money is the issue. Don't start a forum. It doesn't make sense, because you don't have added value. A static page can serve you just as well and maybe better.

What you are missing is that a forum is a site that brings with it problems and benefits. Not just advantages. And some of you have no idea how to take advantage of the platform. They simply open a forum because “that's how it was done” and “I'd like to talk to someone.”

If it is the numbers that obsess you the money or the short-term gains. This is not the industry for you.

 

[Ricsca]

I agree with what you said, but if you associate it with a website it makes sense, if you associate it with a forum it's very different! A forum is opened with the aim of having users write posts! For a project with quality content and with an SEO perspective, a website is opened where users can comment. The difference between a website and a forum is a lot and while for example co press has changed and evolved a lot in the last 20 years, many forums have always remained the same. And they lack basic things such as being able to easily contact their members to make it active. I have been managing sites and forums for 20 years so I have followed the evolution and done countless tests in both so I speak with knowledge of the facts! In 2024 the only way to have a successful forum with active users is to deal with topics that cannot be discussed on Facebook because the biggest limitation of the forum is that Fermo is 20 years old and therefore does not attract people.

 

[Max Fridman]

I agree with what you said, but if you associate it with a website it makes sense, if you associate it with a forum it's very different! A forum is opened with the aim of having users write posts! For a project with quality content and with an SEO perspective, a website is opened where users can comment. The difference between a website and a forum is a lot and while for example co press has changed and evolved a lot in the last 20 years, many forums have always remained the same. And they lack basic things such as being able to easily contact their members to make it active. I have been managing sites and forums for 20 years so I have followed the evolution and done countless tests in both so I speak with knowledge of the facts! In 2024 the only way to have a successful forum with active users is to deal with topics that cannot be discussed on Facebook because the biggest limitation of the forum is that Fermo is 20 years old and therefore does not attract people.

User Generated Content is a mine of value for those who know how to channel and manage it. On various communities I have content that ranks well on Google and YouTube that is not directly created by staff. But curated by it.

The forums have evolved as well. We have newsletters divided by interest (the setup is more complex, but they can be done). We have notifications via Discord.

Anyway, that's your experience. The industry says different things. It is not all black or white. It is gray.

Evidently you are more inclined to manage facebook groups, facebook pages, instagram pages etc. and websites than xenforo communities.

That's not for everyone.

 

[ForumFan]

it makes no sense to have a forum also because Google does not look favorably on forums because in a forum, by its nature, there is hardly any valuable content!

^^^ This makes no sense. ^^^ What you are saying is impossible, the rest of us are doing every single day. "If it's been done before, it's possible."

Obviously you're all good at chatting, then when you're asked to put into practice the fairy tales you tell, it's another matter... provide you with a site with a fair amount of traffic and thousands of users on social media since it's so simple for you to manage and run start a new forum why don't you?

Must be a language barrier / translation thing. Ummmm.... I did start a new forum... about 2-1/2 years ago. It's running quite nicely. TONS of good content on it, which HAS been indexed by Google and shows up in related searches.

So, your purpose here... on a forum about running forums... is to argue about the value and viability of forums? You're here to tell successful forum owners and admins that what they are doing daily is "impossible??" Things must be slow there in Italy.

 

[Ricsca]

User Generated Content is a mine of value for those who know how to channel and manage it. On various communities I have content that ranks well on Google and YouTube that is not directly created by staff. But curated by it.

The forums have evolved as well. We have newsletters divided by interest (the setup is more complex, but they can be done). We have notifications via Discord.

Anyway, that's your experience. The industry says different things. It is not all black or white. It is gray.

Evidently you are more inclined to manage facebook groups, facebook pages, instagram pages etc. and websites than xenforo communities.

That's not for everyone.

your old forum has 236,245 users, looking at your stats you can see that today three new threads were written, yesterday four...
your last thread events written in five days have zero replies except for 8 threads!
Do these seem like statistics for an active forum that is of interest to users? You have a forum with more than 4 million posts which means that several years ago it was very active! I am amazed at how a person who had an active forum can think that those very few new threads that it has make it active in its form.

 

[Ricsca]

^^^ This makes no sense. ^^^ What you are saying is impossible, the rest of us are doing every single day. "If it's been done before, it's possible."


Must be a language barrier / translation thing. Ummmm.... I did start a new forum... about 2-1/2 years ago. It's running quite nicely. TONS of good content on it, which HAS been indexed by Google and shows up in related searches.

So, your purpose here... on a forum about running forums... is to argue about the value and viability of forums? You're hear to tell successful forum owners and admins that what they are doing daily is "impossible??" Things must be slow there in Italy.

start studying SEO because it is clear that you know very little about it! but on the other hand, from someone who is claiming that forums in 2024 are very active because he has had 2000 members in 29 months, you cannot expect much...

 

[Max Fridman]

your old forum has 236,245 users, looking at your stats you can see that today three new threads were written, yesterday four...
your last thread events written in five days have zero replies except for 8 threads!
Do these seem like statistics for an active forum that is of interest to users? You have a forum with more than 4 million posts which means that several years ago it was very active! I am amazed at how a person who had an active forum can think that those very few new threads that it has make it active in its form.

It makes little sense to consider these metrics. The summer period is normally the most inactive (June, July and August).

Metrics are measured quarterly and annually. And I can say that annually they are improving since 2019. After a general decline from 2010 to 2018.

Google has also contributed to this recovery, as well as pandemic and a change in management of the forum itself. I have been doing the management totally and independently for about 5 years (of the site presented on Xenforo.com).

Not just discussions measure activity, as much as posts written and reactions given and users registered daily, metrics that have improved YoY.

I have already mentioned by the way that:
I don't need to have 10,000 users, but I only need 1,000. Of which 100 content creators, but also 50.

The forum was more active obviously in the past, but the content created was of low quality as were the discussions. Now on average there is less content but the quality of posts and discussions is higher (so indexing has improved).

Obviously, it can be done better. I am not saying that my situation is perfect. However, I am very lucky as the site has had an increase in revenue year after year. So I have found new niches to monetize and we will continue to expand in the near future.

For me, the site is in a very good state of health considering the work behind it.

 

[Ricsca]

If these statistics of your forum of the last 5 days seem good to you... considering also the lack of interest of the users in commenting on the discussions... I really don't know what to add...
And as I said, I'm very surprised that you have a large forum and therefore lived through the times when the forums were active...
Or maybe I misunderstood and you have been managing the forum for a short time?

 

[Ricsca]

my forum is much more active in the last 5 days and I only have 8,364 registered users compared to yours which has 236,245 registered users....
And despite this I am objective to say that a site with these few posts cannot be considered an active community...

 

[Suzanne O]

A forum should just be a place where you and your friends are able to chat about a range of things.

 

[Max Fridman]

If these statistics of your forum of the last 5 days seem good to you... considering also the lack of interest of the users in commenting on the discussions... I really don't know what to add...
And as I said, I'm very surprised that you have a large forum and therefore lived through the times when the forums were active...
Or maybe I misunderstood and you have been managing the forum for a short time?

my forum is much more active in the last 5 days and I only have 8,364 registered users compared to yours which has 236,245 registered users....
And despite this I am objective to say that a site with these few posts cannot be considered an active community...

As I said, there is not much point in talking about the summer period and making these kinds of comparisons.

For example, discussions with hundreds of responses made in June alone are not taken into account. The hundreds of reactions given to Guides in various sections are not taken into account.

And so on.

 

[Arantor]

“It’s not busy unless it meets my arbitrary definition of busy that I am prepared to change at any moment to suit my argument and make you always wrong.”

Said user has been doing this for years, including over on another forum software’s forum. (Yes, I remember you.)

 

[Deleted member 184953]

NeoGAF

It's a video game message board on the internet

www.neogaf.com

Forums are dead.

 

[Max Fridman]

However, then you are surprised that people no longer want to interact on your platforms. You make, even the most interesting conversations, sterile.

You do not accept the possibility that you are wrong. Or that you can learn something from someone. And above all, you are unwilling to listen to people who perhaps have something interesting to say.

And in fact the major contributors to the field have stopped posting on this forum.

 

[Ricsca]

are you kidding right? I brought you data and screens while you with data and screens that deny what I say claim the opposite so what do we want to talk about?
Apart from the forums that deal with porn and other topics that cannot be discussed on Facebook, they have very few new posts and very few active users and this is an objective and irrefutable fact that I have proven to you with data so if you continue to claim the opposite I don't know what else to tell you also because it is enough to visit any large forum with millions of users and posts to see that today they have very few new posts and this shows that almost no one actively participates in the forms but you continue to say the opposite despite the data denying you!
I brought you the screen of your forum that shows that in the last five days you have had very few new discussions and very few people have responded to your posts and you continue to say that it is not true and that your form is very active and that maybe it is the summer!! why don't people write in the summer? Why aren't billions of messages written on Facebook every day even in the summer?

 

[Forsaken]

Failing forums are generally a skill issue, or a subject issue. If it is a subject issue, research ways to fix the subject to gain activity. If it is a skill issue, assess where you are lacking or where your community is lacking and do bettere. Or quit.

@Ricsca you probably need to go for the later, as you are unwilling to take examples or any counter argument to your viewpoint and I can only imagine you are the same way with every other subject. That kind of unyielding attitude is counter-productive to running a successful forum.

Both arguments can be true; forums can be declining because there are alternative platforms that exist, but forums individually can be successful because of the work and efforts put into them by the people who invest in them. If you are unable or unwilling to invest or run your community, then just stop running the community or give it to someone else who has more passion for it.

 

[Max Fridman]

I brought you the screen of your forum that shows that in the last five days you have had very few new discussions and very few people have responded to your posts and you continue to say that it is not true and that your form is very active and that maybe it is the summer!! why don't people write in the summer? Why aren't billions of messages written on Facebook every day even in the summer?

Because you obviously have some trouble understanding that Facebook is one of the most visited sites in the world. With roughly three billion monthly active users as of the second quarter of 2023, Facebook is the most used online social network worldwide.

Whereas the site you cited, taking a silly example, of discussions over X number of days. Which as I have already said is not a parameter of TOTAL activity but only AN INDICATOR over a given period of the year (yesterday or today that is). That is not how you track statistics. Statistics are, monthly, quarterly and year over year.

Apart from the forums that deal with porn and other topics that cannot be discussed on Facebook, they have very few new posts and very few active users and this is an objective and irrefutable fact that I have proven to you with data

You don't have data from all online platforms in Italian or English. With volumes of postings and discussions and visits.

Plus it is not even a metric to describe the success of a community. You may have 10 discussions a month but maybe they are among the most read on Google.

 

[Forsaken]

Because you obviously have some trouble understanding that Facebook is one of the most visited sites in the world. With roughly three billion monthly active users as of the second quarter of 2023, Facebook is the most used online social network worldwide.

Whereas the site you cited, taking a silly example, of discussions over X number of days. Which as I have already said is not a parameter of TOTAL activity but only AN INDICATOR over a given period of the year (yesterday or today that is). That is not how you track statistics. Statistics are, monthly, quarterly and year over year.



You don't have data from all online platforms in Italian or English. With volumes of postings and discussions and visits.

Plus it is not even a metric to describe the success of a community. You may have 10 discussions a month but maybe they are among the most read on Google.

Ironically... I'm helping someone who is a member of one of my communities set up an Italian forum for something unrelated, and they're currently at 20k members since January.

Skill issue.

 

[ForumFan]

start studying SEO because it is clear that you know very little about it!

LOL! I literally wrote a book about it. I authored a book on website marketing for a very specific professional niche. I really did. The book was quite successful.

but on the other hand, from someone who is claiming that forums in 2024 are very active because he has had 2000 members in 29 months, you cannot expect much...

LOL again. My claims are based on my experience as a participant in forums in addition to starting my own. I've been active on forums since the early 90s. The forums on which I'm currently active (as a member), I've been on for 10 - 20 years. They are hopping. One of them has hundreds of posts per day.

I've been an active member on that one for 15 years.

Here's another forum I frequent: 100s of posts per day, too.


I've already said that my new forum is VERY small potatoes in the forum universe. Are you familiar with the term "small potatoes?"

Nevertheless, my forum is GROWING, not shrinking. I've quite pleased with the progress, especially considering it started at ZERO and has grown organically. No ads placed anywhere. No paid SEO. I didn't build the forum to impress anyone else. I built it because I saw an unfulfilled need for it. It occupies a very specialized niche. So, it will never be huge. But I can tell you the members sure are happy it exists. Word is spreading in that community... slowly but surely.