What's new for forums in 2015?

[tommydamic68]

Hello to anyone whom is interested in sharing your thoughts on "What's new" for your forum in 2015. I have shared what I have been doing for the last few years to "spice up" my forum including:

• Monthly member of the month (well, actually cat of the month which my forum is revolved around)
• Yearly contest to win prizes, usually Xmas, Halloween and Easter.
• Daily picture thread- a random member (cat) picture picked from the community image gallery.

The reason I am bringing it up is that I have recently got into a new hobby, and have signed up on a forum to share/ find information on this hobby and boy oh boy, what a bore! Ok, yes there is some good info on the site but man is it boring! Its an older VBulletin version, no alerts to your threads or posts, basically, its just a forum. So honestly, it seems just visiting to get some info and share is about all its good for. A very "small" community feel.

Are you running just a forum? the same old song and dance? OR do you have an idea of how to build a better "community" feel where people go to your community first before heading over to Facebook, Twitter or instagram?

So I ask you - whats new for forums, your forum in 2015? will it be the "same old" thing?

 

[dethfire]

A forum is just a framework. As you have stated, it's what you bring to it.

 

[wedgar]

Hello to anyone whom is interested in sharing your thoughts on "What's new" for your forum in 2015. I have shared what I have been doing for the last few years to "spice up" my forum including:

• Monthly member of the month (well, actually cat of the month which my forum is revolved around)
• Yearly contest to win prizes, usually Xmas, Halloween and Easter.
• Daily picture thread- a random member (cat) picture picked from the community image gallery.

The reason I am bringing it up is that I have recently got into a new hobby, and have signed up on a forum to share/ find information on this hobby and boy oh boy, what a bore! Ok, yes there is some good info on the site but man is it boring! Its an older VBulletin version, no alerts to your threads or posts, basically, its just a forum. So honestly, it seems just visiting to get some info and share is about all its good for. A very "small" community feel.

Are you running just a forum? the same old song and dance? OR do you have an idea of how to build a better "community" feel where people go to your community first before heading over to Facebook, Twitter or instagram?

So I ask you - whats new for forums, your forum in 2015? will it be the "same old" thing?

Our forum deals with ham radio, and your suggestion about pictures might work for our members to share a picture of their station and use that for a contest to spur more interest would work.

I've thought about using the polls for a trivia contest for each month.

 

[1im]

I dont know what ham radio is, but sounds like music?

Pod Cast contest?

 

[tajhay]

Custom addons that suit my community. In my instance its a sports forum for a particular team, so enhancing player ratings per match, stats, stats analysis between different players, match centre etc.

Basically have to do something that noone else in that market is doing, else you arent providing a point of difference between your forum and the numerous others.

 

[FredC]

Interestingly my largest competitor is running vB3.8 B1 (Yes Beta 1) however they have millions at their disposal.. I rarely if ever earn enough to cover expenses. Anyways we no doubt kick their asses up one side of the street and down the other in features.. lol core XF default beats 3.8 in just about every way because its so antiquated.. But they still (because of their huge network of other pet related sites) kick our butts good in every way important to a webmaster, except for user experience..

One of the plugins ive purchased here that i had the highest hopes for was/is the "Best Answer" add on. although im pulling my hair out of my head trying to get members to use it.. Of course we also have annual contests with various prizes of high monetary value.. Our gallery is popular and Featured Threads is a big piece of the puzzle simply because its so customizable and allows us to differentiate ourselves from Vertical Scopes Pet Guide network. We just cant compete with their advertising dollars.

 

[wedgar]

I dont know what ham radio is, but sounds like music?

Pod Cast contest?

Ham radio is also called amateur radio. Instead of commercial type of programming (music, news, discussions) ham radio is more of a personal or technical nature. Very often ham radio is used in disaster relief operations when normal communications are knocked out our overloaded.

Ham radio gets the information out by wireless radio frequency and not by wire.

Communications can be local, world-wide, or even via satellite in space.

 

[1im]

Ham radio is also called amateur radio. Instead of commercial type of programming (music, news, discussions) ham radio is more of a personal or technical nature. Very often ham radio is used in disaster relief operations when normal communications are knocked out our overloaded.

Ham radio gets the information out by wireless radio frequency and not by wire.

Communications can be local, world-wide, or even via satellite in space.

Sounds interesting =]

 

[wedgar]

Sounds interesting =]

There are hams in almost every country on the globe. I'll send you a PM with more info.