On my Fansite #1 I put a forum up along with the blog, photos and that was it. I had no idea how hard it would be to maintain a forum - since I’ve never had a forum before on any site for any amount of time, this was new ground to cover.
I used the free PHP forum script, instead of paying for vBulletin. I am not making money = not going into the negative for it.  Also I had no idea if the forum idea would fly with this site or not.
I can say - spammers LOVE my forum. They get as far as registering, then I can nuke ‘em if they are. They can’t post until I approve them.  I thought that might slow them down.
It didn’t.
As the blog becomes more popular at Fansite #1 so has the forum - for spammers. I think so far since I started the forum at the beginning of May I’ve had 3 legitimate signups. How sad is that. Out of those 3 signups - none have posted.
I know it’s hard to start a forum. I know it’s hard to maintain a forum. I’m thinking with the blog I have - if people want to comment they can and that can replace the forum. It’s taking up too much of my time - I spend too much time deleting the bogus accounts… too much time. It’s boring. I hate it.
I suppose I could try to find a moderator. Hell, I could even try to buy some forum comments, thoughts, etc, from those companies that specialize in populating forums.
But I don’t. I don’t want to waste my money. I don’t want to spend more money than I’m making with this site. It is just something I’m trying to impliment this time around. I am working on my budget. What will I spend re-investing in my sites to make them better.
I’m thinking the forum has to go.
Popularity: 14% [?]
pagepeel by webpicasso.de
July 16th, 2007 at 10:25 am
That’s a real challenge with a forum … you’ve got to be *very* active in getting it going and keeping it going, spammers or not.
If you don’t want to put time into maintaining the forum (posting frequently, getting interesting things for members), then it’s a good idea to axe it and put your time somewhere more profitable.
OTOH, have you contacted the legit members of the forum and asked them what they want out of it? They may be willing to ’seed’ the forum with topics and start things going themselves (people LOVE to be given some authority to ake things happen).
Best of luck -
Dave
July 16th, 2007 at 1:33 pm
I tried starting a forum on one of my sites a while back. Despite the the fact that the site was bringing in a reasonable amount of traffic I just couldn’t get anyone interested in posting. I signed up a few friends who dutifully posted a few comments but soon even they got bored of talking amongst themselves and I quietly pulled the forum.
I think it’s a form of writer’s block. In the same way that an author can be so intimidated by a blank page that they can’t get started so a forum visitor faced with an empty or quiet forum feels that they can’t post. You need some people keen enough to get started but most importantly you need to hit a critical mass of posts and visitors before your keen starters get bored and lose interest.
July 16th, 2007 at 7:46 pm
Moderating a forum is not so difficult, is more routine and patience.
Starting a forum is same as collecting traffic for a site or a blog. The start is often hard and dissappointing. You need some categories and posts fit to attract users.
I have owned and admin / mod several forums. Is very easy to be done, once you get use to what can be and what not, also you can nominate friends willing to mod some areas, following some general rules …
Spammers ? lol you can finish them in time, using some track tools and manual IP ban.
The hardest to moderate - administrate forum is a open language - flamers forum - there you allways have things to do. A regular forum is easy to manage, while any respectable user, intersted in subject, would happy accept restriction rules.
I don`t know that site you are talking about (fansite #1), but I`ll tell you one (from experience) : A new forum MUST have few regular users; several categories FILLED with few posts and leaded by mods; new posts and articles to be read while readers reach there thru a link from site or blog (Wanna read more ? Click here ! - kinda links); “feel” the users - what categories they would eventually feel they want to read-write.
With patience, you`ll have a great forum, TARGETED. Else, general forums, www is full of them …
July 17th, 2007 at 8:16 pm
I think I’m going to have to let the forum go. I don’t really have the traffic for it. The people who have signed up - have yet to comment.
What’s going for it is that it is a focused forum - well into its niche. But I’m finding more people are commenting on the blog I have there… which in a way is a forum (comments, opinions, etc) but maybe not as freeflowing as a forum might be.
Maybe I’ll quietly remove it… and if the time comes where there is traffic - I’ll bring it back. But right now (and you all have great points), I’m still leaning towards removing it for now - in hopes that it will be back in the future.