How to increase forum membership? - Page 2

ydg

United States690 Posts

June 20 2009 05:51 GMT

#21

I see the "current number of users online" and the number of recent posts as an indicator of the quality of the forum, with higher being better quality. But to get the ball rolling, especially for a political forum, it'll be hard, and that's why you were hired to do it :p.

cgrinker

United States3824 Posts

June 20 2009 05:56 GMT

#22

Tell them you will drop the banhammer on them if they join and post poorly. It works for TL

Peanuts.

United States378 Posts

June 20 2009 06:02 GMT

#23

Tell people they can't join your forum. They'll start coming in droves.

gravity

Australia2330 Posts

June 20 2009 13:39 GMT

#24

Getting a new forum started is probably going to require a pre-existing site/community of some sort. If you have a site with political articles, try allowing comments on the articles first, then opening a forum once you're getting a lot of comments.

closed

Vatican City State491 Posts

June 20 2009 16:48 GMT

#25

You need to start working discussions about the subject - and these discussions need to be interesting. You need to create some content. On the base of this content you need to build a crew of forum members, who will share the same view. The best way to unite people is to find an enemy for them, e.g. you can say that your forum was hacked by other party etc.
Also you should make "general" topic, about music, youtube videos etc.

Another option is making a random section and making something completely random there, which will get your site on digg...

Bockit

Sydney2287 Posts

June 20 2009 16:54 GMT

#26

You need members, who are so impressed by the quality of the forum that they tell their friends to come. I think that's what it all boils down to in the end, word of mouth. And the best way to generate that is to have quality discussion and content.

LaLuSh

Sweden2358 Posts

June 20 2009 17:05 GMT

#27

The site itself needs to host good content. You need a foundation for the forum.

You can try to invite weekly "famous" guest writers to your forum in an attempt to stand out.

-orb-

United States5770 Posts

June 20 2009 17:47 GMT

#28

On June 20 2009 13:15 omninmo wrote:
"politics" repels me to joining a forum.
political people have their opinions and ideals. those are not changed by what others post on forums.
a political forum sounds like a flame war in the making. the donkeys will team up with the donkeys and the elephants will do the same.

Pretty much this. Debating politics online is one of the worst, most frustrating things you can do. It will also make you painfully aware of just how many mentally handicapped people there are in the world that have internet access.

sushiman

Sweden2691 Posts

June 20 2009 18:21 GMT

#29

If you want any form of quality in a forum where you discuss politics, you need HEAVY moderation and strict rules. One of the forums I frequent has been very heavily moderated for years, with a lot of rules about which subjects are ok and which aren't (e.g. the Israel-Palestine subject is banned since it easily derails into flamewars, and until just recently any topics about religion were banned for the same reason). This has lead to very high quality topics and polite members - root out the weeds before they sprout and you won't have to worry about them later on.
With the quality going up, more members will join over time.

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