Members join but then dont post...

[misha_val]

Hello, I'm having trouble  with my forum(www.youngmillionaireforum.com)
People are joining but then not  posting anything. Why is this? What should I do to fix it?

Thanks in advance

[shadow82x]

It happens to everyone there are tips over the forum to help your forum be successful. It takes time my friend.

http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=190581.0

[misha_val]

I've done(or I'm trying to do) everything in that post. Thanks

[dripac]

I have the same problem but I think that it takes time and luck, you need a couple of active people to start it off and then everyone else will follow. Care to do post exchange?

[Noddegamra]

Try using a more eye-catching theme. try to step away from the default and add something new. People will be inspired to post on a forum that looks great

[HoTmetal]

Try using a more eye-catching theme. try to step away from the default and add something new. People will be inspired to post on a forum that looks great

Agreed. After looking at your site, I'd also recommend the following things....

1>Remove the 2nd google ad and or change its location. (Remove would be the best option IMHO. The way google figures payment, unless you are getting more than 2 times the amount of  clicks, you are most likely loosing money, That is, you are getting less $ per clicks received. Not to mention that it just plain looks unprofessional. 

2> Make your Sports board (and other non active boards) viewable to only members above Newbie until it grows bigger. (It gives the appearance that the site isn't very active, and it has little to do with the goal of the site.) Or at least only have football viewable during football season, soccer, during soccer season... etc.

3> Get active: Post, post POST! Content is key. Get friends to post, promote.

4>Learn and utilize SSI's. One of the greatest things about SMF is SSI's
http://youngmillionaireforum.com/forum/ssi_examples.php
and utilize them on the root of your site. (youngmillionaireforum.com)
I'd use them to pull your key content from you forum for your main page, rather than using a redirect to "/forum". Two or three good stories/posts should be sufficient enough to draw users in.

5> Show off your arcade. There's a lot of games that have no hi-score. Challenge people to beat your scores. (Hook in co-workers and play on company time)  j/k


Like others have said, its a long hard road that takes time.
Hope this info helps... Be sure to post back and let us know how you're doing.

[Niteblade]

Indeed.

It's what I'm doing on my forum / landing page. No google ads should be present on the landing page, IMHO. It helps to scour other SMF related sites to see how some of the brilliant people are extracting & presenting information from the forum. For example, on Tinyportal, I found a nice little thread that detailed how to present the recent topics in an SMF format as opposed to a TP format.

I'm not sure this requires TP to be installed, though (since this code hack was on the TP site, afterall). AND I have the SMF Tag mod installed -- hence the php code that references "tags." In this manner, I can extract and display the tags on any given page.

Of course, my particular domain is in this code. I'm sure you can figure out that you should change that.

Code Select Expand


<div class="tborder" style="width: 100%;">

<table width="100%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0" >
<tr>
<td align="left" colspan="2" width="100%" valign="middle" class="windowbg">
<table width="100%" class="bordercolor" cellpadding="8" cellspacing="1" border="0" style="margin-top: 1px;">
<tr class="catbg3">
<td valign="middle">
<a title="Recent topics" href="http://www.midessa.net/forum/index.php?action=recent">Recent Topics</a>
</td>
</tr>
</table>

<table width="100%" class="bordercolor" cellpadding="8" cellspacing="1" border="0" style="margin-top: 1px;">
<tr>
<td align="center" colspan="2" valign="middle" class="windowbg">
<?// Title ="Recent Topics"

global $scripturl;
$what=ssi_recentTopics('10', NULL, 'array');

echo '<table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="4" class="bordercolor">';
echo '<tr class="catbg3">
<td valign="middle">Subject</td>
<td valign="middle">Board</td>
<td valign="middle">Poster</td>
<td valign="middle">Time</td>
   </tr>';

foreach ($what as $topic)
  {
echo '<tr>
<td class="windowbg" valign="middle">', $topic['link'];
// Is this topic new? (assuming they are logged in!)
if (!$topic['new'] && $context['user']['is_logged'])
  echo '<a href="', $scripturl, '?topic=', $topic['topic'], '.from', $topic['time'], '#new"><img src="', $settings['images_url'], '/', $context['user']['language'], '/new.gif" alt="', $txt[302], '" border="0" /></a>';
  echo '</td><td class="windowbg2" valign="middle" >', $topic['board']['link'], '</td>';
  echo '</td><td class="windowbg2" valign="middle" >', $topic['poster']['link'], '</td><td class="windowbg2" valign="middle" >';
  if ($settings['images_url'] != $settings['theme_url'] . '/images' || file_exists($settings['theme_dir'] . '/images/icons/last_post.gif'))
  echo '<a href="', $topic['href'], '"><img src="', $settings['images_url'], '/icons/last_post.gif" alt="', $txt[111], '" title="', $txt[111], '" border="0" style="float: right;" /></a>';
  echo '<span class="smalltext">', $topic['time'], '</span></td></tr>';
  }

echo '</table>';?>

</td>
</tr>
</table>

<table width="100%" class="bordercolor" cellpadding="8" cellspacing="1" border="0" style="margin-top: 1px;">
<tr class="catbg3" width="100%">
<td valign="middle" width="100%">
<a title="Forum tags" href="http://www.midessa.net/forum/index.php?action=tags">Popular Forum Tags</a>
</td>
</tr>
</table>

<table width="100%" class="bordercolor" cellpadding="8" cellspacing="1" border="0" style="margin-top: 1px;">
<tr>
<td class="windowbg2" align="center" valign="middle">
<?php

global  $db_prefix, $scripturl, $context;

//Tag cloud from http://www.prism-perfect.net/archive/php-tag-cloud-tutorial/

$query = "SELECT t.tag AS tag, l.ID_TAG, COUNT(l.ID_TAG) AS quantity
  FROM {$db_prefix}tags as t, {$db_prefix}tags_log as l WHERE t.ID_TAG = l.ID_TAG 
  GROUP BY l.ID_TAG
  ORDER BY l.ID DESC LIMIT 50";

$result = db_query($query, __FILE__, __LINE__);

// here we loop through the results and put them into a simple array:
// $tag['thing1'] = 12;
// $tag['thing2'] = 25;
// etc. so we can use all the nifty array functions
// to calculate the font-size of each tag
$tags = array();

$tags2 = array();

while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)) 
{
$tags[$row['tag']] = $row['quantity'];
$tags2[$row['tag']] = $row['ID_TAG'];
}

if(count($tags2) > 0)
{
// change these font sizes if you will
$max_size = 250; // max font size in %
$min_size = 100; // min font size in %

// get the largest and smallest array values
$max_qty = max(array_values($tags));
$min_qty = min(array_values($tags));

// find the range of values
$spread = $max_qty - $min_qty;
if (0 == $spread)
 { // we don't want to divide by zero
$spread = 1;
}

// determine the font-size increment
// this is the increase per tag quantity (times used)
$step = ($max_size - $min_size)/($spread);

// loop through our tag array
$context['poptags'] = '';
$row_count = 0;
foreach ($tags as $key => $value) 
{
$row_count++;
// calculate CSS font-size
// find the $value in excess of $min_qty
// multiply by the font-size increment ($size)
// and add the $min_size set above
$size = $min_size + (($value - $min_qty) * $step);
// uncomment if you want sizes in whole %:
// $size = ceil($size);

// you'll need to put the link destination in place of the #
// (assuming your tag links to some sort of details page)
$context['poptags'] .= '<a href="' . $scripturl . '?action=tags;id=' . $tags2[$key] . '" style="font-size: '.$size.'%"';
// perhaps adjust this title attribute for the things that are tagged
   $context['poptags'] .= ' title="'.$value.' things tagged with '.$key.'"';
   $context['poptags'] .= '>'.$key.'</a> ';
   if ($row_count > 5)
   {
$context['poptags'] .= '<br />';
$row_count =0;
   }
// notice the space at the end of the link
}
}
echo $context['poptags'];
?>
</td>
<td class="windowbg" align="center" valign="middle">
<script type="text/javascript" language="javaScript" src="http://xslt.alexa.com/site_stats/js/t/b?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.midessa.net"></script>
</td>

</tr>
</table>
</td>
</tr>
</table>

<table id="upshrinkHeader2" style="display: none;" width="100%" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" border="0">
<tr>
<td width="90%" class="titlebg2">
<span class="smalltext">
<br />
</span>
</td>
<td class="titlebg2" align="left" nowrap="nowrap" valign="top">
<br />
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</div>