Ever thought about closing your forum?

[ILip]

I've been using SMF for quite some time (and before that I used phpBB with the same forum), and I've had almost purely pleasant expriences with it (so thank you all). But no matter how good the software is, there's just some things it can't do. It can't change the people.

[wasteoftime]

My forum has acquired members nicely, many active posters and even more of frequent readers. Few commercial parties have expressed their interest in advertising on the forum. Despite these things I've been thinking about shutting down the forum for quite some time. A while ago I asked if anyone would be interested to take over the administration duties, but it was a total waste of time, and it's quite probable that among my userbase there isn't anyone who has enough interest, (technical) competence and time to run the forum.

So, I've really been thinking about shutting down the whole thing. Why? For selfish reasons, of course. It takes time, money and effort to run the thing. My time is not that limited, and the forum is not that big or troubled so that it would consume all or too much of my time, but I'm lazy.

So, I could ask the members if they were interested in moderation or admin tasks? I have, few times, and it's always been... fruitless. And here comes the major reason for me being pissed off about running the forum: I feel that most of the members are just some sort of parasites. They take no interest in developing the forum for collective benefit (in the ways of contributing their thoughts, ideas and so on). They do not even answer the polls about the forum, and I'm certaing I've made clear (and visible to all) that I'd be grateful for feedback. They just aren't interested. I think I've made some nice experiments with the forum, and had the members participated it would have made the community greater, nicer and more beneficial to everyone. But they don't participate. They don't even say that my ideas suck. They just suck the contributions of the few outstanding members. Mostly people post some brainless blabbering, or when they themselvels need help. And I assure you I haven't exhausted my members with constantly trying out new things, asking for ideas or such. Some time ago I did ask more questions, during the renewal of the rules (they needed to adapt to the grown userbase), so I wanted to know how would the members like the forum to be moderated. And some of the users whined about me asking such things. (On the other hand some members seem to expect for the administrator to have some clairvoyantic skills and to know all the right answers. Mistakes aren't met with constructive criticism but by stating how stupid the admin/moderator in question is. Of course this is expected, I don't live in a dreamworld.)

There are some times when they contribute: when something is going on what they don't like about. And I've made it clear, several times, that "I want all kind of feedback, but there's an area devoted for it". However, they post these rants and whining into topics that originally aren't related to their posts at all. I've stated that I do not have time to read all the posts, but it doesn't seem to have any effect. And at the same some members go off to another forums to speculate about the problems of "my" forum (there are certain cesspools around the internet where one can write anonymously anything about anyone). And if I tell that the problems of "my" forums should be discussed on "my" forum and not on others, they just say that opinions are not allowed there.

I want to make clear that I'm not bitter because I never get any thanks on having created the forum or keeping it up (though a thank or two among all the whining wouldn't make me feel bad). The users and their participation make the forum, not me. I'm just so fed up with the fact that almost no one is interested in developing the community to a greater level, but only in gaining personal advantage. They see it as a free lunch. So why take the time and effort to run a forum if most of the members don't deserve it?

I'm being a bit cocky, I admit, and I certainly whine about "nothing". However I'd like to mention that initially the forum was for a much smaller crowd, for people that wanted to help each other and have a good time over the internet. So it has grown by accident, by old members recruiting new members. And of course I never believed in some naive net utopias about a place where everyone would help anyone and so on... but I'm a member on some other forums too, and when I've observed how people on these forums behave, I've seen that they usually are much more interested in the development and future of the community, and they participate on a whole different level.

Addition: I don't deny the fact that most of the members would see this whole situation otherwise, or they wouldn't see any situation at all. I know things like these are highly subjective, and I admit that this is only my take on the situation.

[/wasteoftime]

But enough about this whining... I'm not surprised if the admins here would feel this way about me and many other members too. So let's talk about you all. Have you ever though about just closing your forums down, just telling you're members to stop whining and demanding and start behaving.

[Jeff Lewis]

Yes 

[diplomat.]

Yes, but it was because of inactivity

[HoTmetal]

Yes... I feel your pain.

[Harro]

Ofcourse.
I'm thinking to close my forum right now as well (because of inactivity though).
But if your forum is active and gets some traffic, then I'm pretty sure you could sell it to somebody...

[Peter Duggan]

I've closed at least two (the small sailing forum on my personal site and much larger Pixelparity, which was briefly a very successful graphics forum). To which I'd add that, with small forums often lacking the momentum to keep their users' interest and big ones being so onerous to look after, I'm increasingly wary of starting new ones unless they meet the needs of unique user bases (clubs, societies etc.).

[L.G.S]

I've had around 10 posts on my forum in the last TWO WEEKS. So yes, I'm thinking about it.

[shadow82x]

Sometimes I do feel like closing it down but than my members would get mad so I changed my mind.

[dxyy]

Hmm, I haven't thought about closing down my forum, but I have had similar frustrations, in that I sometimes think some of the members are a bit selfish and are only concerned with what they can get with no attention paid to what value they could also add to the forum.

Rather than closing your forum, if it comes to that, you should sell it.

[elfishtroll]

what a big whiny ass baby.


Its all about psychology. USE IT.

without seeing your forum and the structure, its hard to help further, but I dont figure you really want any help anyway, just a place to left of some steam, (or other hot air)

just messin' with ya!


best bet is to sell it if its all too much for your little head!

[Niteblade]

what a big whiny ass baby.


Its all about psychology. USE IT.

without seeing your forum and the structure, its hard to help further, but I dont figure you really want any help anyway, just a place to left of some steam, (or other hot air)

just messin' with ya!


best bet is to sell it if its all too much for your little head!

Psychology? Was that last post an example of passive-agressiveness? Anyhow.

People are for the most part guided by self-interest. You can't really depend upon the spirit of generosity; however, you can always depend upon the reality of self-interest. Therefore, before closing your forum, ask yourself how it would be in the self-interest of members to contribute to the forum.

Are there contests? Are there monetary rewards? What are the incentives being offered to contribute? Are there other little bells and whistles associated with contributions? People aren't going to contribute to a forum because they want to help you.. people contribute to a forum to help themselves.

So the goal here is figuring out a method to align what's in the self-interest of others to what's in the administrator's self-interest.

Here's an excerpt from my latest article.

All forum administrators want quality traffic. So now the question becomes, "How can I help deliever quality traffic to those who promote my directory?" The answer: Traffic exchanging! When many forums link to our directory, our pagerank increases (my self-interest). At this point, I need to communicate our strength and weight of our pagerank back to those sites who linked to this directory (your self-interest). To answer this, I am sending traffic from the directory's landing page -- the page with the highest pagerank -- to random forums. Note : Read more about our free traffic exchange. Upon each screen refresh, a new random site that is already listed in our directory is pulled and is visited by search engines and humans alike. In other words, promoting this directory will help to promote your forum.

In this quote, I mention the fact that putting a link pointing to my directory on your website will both benefit me (my directory gets a higher pagerank) and it will help you (that pagerank is communicated to random sites found in the directory). This would be how one would align the self-interest of other with one's own self-interest.

Just my two cents.

[ILip]

best bet is to sell it if its all too much for your little head!

No one would pay enough for it to be worth all the trouble... pissing of my members instead by closing the forum would be priceless.

You can't really depend upon the spirit of generosity; however, you can always depend upon the reality of self-interest.

I've tried, though not with anything that would offer something for the opportunists. I've tried to get them to help each other, so that collective participation would result in greater amount of good for everyone. But as that's something that doesn't offer them instant benefit, they're not interested.

Therefore, before closing your forum, ask yourself how it would be in the self-interest of members to contribute to the forum.

I guess you're right. But I don't want to. At this point I only want to see them get pissed off. Stupid? Yes. Satisfying? Definitely. To think what would go on in their little heads when I would just state that there's no such thing as a free lunch, especially if you come to the table hands unwashed, hogging all the food and making derogatory remarks about the food and the cook.

But already my original post was quite futile, and I apologize for that. I probably just wanted to let off steam, as suggested, because of people behaving like jerks when you give them something for free. (The things I've heard about people's behaviour in supermarket when someones there giving them free samples of some product...  )

[L.G.S]

Well I don't want to go offtopic, but this topic seems kind of relevant to what I need.

I've just closed my forum to everybody so I can improve it, and we are opening back up again on the 15th.

What I need, is for a couple of people to make some topics so others can reply when they get back on the forum. Is anybody willing to help me with this? As I mentioned my forum was dead so I really need to try anything.

[elfishtroll]

sniff.

@L.G.S ..unless all your members are Global mods or Admins, they wont see the IP addresses of the posts, so YOU could start all those 'seed' topics and cut out the middleman! (or woman).

Btw, good way to stir up interest, w/o even a hint as to what your forum is about!

@Ilip, maybe you should just step away for a bit - I doubt the site will crash and burn the minute you leave!

[ILip]

maybe you should just step away for a bit - I doubt the site will crash and burn the minute you leave!

That wasn't the issue (and too bad it won't).

[L.G.S]

sniff.

@L.G.S ..unless all your members are Global mods or Admins, they wont see the IP addresses of the posts, so YOU could start all those 'seed' topics and cut out the middleman! (or woman).

I've done that before, that is why I'm asking. Doing it myself is incredibly long and boring process. With others doing it, it won't be such a task as it would by myself.

Btw, good way to stir up interest, w/o even a hint as to what your forum is about!

Its general discussion, so everything.

[elfishtroll]

I've done that before, that is why I'm asking. Doing it myself is incredibly long and boring process. With others doing it, it won't be such a task as it would by myself.

true, and the similarity of typing styles is a bit of a giveaway.

feel free to PM me a login and I'll bugger 'round till the natives run me off with flaming torches and pitchforks!

@ILip how about some more info on your forum?

(I could use some case study info for my book ! )

[L.G.S]

I've done that before, that is why I'm asking. Doing it myself is incredibly long and boring process. With others doing it, it won't be such a task as it would by myself.

true, and the similarity of typing styles is a bit of a giveaway.

feel free to PM me a login and I'll bugger 'round till the natives run me off with flaming torches and pitchforks!

@ILip how about some more info on your forum?

(I could use some case study info for my book ! )

Once I open my forum I'll give ya a shout, thanks!

[dojo]

I have 13 forums right now. Some active, some struggling. I thought about closing them thousands of times. But then I get back, see a new post or a new member, read some topics and I am again .. in love. I started them on topics I love and being on my forums brings me great joy. I cannot work on them as I used to (I have a regular job and am a desiger with many clients) ... but I love having them. I don't think I'll close them ever .. will just work ... today on this .. tomorrow on the other one .. can't see myself without them  ...

[PacificWx]

LGS - count me in as well.

Ilip - you got to do what you feel comfortable doing