The main reason when a forum dies

One of the main reasons a forum dies is on account of the administrator and staff. A person can open a forum, but then when he realizes that forums aren't overnight successes, then he gets upset and closes it, and he wonders why it didn't go well. Making a forum is not a game, a joke, or just so you can tell your little friends, "Hey, I'm an admin!" Making a forum requires time, patience and effort and knowledge about the software of your choosing would be helpful as well. If you don't know what you are doing or what you want to do, don't even try making a forum. The only exception to not having knowledge about a certain software was if it was a new one that was just released. But if you know nothing about forums or foruming, don't try to make one. ALso, don't have high expectations of yourself either. I've seen people who admire sites like Forum Promotion, and they are inspired to create their own forum, all because FP got successful in three short years, but these people think that FP's success happened over night. They run off with the idea that FP created a forum, promoted like heck for just one day, and then BOOM! they're almost at the 10,000th member post mark. That's not even close to how it happened. For them it took time, energy, and a lot of patience once the forum got active or started getting active. And that's how all forums are. Some forums are harder to get off the ground than others, as there are so many types of forums out there. I would post more but my hands are kind of shaky from my asthma meds, but you get the picture though...

 

It's all on the owner. The owner controls everything. He or she should be active and get as many topics as possible.

 

When the founder decides to work on 'another' project and pretty much leaves the forum to shrivel and die. The admin is the food source for a forum.

 

Yea as I stated its all depends on the founder/owner... most founders arent active enough or are too lazy to advertise.

 

As I stated in my earlier post, there are exceptions to that "rule". So to state it's "ALL" on the owner is inaccurate.

That is true, BUT, there are exceptions here as well. An admin is not always the same thing as an owner. You can, as an owner, hire an admin.

 

Forums die because their is nothing useful to talk about. A forum should always be evolving with new areas of discussion as the community evolves.

 

i was an active admin. but a forum also needs active members. no members, the forum dies

 

Active admin, at least 2 dedicated posters. Admin must be proactive in advertising his forum and networking to meet people and get his forum's name out there. Otherwise, it will fail. All but a handful eventually do.

 

Totally agree. A forum may be in a difficult niche e.g. general discussion but people will still join if the appearance is good, the members are friendly, the admin is active and helpful and the site is content-rich.

 

A poor administrator with no skills can ruin a forum as well... One thing I hate most is a forum where the administrator thinks that he and his staff are completely superior and they don't have to follow the rules. In order to run a successful forum, you have to lead by example.

 

I agree well said Tom. Very true.

 

no active users, or no updates. Poor Administrators and Moderators, Lack of features and looks Boring.

 

Thats where a lot of the focus lies now in gaming and promotion forums. A lot of it is aimed at the younger generation and as such old foggies like me don't stand a chance because I am not interested in gaming or promotion forums. If you look at say Forum Promotion a lot of their advertising comes from gaming forums. Theres really no niche now a days because the web has become so bloated with these type forums as well as other types. I often hear people say be original but that comes at a price and most time you have to carbon copy another like board and just change the wording. Does that make it original?

 

I would completely agree. An inactive owner is no motivation for members to be active. If the founder isn't interested why should anyone else be? They should be posting, replying. answering questions and assisting in moderating (or moderating if no other staff members)

 

Have 'killed' some forums myself and it's true: the admin is the one to make or break a community. Being an active admin is NOT easy. A forum is not something you do for 3 days, it's something you need to take care of for years maybe. You have problems, family and still need to be online to manage your community. The moment you start being inconsistent and not do your job, your forums will suffer. There are very few forums that can sustain themselves from their members' activity. I have my Romanian forums like this, I can be offline for 3-4 days and my guys are still active and work nicely. But that's a forum that took 5 years into making and is over 60K posts, so there's enough stuff to be seen there

 

Well, you're on point with this one - but an inactive owner might not be the only downfall of the community - members bickering, and not getting banned/warned for it is also another good way the forum can die.