Death of a forum?

What do you think are some of the main causes toward the death of a forum? Is it the lack of staff? Lack of passion from its owner, or what do you think it is?

 

The biggest would be the owner. If the owner doesn't have the passion and time for running a forum that would be the main cause, as the forum's owner is a very important to a community.

 

There are many reasons. When forums just break into arguments. When the competition in the niche gets overwhelming. Owner and staff don't post or do anything for the community. They loose their reputation. They get hacked. The owner abuses his powers or treats the forum as a cash generator. They go into long spells of maintenance and then can't regain activity. There are many many reasons.

 

Yea tell me about it, I have had major problems with competition and it does get very overwhelming, but now its all worked out. Staff is a key part to everyone forum, if they don't do their jobs or do it very poorly than that can make the members unhappy and they will most likely end up leaving. Causing the forum to die.

 

I'd say the sale of a forum when the original owners/staff do not stay on, and not get on with the new ownership, etc.

 

I would agree, because if someone purchases the forum, but the community can't get along with the new owner or the owner goes totally berserk then that can close down a forum faster than anyone can blink. I still remember when Promotion Source was sold; the new owner spammed the place and seemed to be a firm believer in "do as I say, not as I do." You would get infracted and/or banned for using the forum for what it was supposed to be for.. It was pathetic. I think I wrote about this on my own forum one time, on my current one.

 

Yea, that was a little bit silly

 

It was, because the site was called "Promotion Source" not "Baseball Promotion Source" and that new owner pretty much used the site for just that...BASEBALL!!!! He thought we were spamming, but yet he was doing ten times worse than any of us were by posting about stupid rare baseball cards and crap like that. I'm still surprised I never got banned, but thinking back, I think that was because I kept my mouth shut and just kept posting like normal, though.

 

Ya, that's huge turn off for a lot of forum owners - when the old owner/staff members quit. But it really depends on the new ownership if the ship will sink or rise. I think its more of a lack of content - which is why forums fail.

 

I guess we're assuming the board was active in the first place. I think one of the main contributors to the death of the forum is pretty much always going to be lack of passion from the owner. If you can't be passionate about the subject, why would your members be?

Most forums need a lot of work from the owner (or paid staff) to even get going. I think a lot of people go in to it eyes wide shut and expect it to be easy. The "build it and they shall come" mentality...

In bigger forums I expect complacency comes in to play a little also. Just because you're the top forum for your niche, doesn't mean you can take a step back and just let the forum survive on it's own. There's always going to be people biting at your ankles and trying to poach your members.

 

I was a member of a very big forum which shut down due to the owner not being able to afford its monthly cost. The forum had over 100,000 members and it was very active as well. I guess it became too big in a very short time and the owner didn't anticipate this. My guess is the forum was not generating enough revenues through advertising so the owner couldn't afford the inflated hosting costs.

 

Lack of things to keep the members interested in my opinion.
A forum with a proper niche can potentially attract thousands of members efforlessly. Then again there are niches with very less people into it.. And then there are overused niches, where there are plenty of sites that offer the same thing, some even better.
The owners needs to catch a hold of this early on, use this to his advantage to drag in more members and give them a reason to stay.

 

The main reason is lack of activity, I always feel like I am posting interesting stuff for members but it seems like there is no one around with the same interests as me! But soccer is so popular! Ay....

 

The main reason is lack of activity and campaign. How can people know if you don't make any advertising? The owner also need to be more proactive in order to create successful forum.

 

Well said. But, also, its not just on the owner, it would be on the whole staff team - because they work together. If the owner was losing passion, then that really meant he needs to take some time off before making a stupid decision of letting it die. Because, a good staff team rides or dies for the community no matter what.

 

I guess its mostly the lack of activity and the initiative of the owner. If the could somehow just exchange post or probably go to postloop, it might be avoided.

 

Assuming a forum has a fair number of members, it's probably the competing websites that will cause its downfall. Sooner or later, people will focus on a few websites on top of their list. Given two or three websites with members from the same population, there is practically no point in being in two or three similar websites when you actually interact with the same people.

Making a forum (or website) unique and useful will go a long way to building and keeping its target social network.

 

A community is built in years and one needs to be consistent with it. The moment you, as the community leader, lose focus, that's the moment you're endangering your community. I was guilty in the past for dropping the ball and it was entirely my fault. When you stop caring, all the others do the same.

 

I believe the main reason a forum dies is because the owner is not willing to do the work to make it succeed. Forums are extremely hard to build a great community, and it takes a lot of time. Most forum owners tend to just give up over time...

 

Well said. I remember when Sitepoint used to be the #1 forum on the web for webmasters, digitalpoint took the web by storm and blew Sitepoint out of the water - community wise though. It all comes down to "Are your features good?" "Do members enjoy your community?"

If they do, then of course, the death of your forum would take a long time.