Do you think your competitors have joined your forum?

Some admins go extremely overboard when it comes to their power - I have more and more people joining my website every day because of admins at other sites who have let the power go to their heads.

 

Better for you! Btw, I just saw your site and it looks fantastic!

 

At that rate, they won't have very many members left to play with, soon.

 

Lol I can only hope - I hope they continue to ban people or WARN them on their site so they come to mine for more freedom, haha.

FMB - thanks for the comments, still working on improving it but am hopefully there - I was just contacted by the magazine my website was featured in they want to add my website as "their" forums all they want is a board set up where they can get feedback from their readers on how to improve the magazine etc.

 

Wow, Wonderful accomplishments Merk! I wish you the best of luck.

 

Oh definitely, whenever someone gets banned there they often show up over at our forum. Sometimes in a "hey this place is cooler than I figured" way, sometimes "god I can't believe I have to be here for two weeks ugh this place effin sucks!" way, and some that just want nothing more than to compare the two places

they talk about how they enjoy our rules more.. heh coming from a banned member

 

Congrats on that; negotiate a good revenue share.

 

Thanks, we are in preliminary discussions at the moment as I just got of the phone to them but it is a promising proposition we are discussing, a bi-monthly full page advert in their magazine (it is bi-monthly printed), advertising on their site and having "their" forums pointing to my current ones with that additional board for their feedback etc.

It is kind of funny because ever since we appeared in the magazine I have seen our guests/visitors grow - our membership base is growing slowly but more of my competitors have signed up and I see them browsing the threads about the magazine we were in, and even a couple have emailed me to ask how we got in there as it is the first time they have actually advertised this type of thing normally it is websites about sporting gear or sports wear and all of a sudden they are advertising a full sports website.

I have enjoyed it! I am sitting back smirking, when you think we have only been open six months and have so far come this far, I have earned enough for a couple laptops out of my advertising etc and have a number of paid addons i am not even using all of which I haven't needed to pay for, the site pays for itself each month it is just fantastic.

 

You mean they had existing forums that they're now pointing towards your site, or you set up one for them? Either way it sounds like quite a coup, congratulations

 

They don't have any forums yet - they want to have a link on their site and advertise to their customers (and in their magazine) that they can come and chat about the magazine, see what is happening in the next issue, get behind the scenes look at the publication of the magazine etc etc by visiting "their" forums however when they click on "Forums" from their magazines website it takes them to my forums with their couple of boards set up to get feedback etc.

I don't know whether to do it lol I am still tossing it all up.

 

Will they be supplying someone from the magazine to moderate/answer questions in their little forum?

 

Yes they will be, their editor and sales manager are going to be providing all the feedback etc from their magazine

 

That's fantastic! Congratulations - I hope it works out for both you and your community.

 

It sounds like a pretty good deal to me; can you tell us about the downsides you're considering?

 

Awesome, somebody had their eyes open on your site at the right time.

 

i was banned from their forum, their mods forum, she deleted my account on another forum, she threatened to hack us, deleted everything on my friends first forum when she was an admin, spread lies about us on the internet.......the temptation to ban her would be way too great!

 

My competition is apart of my community. They buy art sometimes, but not so active. Their community is dead too, so no worries here.