what brought you into the world of forums?

Just curious as to how everyone got interested in managing their own forums? For me I think it goes all the way back to the days of Prodigy, before I ever had Internet. I enjoyed the primitive forums there and sought out similar places once I had Internet access. It took a while to learn the basics of web design and Perl, but once I did I put up a really primitive forum script for a guild in an online game.

 

It started with that there didn't exist any forums in the niche I was interested at the time so I decided to create my own and I liked the power :p so I kept doing forums.

 

Great topic.

Let's see... I'm quite sure that it was because of the "fun factor" that's involved with managing an online community. I've said this before and I'll say it again: in order for a forum to truly succeed, a certain amount of both dedication and passion need to be directed towards the venture. Without either one of those, the likeliness of failure is high. This is the beauty of running a forum - if your dream is to manage a successfully active and fun discussion forum, you need to have the drive to do so.

I also love working with people - I'm easily one of the most social people you will meet. By using the personality that I have in real life and bringing it into the online discussion world, I'm doing what I love to do: interacting with others.

 

I, like Chris, love interacting and meeting new people.

However, I first got into forums when I joined Meez, became a moderator, and then quit.

After that, I started my first forum and the rest, it's history.

 

I started before the Internet had forums - dial up bulletin board systems were my thing for most of the 90s : )

 

I got into forums through a friends forum, must have been over 18 months ago now.

 

No one would hire m as a Mod...so I created my own forum

Seriously, I have a LOT of free time and wanted to try creating my own forum. That and I enjoying talking with and helping people.

 

When I first entered the forum world, it was because there wasn't anything out there that covered what I wanted to discuss. I wasn't interested in signing up to a multitude of forums to fulfil my desire to discuss the numerous subjects I'm passionate about and so I built my own. I was an forum administrator long before I ever became a forum member of other sites.

 

It was the CPA (Casual Player's Alliance). I was a real hardcore magic player, and I wanted to learn the most about the game. So I figured I'd join a forum. A few months later, I started my own in the same niche. I've been hooked ever since.

 

I am a very outgoing person and a couple years ago I stumbled across a website that have a vbulletin board - I started posting and liked it and started my own website using a phpbb board.

After a couple years and once the website went under thanks to a fall out with the web host i was with I spent two years planning my latest one and in January 2009 launched using my vbulletin board for the first time so still learning, but love having control and moving things around and adding new things to improve it.

 

At the time the lack of custom graphics. Nowadays though it's a different story and we are seeing graphics as being a more important part of bulletin boards.

IPB - Are the best when it comes to noticing the visual side of enhancing a board (remember IPBPlanet) now invisionize who were the official resource and they are heads above vbulletin in the graphic department.

Vbulletin was a nightmare when it came to graphics with the official resource having a few custom sets with 99% mostly consisting of default coloured sets. Absolute nightmare of site when it came to graphics and eventually took notice that graphics play a major part on boards as much as coding does. I'm referring to standalone graphics not styles.

 

I used to frequently visit a website for a shoe/clothing company. I wore their shoes a lot and would look at the pages for the shoes I had, to see what people had to say about them. It turns out the shoe comments were not actually comments, but an Invision forum, with a topic for each shoe. This was my first time ever seeing a forum, or even knowing what one is (but even then I had no idea it was a "forum" - I just thought it was some kind of commenting system). I tried to add my comment but I couldn't because you needed to be registered. So I did - it took me about a week to get validated. Once I was, I commented all the various shoe topics a lot. It took me a very long time to discover there was an entire forum with discussions on many different things, and not just these shoe topics.

 

oops, I think I posted the wrong answer to the question :o

What got me into using forums is information about cars. I usually drive some what unique cars which is hard to find anyone local that knows enough about them. So I started searching the net for information and ran across forums for each vehicle. I also found that my local area has a car forum. Now when ever I buy a car or need info on a hobby, I look for a forum that fits my needs.

 

I looked something up online and was taken to a discussion forum thread (vBulletin, of course). I needed to find out some more information about the situation and my specific case - so I registered and asked questions, engaged in discussions, etc. I quickly became fond of the constant interaction with a variety of people. I found a few more forums of topics that interested me, and posted on them too.

Eventually I decided it was my turn to start a forum - so I did. Then I landed an administrator position on a very active and established forum (get that - I had no experience whatsoever but I still got the admin position ) and things just took off from there.

 

I became a super moderator on a very active and large forum, too, with little to no experience at not only moderating, but just foruming as a whole. Oh well, it worked!

 

when i first got internet i was looking up a tv show i liked and found a forum for it. i joined, then later joined a few others that members on there were talking about.

on one of those forums (run by proboards), had a massive argument on it, and when it got to the point that nobody wanted to post on there anymore cause of the arguing, but still wanted to keep in touch. then one of us noticed the link at the bottom to create our own forum. we did that, and i was a global mod at first. then when one of the admin stepped down because of personal issues, i was made admin. then we moved onto phpbb about a year ago.

then i joined a forum similar to this one, and got talking to one of the members on there, who wanted someone who had experience of phpbb to help him run a forum he had opened, and thats when i became admin of my second forum.

the third was when one of the forums global mods (now hes admin), wanted to make his own forum and asked me to be an admin there.

 

For me, I didn't originally plan to run a forum, I planned to merely run a relatively popular fan site about a topic I thought didn't have enough discussion online. However, I saw the forums on various forum hosting sites (like Invisionfree and what not), and the activity a few of them were getting, and decided I needed one for my own site, just like all the other fan sites.

When I then later moved to vBulletin from Invisionfree, then the forum took off and ended up being more popular than the rest of the site.