Why are all so many forums turning new members away?

Found them in referrer logs & want to sign up but they don't want me...

[oddsod]

A site of my is being talked about in a lot of forums (about 200-300 threads over the last week) but I'm noticing a strange thing. With many of the forums I can't read the thread unless I've signed up. Fair enough, I've seen that before. But there seems to be a trend of forums saying they're full and don't want any new members, thank you very much. And that seems to be rising fast. Either a lot of forums have decided they don't want new members or a lot of new forums are being very selective about who they take on.

Anybody else noticing this?

Why is it happening?

[rogerd]

Interesting, oddsod. I can't say I've had the same experience very often. Is this a particular genre or category?

I do know that lots of forums find new members to be frustrating - they frequently ask questions answered many times before, are rude to long-time members who try to help, and otherwise disrupt the harmony of the community. At the same time, there's a natural turnover in most communities. If you cut off the flow of new members, you won't develop the new, high quality members you need to prosper in the long run.

[Frequent]

Any chance they are blocking you BECAUSE they are discussing your site?

Freq---

[oddsod]

particular genre...

Hmmm, now that you mention it there may have been a higher proportion in forums about IM (internet marketing), self-improvement and webmastering. They constitute about 30 out of the 40 odd forums I've found who are not taking new members. Even the ones with paying subscriptions are closed to new membership!

Frequent, nope, not the case at all. They're saying nice things about my site and would probably love for me to comment in their threads if they knew I was trying to get in. I think.

[rogerd]

Must be scary to have all these people saying things about you that you can't see... ;)

You could try emailing an admin at a closed forum & asking to be allowed to join.

[oddsod]

rogerd, yeah I could email them all... but I'm not really that keen to see what the discussion is. This thread was more about whether there's a trend there... and why.

Frequent checked a couple of those forums for me and it looks like, after you filter out the referrer spam, some are email harvesters: Our site is so great that we're inundated. If you want to join this exclusive club give us your name and email address - register here.

Some, I've figured, are like private clubs, or forums only for the employees of a certain corporation/members of a professional body etc.

But this thread hasn't taken off so I guess not a lot of people are seeing what I am.

[cerebrum]

Maybe they are just hotlinking your images on your server.

[oddsod]

It's a good point but, no, that's not it.