Forum Moderators: rogerd
How do you - in the operation of your forum - avoid forum fatigue?
For me, forum fatigue is a function of a) redundancy of issues; and, b) a dearth of threads that excite thought. I address the issue by doing what I can in insert/instill threads that take the dialogue outside the realm of "more of this or that".
Have you ever been witness or party to forum fatigue?
Did you ever lose interest in a forum you launched? Why?
Did you ever stop participating in a forum, for reason's other than some offense to your standards of behavior? Did you ever leave simply because the content slowly degraded or was allow to devolve to the lowest common denominator? For example: "Money. My money. My stats are up. My stats are down. How do I make more money. Money, money, money."
Did you ever shake up a forum? Toss off something? Write out certain behavior by TOS to kill off trends that were killing the place? "No, we don't do that any more."
Did you ever risk your membership numbers for the sake of keeping the lifeblood pumping?
What are the signs of forum fatigue?
How have you revived a forum? How do you revive a forum?
What have you done to bring out the best in your members? To encourage the expression of new ideas?
Some people feel their forum involvement approaches an addiction, and sometimes these folks will try to "kick the habit".
I've seen issues affecting multiple members, though, if the tone of the conversation heads downhill. I.e., if a few obnoxious members are continuously rude, you may see quality members start to pack their bags. Partly fatigue, but mostly stress-avoidance of having to deal with some moron who picks apart everything they say.
What happens in the absence of a consistent effort to inject new material or new life into old material?
Ever notice that some forums keep playing the same theme, with just a slightly different arrangement? I've visited every known AdSense forum. Ahhhhhhh! My stats . . how many sites . . and so on. Domain forums are not far behind. So are content forums. Directory forums. Affiliate forums. So are . . .
Fatigue.
I say forum fatigue exists and it's likely to be a growing trend, as more vapid forums - crafted in the interest of pursuing AdSense dollars - rise up. Not that such forums are the cause of the problem. They are just a manifestation of what may be going wrong. For example, forums that aren't about the love of the topic but are instead simply another channel to make a buck.
I say blogs also pose the risk of diverting the lifeblood of forums - thought leaders, creative types, opinionated souls, etc. - who like everyone else suffer from the limits of time and energy, so more time for the blog and less for forums.
Hey, who needs forums when there's trackbacks and blog networks and Technorati?
I say, going forward, forum fatigue will be an increasingly important issue for forum operators to pay attention to. Witness services that - for payment - will have people initiate or participate in threads. Would that ever kill off a forum, if word got out?
But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe there isn't an emerging trend of forum fatigue. Maybe forces aren't at work that could result in forum fatigue.
Maybe there is no such thing as emerging trends of forum fatigue.
How many people here have seen some great forums just evaporate and disappear ...
It's like any other party, if it remains the same time after time after time then in the end people will get bored, regardless of the wonderful company and/or content ...
You got to keep growing changing trying stuff out.. it's so easy to get stuck in that rut especially if it seems like it's all ticking along nicely...
I'd say this can happen in some areas - most commonly, on a topic within a forum.
If you get a large daily flow of new visitors, that can liven things up, even if the topic itself isn't changing much. If fact, though, most topics do have news, developments, etc.
Having an off topic area may help - people never tire of chatting about the news of the day, talking about personal interests, etc.
What about "forum admin fatigue"? ;)
I once saw a blog that had an idea called something like: "20 Topics Challenge".
I used it in my forum and on one of my blogs, and it was a lot of fun!
The premise is that you list 20 types of topics and follow them from 1-20.
It doesn't need to be every day, but close to it keeps them interested.
Sample:
1.Interview (post an interview)
2.Books I've Read
3.Meme
4.World Issues
5. (uhhh- I think you get the idea?)
