When you launched a forum did you shoot from the hip or plan?

If you planned what worked and what didn't? Hipshooters: Do it again?

[Webwork]

Did you have a loosely conceived plan or some greater detail?

Did you:

State a purpose or have a mission statement?

Have a detailed, timelined promotional plan?

Have a well thought out and worded TOS?

Think through the issues of spam?

Did you have systems or methods worked out in advance for addressing issues 1,2&3?

"Next time" what would you do differently?

[rogerd]

I've done it both ways. I've downloaded a copy of BBSware, uploaded it to a site and had a forum in place in less than an hour. I've also spent months in prepping a forum prior to launch.

I think it's like anything else in business - if a forum is a key element of your business strategy and failure is not an option, then you'll want to plan your launch in some detail.

I've found a forum software conversion is more challenging than a new launch. Not only do you have to deal with data conversion issues, you really don't have the luxury of fixing problems as they come up during the initial slow activity period most new forums experience. In the conversion of a busy forum, one minute the forum is sitting idle, and the next minute you've got hundreds of users piling in, testing their login, trying to post, etc. There's not much room for error, so thorough planning and testing are critical.

[faltered]

For me, it was both planned and on a whim, if that's possible.

I knew it was an aspect I wanted to have on my site for many reasons. Half of the content/layout was planned, the other half I did as I went along. Which is all really surprising being the perfectionist planner that I am!

I do have a mission for the forum, and have considered spam and how to deal with it. Just need to really grow the forum first, before I have those things to worry about.

[AAnnAArchy]

All of my boards were whims - two boards were started because people were unhappy with other boards and wanted to escape. Two other boards were started because the subjects were interesting and we thought we'd see if other people were interested. Sort of throwing things up against the wall to see if they'd stick. One private board has been running for around four years, with the same regulars. One of the "see if it'll stick" boards has been up for almost two years and has over 5000 people registered.

I don't know that I could sit down and plan out a board. I'd feel like the time was wasted if it wasn't successful. I also feel as though if the board is there, there's always a way to make it more successful, if that's what you want. I'd put more thought into setting up the board with the proper tools (verified registrations, probation, etc) and categories than in mission statements or promotion.

Actually, come to think of it, I don't have a mission statement on any of my boards. Spam is deleted immediately, although I haven't much trouble with it anyway. My basic TOS is "be polite", don't discuss anything illegal and for crying out loud, use apostrophes.