A Forum Forum?

Traffic Growth Through Community Building

[rogerd]

A month or so ago there was a discussion of new forum ideas. After scanning back posts as well as having a few interesting discussions, I'm wondering if there would be sufficient interest in a Forum Forum here? It seems like quite a few WebmasterWorld members own or maintain sites with forums, and I could see there being some useful discussion of forum software, maximizing spiderability, moderation and community issues, etc. As BestBBS creeps towards rollout, having a growing forum community here might even make commercial sense.

Perhaps the concept of "Community Building" could be tied into this forum. This topic may be a bit overlooked here, oddly enough, despite the WebmasterWorld-demonstrated fact that a good community-building effort can generate as much (or more) traffic than pure SEO. "Community" seems so 1999, though - is there a new and better buzzword? ;)

[eaden]

I run a popular forum so naturally I would be interested in this :) I think that 'Communities' can take the shape of more than just forums, there are blogs, wikis, mailing lists etc, so I think 'Communities' would be the most inclucive forum name.

[Marketing Guy]

I agree - there are a lot of issues of running a quality forum that aren't naturally obvious to most.

On top of the technical issues, there is also considerations about building traffic for a new forum, dealing with spammers, forum security, difussing *heated* threads, etc...

Im sure there are a lot of members that would benefit a great deal from the experience of the WW team! :)

Scott

[Brett_Tabke]

yes. Tied to an upcoming upgrade in a few months.

[rogerd]

Sounds good, Brett. A "Community" forum would be a nice partner for "Content"...

[Jenstar]

I agree - I would love to see a Community board too, as I own one popular one too.

[Brett_Tabke]

>Community partner content

Oh boy - the magic words - one of those 'forums as content' people eh!? (rubbing hands together).

I can see the first post will have to be an attempt to disabuse you of that popular misconception.

Let's cut to the chase: Community isn't about content, it's about relationships and service.

[rogerd]

Hmmm, I didn't mean "community AS content", but rather was trying to highlight the yin/yang relationship between the two. A 5,000 page forum is clearly content, but so is a group of 5,000 random topical pages. Community is the magic that creates return visits, page views, and (maybe) an overall positive feeling. (Clearly, too, even individual forums differ dramatically in their performance as communities.)

Lots of sites have content, but relatively few have an effective community. I think the duality will be worth exploring: When will enhancing community help a site's other objectives? What are the costs associated with the care and feeding of a community? (Bet you have a few thoughts on THAT one, Brett!) Are some (or most?) sites better off focusing purely on their content? I think this could be a really interesting area when combined with the more nuts-and-bolts issues of forums, blogs, etc.

You can still make that first post, Brett - keep those hands rubbing! ;)

[ggrot]

yes. Tied to an upcoming upgrade in a few months.

Releasing Best BBS perhaps Brett? I look forward to the day.

[Marcia]

Fabulous idea! We've had a number of questions related to the topic raised over time that are scattered about, and it's such an important subject it's high time to give it the focus it deserves.

didn't mean "community AS content", but rather was trying to highlight the yin/yang relationship between the two

There's a symbiotic relationship between the two. Content exists as the framework of the venue within an environment, but in a community setting, what we normally think of as content is dynamically created. Rather than a static entity it's alive and pro-active. We can almost think of it as interactive content development. It's the dynamic element that breathes the life_force into it.

Lots of sites have content, but relatively few have an effective community.

We can bookmark static content; we can download or print out static content. But we can't bookmark, download or print out people.

Community isn't about content, it's about relationships and service.

The written content stays as record, but in a sense the people are really what make up the substance of the content, the substantive ingredient.

relationships and service: there's so much to explore with the concepts represented by those two simple words that there could probably be a book written about each of them.