Whats the best way to start off a webmaster forum I want to create a small forum for webmasters but I dont know where to start. I have the site setup and all but starting the content and getting people to join is difficult to start any ideas?

Offer something the others don't.
Write some quality articles; that will go viral.


Specific to your forum:
Get a new domain, 'DragonStarDesign.net' sounds more like a 'GFX' thing, than a serious webmaster forum.
A custom, or even premade [See: vBSkinWorks] design wouldn't go a miss. Anything that isn't the vBulletin default.
Start with less forums in the beginning, it won't make your forum seem so empty.

It is quite a saturated few, I mean so many big webmaster forums in the arena already, unless you think of something new, I don't think you can make much of an impact.

Thanks I named it dragonstardesign.net because I also own the .com and .org version of the domain want to inter connect them all. There is not much you can offer that someone else has not done already.

I agree with wisdomtool. The webmaster forum space is pretty crowded already, and there are some heavy hitters who can generate a lot of buzz just by putting their stuff out there.

If you really want to go this route, I would recommend picking a niche that is underserved in the webmaster world and specializing in it. If you want to go after people who create flash websites only, then do that. If you can generate enough content on that topic that there is a reason to be there rather than a general forum, you should be in good shape.

This isn't directly related to forums, but George Oates from Flickr recently wrote an article on A List Apart talking about building communities from the ground up and some of the challenges they faced at Flickr. It's an interesting read and you can probably get some nuggets that you can apply to your forum.

I don't think it ever can get crowded enough. Just work your way up step by step and hopefully you will be successful.

IMO, Webmaster forums is very hard to start with. Its pretty saturated. It takes lots of time and money to take on that range of success like todays webmaster forums.

Well firstly i think the header needs to go, even just a boring web2.0 gradient and scanlines + reflection text would be much better than having Vbulliton at the top, it looks so generic its not funny.
Starting a forum is a very hard thing to do, and you have made life harder for yourself by choosing a niche with so many big sites.
But keep working and you will get somewhere.

Webmaster is a niche where forum maintenance and growth is really hard as there are already many very well built forums related to webmasters.
Try to hold some good contests to start off and have some good activity.

I would agree with wisdomtool and sizzler_chetan. There are too many webmaster forums out there that are well established and have loads of members.

It is going to be a really tough challenge to create a forum that will make any headway because you will just be playing catchup.

I would suggest trying something else that might be easier and may become more popular.

Skinny

for a webmasters forum you need some wise people registered on your forum !
webmasters forum need lots of maintanence and its heaven for spammers.

its not easy starting a webmasters forum and making it run successfully, getting traffic.

you need to put in lots of money and quality for sure !

What I wanted to say has already been posted.

At first glance I thought your domain read "dragons tard...".

I'd agree that the space is a bit crowded. But, there still is potential.

However, I think you might be starting a little backward. Generally, the best way to build a forum is to find a community that needs one, and serve them. Then you start with lots of users.

I'll offer this suggestion as an alternative to jump into the space. Create a site for webmasters with articles on code, tips, tricks, and solutions. They should be unique articles written by yourself and colleagues. Add an option where people can leave comments on the articles. Be sure to serve up an rss feed for technorati and similar sites.

Once you develop a certain amount of regular traffic (read: a few thousand daily repeat visitors), move the comments into the forum. Notice, you are adding the forum last. This way, once you do start the forum, you will have a large number of users on the first day.

Keep in mind, a thousand daily repeat visitors is only going to equal forum posts in the tens. A very small percentage of visitors will actually post. Thats why you need to make sure you have a lot of repeat traffic first.

Lots of repeat traffic is the beginning of a community. The forum will bring the community together.

It's going to be hard work, good luck