I would agree, get your post count up there! When I see someone who has more than 1000 posts, I automatically feel that the place is more of a community than a place to post. As the owner, you want to set the standard.

Then I would say that the number 2 priority should be about getting your post count up at other related forums. How much networking have you done at related communities? Infowars.com, for instance, has a large following. Sure, not all of the members might want to join your site, but if you contribute to the discussions there and even get them more curious about the psychology of conspiracies, then you might get more members joining just by seeing you on their home turf.

People are getting more and more lazy these days, that's why, lol! It would be a good idea if you put a thread where people can do link exchanges. Or do a contest or something in the forum. Make it more engaging and interactive for its members.

It would be a good idea if you put a thread where people can do link exchanges

Absolutely NOT!
It will be full of junk link dropping in no time at all.

It might get more posts, but it's the only forum cat that the link beggars will ever visit or post in, and it will only affect the forum quality negatively!

Funny Chris. I saw the comment about link exchanges and knew I'd see you drop into this thread.

I completely agree. If you add a link exchange forum you're only inviting people to drag down the quality of your forum.

I am really worried after reading this thread if my forums failed what will be the reward of my all efforts , even it is very new

There's risk in everything you do. No one can guarantee your forum will succeed. It's possible you'll put a lot of work into and in the end get nothing back. On the other hand if you don't start the forum I can guarantee you'll never get anything back.

Even if something fails if you learn something from it you haven't lost anything.

Originally Posted by mrandrei

People are getting more and more lazy these days, that's why, lol! It would be a good idea if you put a thread where people can do link exchanges. Or do a contest or something in the forum. Make it more engaging and interactive for its members.

Well, that could be part of the reason. But I think people will still post if they have something to post about. If there are enough conversations of interest to a person, what's going to stop them from jumping in and giving their say? Laziness can only explain so much I think.

I think that the environment has to stay engaging and give people a reason to contribute.

Some people just seem to die because the members of the community no longer were as active as they used to be. Probably its because of the recession that is happening in America, that people just concentrate on how to earn money and look for a job than staying online just for leisure.

Originally Posted by jhunphil

Some people just seem to die because the members of the community no longer were as active as they used to be. Probably its because of the recession that is happening in America, that people just concentrate on how to earn money and look for a job than staying online just for leisure.

I would think that for many people, the extra time on their hands would mean that they would want to spend some of their free time on forums of interest, as a way to take their minds off of all that is happening financially. You can't spend every waking moment trying to get a job or make money, you would just burn out after a while.

I think that sometimes all it takes is a few really engaging discussions to get a forum back up to some level of activity. Once you have the regular members posting again, their posts will feed off of each other.

People become less active, the admin's of the site become less interested - It all falls apart.

When the admins of the site lose interest.. the members tend to follow suit.

Not always true.

I still post at my forum and have discussions regularly with my members if they stick around.

After all this time I beginning to think that maybe just forums in general are beginning to lose interest in people. With all the new social media gadgets out there, and the shape the economy is in, people don't have the time to post anymore, or can't afford to.

I'm thinking even sites like WT have been affected by this, many of the regulars don't come around anymore.

if they stick around

You're reacting to them. What if they're all saying I'll post when James posts. You have to be proactive and not reactive.

I'd agree that many people are moving toward social media sites to communicate online, but none of those sites offers the same thing a forum can. You don't make the same strong connections. Forums are still popular with a certain segment of the population. The overall numbers may drop, but that could mean more quality members if done right.

many of the regulars don't come around anymore.

Forums have always been that way. People come and go. We still have many regulars here. They're just different regulars. Think of a group of friends who all go out to the same restaurant every weekend. A couple of those friends move to a new state, a couple more discover a new restaurant they like better. That group of friends ultimately moves on from their original restaurant. But a new group of friends can easily start showing up and sit at the same table every weekend. The restaurant still has weekend regulars even if they have different faces.

I understand people come and go, but it just seems like that more people are leaving, especially the guys I knew when I first joined WT. Take the guys at the top of the post count list for example, I'd say at least 90% of them used to be here all the time, now most haven't posted within months, I mean after spending years here.

It just seems kinda strange that the people who've posted the most and used the forums as kinda their home-away-from-home just up and leave, with apparently no reason for doing so (not that they need to or should, but still).

It's really very normal. People do come and go. When the people you were referring to first got here there was another group of top members who were leaving. Some came back and others didn't.

Actually 8 of the top 10 in the post count list have been active within the last 3 months and 7 of those 10 have been active in the last 2 months. You're looking at a very small group of people within the overall membership who aren't posting. It happens to be people you used to talk to a lot, which is why it seems like more.

I myself was an admin of some forums in online. But i am sick of it. because spammers are really disgusting for a forum. So i don't administrate forums anymore.

I'm one of those who tends to fade in and out of forum usage (even this one).

There are times when I've been away from this forum for a few months. Then I come back into it, and drift away again.

I guess it mostly depends on the conversations that are happening. When there are good compelling conversations, I get drawn in. When the good conversations are farther apart, I drift off.

With this site in particular, I tend to fall off when there's little more than the hundreds of posts saying the same pointless crap like: articles/press releases/directories/social media spamming/etc.....

When interesting questions appear, I tend to get drawn in more.

Originally Posted by Dorrick Karl

I myself was an admin of some forums in online. But i am sick of it. because spammers are really disgusting for a forum. So i don't administrate forums anymore.

This is one reason I've not created my own forum, even though I really wanted to. The truth is that I won't have time to deal with spam or with drama on the boards. And I know moderators are supposed to take care of that, but as an admin you always need to know what's going on in the boards.

To respond to the topic, I even in really good, well-kept forums, people will fade in and out. It's nothing you can fix or change, it's the way conversations are. Some will be interested, some won't, for whatever reason or none.

dude i would say have some people who are very web oriented drop some dope *** tips on stuff have people drop some deals here and there in the lounge type sections of this forum and also hmmmm get on your google adwords i guess im still an amateur at SEO and how to get a site to grow and **** but what keeps me in a forum and glued to it are two main things

1.Engaging and interesting content

And

2. Responsive community members if it takes like 2 weeks for someone to respond to "how do i fix this blazay blazay" then i just get irritated you know

hope that helps

by the way i love the layout of the forum by the way its real nice, it really makes it stand out from the other forums. Keep at it im sure you'll get out of this slow down eventually, cheers man.