Bob
12-02-2008, 12:27 AM
One of the main problems with this forum is that we don't have enough people participating. We just can't seem to get a core group of folks here to get a discussion going. Folks show up, visit a couple times, figure out nothing is going on, then leave.
Here's how a forum should work. Check out this place:
http://www.gardenforums.com/forum/index.php
As I write this, it has the following stats:
Threads: 111, Posts: 1,694, Members: 50, Active Members: 50
Nearly 1700 posts, with over 100 discussions. How long did it take to reach that level? One week. Yep, a single week. It's a core group of friends who wanted a garden site and asked me to start one for them.
We started off with a list of 20 people. They all worked together and invited their friends.
But wait a second Bob, those folks all know each other. Well, so do many of the TRAIN members. About 150 of us spent about a week together in Milwaukee. Plenty of connections were made and enough friendships made to start lots of discussions. Some of us have known one another for years. Others just met. But in either case, there are lots of connections there, and a definite common interest. I doubt we'd ever see those kind of traffic levels, that's a very talkative bunch, but I'd prefer to lose the ghost town look we currently have...
So, how do we get this place going? How can we get it off the ground? I'm not sure, but I'm open to suggestions. Anyone got a good idea?
Here's how a forum should work. Check out this place:
http://www.gardenforums.com/forum/index.php
As I write this, it has the following stats:
Threads: 111, Posts: 1,694, Members: 50, Active Members: 50
Nearly 1700 posts, with over 100 discussions. How long did it take to reach that level? One week. Yep, a single week. It's a core group of friends who wanted a garden site and asked me to start one for them.
We started off with a list of 20 people. They all worked together and invited their friends.
But wait a second Bob, those folks all know each other. Well, so do many of the TRAIN members. About 150 of us spent about a week together in Milwaukee. Plenty of connections were made and enough friendships made to start lots of discussions. Some of us have known one another for years. Others just met. But in either case, there are lots of connections there, and a definite common interest. I doubt we'd ever see those kind of traffic levels, that's a very talkative bunch, but I'd prefer to lose the ghost town look we currently have...
So, how do we get this place going? How can we get it off the ground? I'm not sure, but I'm open to suggestions. Anyone got a good idea?