Psychology of forum participation

[funkypilchard]

Originally Posted by temi

FP,
Thanks for your contribution, I completely agree with you about keeping the looks fresh, I need to work on that. I remeber forums that I have not been to for 1 or more year, getting there and still finding the same looks and structure, though the forum was alive with discussion it seemed dead to me.
I will have to look into how not to fall in that trap. Yes, we will be pushing out blogs help section, Melky is starting a very good tutorial tomorrow.

The thing is to decide on what kind of images to use, they could be topical? issues of the week or somthing more specific??? I will have a think.

Hre are the two other forums I found but to be honest they don't loko very enticing to me?

WebHostingTalk Forums - Web Hosting Discussion

Web Design Forums - Web design help and discussion. Web development advice and topics

I typed in "web forums" on google but then I thin kI would be more likely to type in a specific subject like "install a blog" etc... maybe if you did a bit of research on the top ten forums on google, find the busiest threads with most posts and then targetted those key words for here.. then when people find this place first they will more likely to stay

[funkypilchard]

that's a bit crafty I guess

[temi]

Its called keyword research. I think when your forum or site is very busy, you really do not have time to tart it up every week because it cost a lot of money and not that many forum online today is profitable.

[funkypilchard]

I see, maybe its better to let the existing forumers set the trend then in this case.

[OldWelshGuy]

Something I have done on my forum is to have multiple skins made. I have skins for each region in Wales, one for the Welsh national team, an accessible skin and one or two other skins. It means that fans of the scarlets rugby team can participate using the Scarlets skin with their logo on it, the Ospreys have their own etc. It makes it more personal.

BUT it is a right PITA to keep upgraded

Oh and My forum is not for profit LOL.

[funkypilchard]

Thats a nice twist.. individual skins for a forum.

[Stephanie]

Wow, I am learning so much new terminology since joining this forum - it is brilliant (skins was another new one but makes perfect sense). I might try that later if we can persuade some other face to face business networks to set up 'areas' on bizface (that is one of our plans), so give them separate skins.

When I teach online we can make postings compulsory (when we did not do this, the students did not bother to post). That is more difficult of course, although adding incentives, including new membership levels etc., as Temi does here, does seem to help.

But I agree a lot of people find it hard to post, feel exposed (as it is rather permanent compared to face to face chat), and also need to feel they are gaining something for their time and bother, in the business world more than anywhere. I guess it will vary by forum but once people do start communicating then they do gain a sense of community (I can sense it here) - just wish I had some simple answers about how to get them going...

[temi]

I think a way of encouraging people who are worried about the potential embarrassment from making mistakes in their post can be encouraged to use pseudonyms as that will protect their identity.
But my experience is that people are forgiving about types and other gaffes in forums as we all know that we are communicating in real time ... most people don't spell check or go through their posting just post directly to the forum.
I think a sense of community gains momentum as a forum grows, you get some hardcore supporters who becomes the backbone of the forum...

[soEvo]

I would put it down to forum activity. I only joined this forum today (noticed it in my directory). So you, the webmaster has to get really involved, if you can relight a topic, do so. Paid posters could also be a good idea for this, just don't let the forum seem empty

[temi]

I am not sure about paid posters, I used it at webmasterserve.com it did not work well.