Ever owned your own forum?

[Robbie626]

I currently own and run a forum. It is a lot of effort, investments, and time advertising and promoting. I do love being on forums to express myself though.

[Paul]

Mine is nearly 15 years old. We're doing alright.  Started as an msn group originally.

Back in about 2005, 06 and 07 I had half a dozen going at once. All were doing really well. Then a couple of them closed ala zetboards style like sudden Launch and freepowerboards and hyperboards.

[Robbie626]

Mine is nearly 15 years old. We're doing alright.  Started as an msn group originally.

Back in about 2005, 06 and 07 I had half a dozen going at once. All were doing really well. Then a couple of them closed ala zetboards style like sudden Launch and freepowerboards and hyperboards.

I give you a round of applause! 15 years is a huge accomplishment and bigger than a marriage lol

[slooroo]

When I was a young teen back in the stone age I co-owned one with a guy. It wasn't huge but did pretty well until he was ready to give it up and we mutually agreed to end the forum. I experimented with a couple on my own after but I just found I wasn't that interested in the amount of work it takes to build a community.

[Opal Fruit]

Yes, back in 2004 I made a couple of my own, one on Conforums or Proboards?, and another on, errrmmm, forget the name. The former actually didn't do too badly, but it was not destined to last too long.

[Detective Osprey]

Yeah but they've all failed. I've pretty much given up on creating forums. I never want to own again. PERIOD.

I'm sticking with my server, which has a forum option though.

[Emily]

2020 until 2023 on Proboards, it was going well, over 100,000 posts. But I had a baby and didn't have time. So merged with Paul 's forum and now I help co -admin that.

[Kyng]

When I was a young teen back in the stone age I co-owned one with a guy. It wasn't huge but did pretty well until he was ready to give it up and we mutually agreed to end the forum. I experimented with a couple on my own after but I just found I wasn't that interested in the amount of work it takes to build a community.

Yeah, it is a lot of work .

TBH I think the hardest bit isn't building the community: it's maintaining it once it's established! Doesn't require much money (which is certainly one thing it has going for it as a hobby), but it is very time-intensive.

[slooroo]

Yeah, it is a lot of work .

TBH I think the hardest bit isn't building the community: it's maintaining it once it's established! Doesn't require much money (which is certainly one thing it has going for it as a hobby), but it is very time-intensive.

I don't know how different it is these day compared to my youth but I just didn't like the constant feeling like I need to market myself. You had to constantly post your link everywhere and be active on the Proboards Support Forum and even then it was usually an uphill climb because everyone else was doing the same thing. You also had a lot of "You join mine and I'll join yours" but I knew a guy who did a lot of that and what ended up happening is to keep the various admins of other forums appeased he was always active on their forums to the point his own collapsed. I just realized after that I like being a member more than a major staff member.

[Kyng]

Yeah, it is a lot of work .

TBH I think the hardest bit isn't building the community: it's maintaining it once it's established! Doesn't require much money (which is certainly one thing it has going for it as a hobby), but it is very time-intensive.

I don't know how different it is these day compared to my youth but I just didn't like the constant feeling like I need to market myself. You had to constantly post your link everywhere and be active on the Proboards Support Forum and even then it was usually an uphill climb because everyone else was doing the same thing. You also had a lot of "You join mine and I'll join yours" but I knew a guy who did a lot of that and what ended up happening is to keep the various admins of other forums appeased he was always active on their forums to the point his own collapsed. I just realized after that I like being a member more than a major staff member.

Yeah, that's definitely a danger.

There's still quite a lot of "You join mine and I join yours" today, and I do some of that myself - but I'm careful not to do too much of it, so that it doesn't become all-consuming. You can easily burn yourself out by overdoing that sort of thing!