How to jump-start a forum?

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Does anyone know how to get a forum of the ground? I started one called ottawavalleyforums.com and there are only a few users. What do I do?
 
The biggest thing that attracts users to a forum is generally other, active users. Unfortunately that in itself presents a bit of a circular problem...

There's a number of things you could try - making sure search engines like your site by providing sitemaps and similar which will see it climb higher in results, forming affiliate links with other sites (they put a link to your forums in return for a link to theirs) or posting something very cool and innovative that lots of people flock to see (such as getting something on the front page of digg.)

Sorry to say though that the vast majority of forums on the web only ever attract small numbers of users, if any. If you're dealing with something quite specific (as it seems you are) then I'd just be happy you have a few members rather than none!
 
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