ive noticed that a lot of forums i go on are getting smaller and smaller. this could be for all kinds of reasons, but think theres so much competition out there that people dont have the time to post on more than 1, or simply dont have the time to post at all. so its all about keeping the current members happy so they dont wander off.
cf has always been a small community, but we used to survive by having a select few members posting on a daily basis, some heated arguments, and also some laughs. it kept things fresh and interesting and there was always someone around to welcome a newbie/help them. sadly a few people have left for whatever reason and the community seems to have died a little bit.
another problem i think was the old owners (dave) lack of willing to improve the site. he would keep it running as best he could and listen to what we had to say dont get me wrong, but no massive improvements were ever put in place. it took many years to get custom avatars for example, which is pretty standard on all sites these days. i think if he would have kept with the times and kept the site fresh and exciting with a new theme, logo, new vb, and a blog or anything like that then more of the newbies would have stuck around. it just got to the point where the site looked outdated and cluttered, and it didnt help when the server kept crashing/was slow.
theres never an easy way to revive a forum, but luckily this one has a great domain name, and has enough members to draw up some interest on facebook, which i think is a good idea btw. the "like" thing would work really well. allso the mass email thing. its free and wont hurt.
i stopped full time posting from this site for many reasons. mainly due to being busy and because my interest in computers started to decrease as my life became more problematic. also, and i know this sounds petty, but i felt a bit overwhelmed by the amount of american people on here. i know that sounds terrible but i dont mean it in a bad way. i just felt sometimes that i didnt have a lot in common with them, as any computer advice they offer would be tailored to their country (where to buy computer parts from in america, and based in dollars, etc, so obviously little help to me), and i could never really talk about going to a certain place, etc, as no one would know where it was or wtf i was on about i also just generally felt like i wasnt always part of the community/people even knew who i was. another issue was the time difference. not that many english people meant there were times when i was lurking the forum by myself/with a few others. made it quite boring waiting a day for replies. so for all these reasons i just started to post less and less, and now it feels like a different place with new people, so sadly i have moved on. i may post full time again who knows, but my point is even people like me who have strayed may come back, so its important to make it a decent site to be on, so if they do check back in they will stay, and right now its a ghost town, not making me want to stay tbh.
im still very shocked though at the lack of decent computer forums out there, not that ive really been looking, but ive just not come across many on my travels, which i find strange, considering they are taking over the world lol.
cf has always been a small community, but we used to survive by having a select few members posting on a daily basis, some heated arguments, and also some laughs. it kept things fresh and interesting and there was always someone around to welcome a newbie/help them. sadly a few people have left for whatever reason and the community seems to have died a little bit.
another problem i think was the old owners (dave) lack of willing to improve the site. he would keep it running as best he could and listen to what we had to say dont get me wrong, but no massive improvements were ever put in place. it took many years to get custom avatars for example, which is pretty standard on all sites these days. i think if he would have kept with the times and kept the site fresh and exciting with a new theme, logo, new vb, and a blog or anything like that then more of the newbies would have stuck around. it just got to the point where the site looked outdated and cluttered, and it didnt help when the server kept crashing/was slow.
theres never an easy way to revive a forum, but luckily this one has a great domain name, and has enough members to draw up some interest on facebook, which i think is a good idea btw. the "like" thing would work really well. allso the mass email thing. its free and wont hurt.
i stopped full time posting from this site for many reasons. mainly due to being busy and because my interest in computers started to decrease as my life became more problematic. also, and i know this sounds petty, but i felt a bit overwhelmed by the amount of american people on here. i know that sounds terrible but i dont mean it in a bad way. i just felt sometimes that i didnt have a lot in common with them, as any computer advice they offer would be tailored to their country (where to buy computer parts from in america, and based in dollars, etc, so obviously little help to me), and i could never really talk about going to a certain place, etc, as no one would know where it was or wtf i was on about i also just generally felt like i wasnt always part of the community/people even knew who i was. another issue was the time difference. not that many english people meant there were times when i was lurking the forum by myself/with a few others. made it quite boring waiting a day for replies. so for all these reasons i just started to post less and less, and now it feels like a different place with new people, so sadly i have moved on. i may post full time again who knows, but my point is even people like me who have strayed may come back, so its important to make it a decent site to be on, so if they do check back in they will stay, and right now its a ghost town, not making me want to stay tbh.
im still very shocked though at the lack of decent computer forums out there, not that ive really been looking, but ive just not come across many on my travels, which i find strange, considering they are taking over the world lol.