Creating a forum

[Deleted member 49125]

I know there's always people creating a forum. What tips do you have to help them set it up? What do you do first?
What helps is to have a niche. Then think of what boards you'd like to have. Mine is Proboards which is a free platform & great for those of us who are not into tech. I then set up my Affiliates Table. Adding in plug-ins that I see from other Proboards forums that I think may be beneficial.
The most important thing I believe is listening to your members & other forum owners. Take some advice with a grain of salt but do really hear what they are saying.

 

[Ravenfreak]

Always figure out the niche of the forum, and then come up with a name for the forum of course! From there look for the software you wish to use, determine if you want to go down the self hosting route or free forum route. If you're a beginner and feel a bit overwhelmed with self hosting, free hosting is an option of course! I started with Forumotion when I got into making my own forum, and it was a great learning experience. Once you figure out the hosting, software, etc. it's time to set up your forum. You'll need to come up with the number of categories/sub forums you wish to add. Once you add your categories and sub forums, start posting content on your board. Having threads in every single section will help bring in new members. Finally install a theme and plugins you think will benefit your community. Once this is all done, it's time to promote your forum. This is the process I follow whenever I started a new community.

 

[Kale]

Always figure out the niche of the forum, and then come up with a name for the forum of course! From there look for the software you wish to use, determine if you want to go down the self hosting route or free forum route. If you're a beginner and feel a bit overwhelmed with self hosting, free hosting is an option of course! I started with Forumotion when I got into making my own forum, and it was a great learning experience. Once you figure out the hosting, software, etc. it's time to set up your forum. You'll need to come up with the number of categories/sub forums you wish to add. Once you add your categories and sub forums, start posting content on your board. Having threads in every single section will help bring in new members. Finally install a theme and plugins you think will benefit your community. Once this is all done, it's time to promote your forum. This is the process I follow whenever I started a new community.

Same here. I got into free forums like Forumotion, InvisionFree, Zetaboards, etc. I then later went to owning self-hosted forums too which is neat and all. It is a very good learning experience for sure. I'd totally try to find your niche, yes. For example I see so many of the Story of Seasons/Harvest Moon forums shut down, moved to Reddit, Discord, and/or made a wiki instead. I feel like somebody making a discussion forum based on those games would be great in 2022. Not as competitive as it used to be 10-15 years ago, even 20. Your advice is solid and wonderful! 🙂

For me going about the forum name is a big one.

 

[Nomad]

My advice would be don't g after free forum hosting, be ready to invest some money to buy a domain and hosting. If you set up your own self-hosted forum and if one day you decide not to run by yourself, you can even sell your forum and recover your investment. My second advice would be not to use premium software, there are a lot of free software as good as premium ones. When you use premium software, you will only increase your initial set up cost. You can always switch back to premium once your forum starts doing better.