It's a pretty tough genre to be successful in. The problem is, people go onto forums (especially forums of that genre) to have conversation. Unless you start with a very good, pre launch community, there won't be much conversation in the beginning stages. That's why most forums of that genre fail. It's hard to start a forum (that would be based on conversation) if you can only get 2 or 3 people active within the community. Don't get me wrong, it can be done, but unfortunately it's one of the hardest to succeed in.
As for general forums, I love them. I personally find niche forums as interesting as watching paint dry, even if I am interested in the niche itself. I am a person of many interests and it is important to me that any forum I am apart of reflect that. Offline, I can hold a conversarion about a myriad of subjects, so why would I limit myself to only one or two online?
As for the successful part, it all depends on what success means for you. I have been told the same crap by people when I first started out 10 years ago, some even going as far as telling me to just close my forum, because it had been done before and here we are more than a decade later and they are long gone and I am still here today.
The irony is that their places, as big and "successful" as they were, closed down less than a month after they dropped their pearls of wisdom, citing lack of interest. These were also the same geniuses who always told people that paid software and domain is better than free, and yet, less than 6 months later (usually a month after they closed) their domain was on a parked page.
In the decade I've been running my forum I have never lost interest and I am proud or how long I've been able to run it and the people there are happy to be there.
So, to me, that is what it means to be successful.
It's definitely not impossible, it's just very difficult because there are so many already established general discussion communities out there. You really need something that will draw a viewer in because why would they want to join a brand new community with little to no discussion, when there's other forums already out there with hundreds of topics being posted daily, if not more?
Like I said, it's definitely not impossible, but it's very difficult to do these days.
I think my site has a chance to be a successful general chat forum. The comments here are uplifting. I do have a strong base of members that joined right from day one which helps. I do have an issue with getting fresh topic ideas going. I am okay with my forum just being a small group since it's just a hobby of mine but I do like to keep things fresh and new.
I just post whatever pops into my head.. like for example I made a topic about the fact that there was a bible scripture on a bag of cheese popcorn I was eating..
And when I noticed some people making comments about using meat grinder on their body rather than using an iPhone or having something to do with EA, being the caring admin that I am, I jokingly started a meat grinder fetish topic to "help them take the edge off."
Both topics took off because I am fortunate to have people with minds as warped as mine is.. lol.. but yeah if you just post whatever pops into your head, you'll never be hard up for content..
I like general discussion forums, but there seem to be a precious few that actually lasts. My own forum will be three years old in January 2016, but I feel like I managed to get off lucky though.
I like general chat. I want to be able to have open discussions about whatever comes to mind for me like Angel mentioned. I find they are few and far though.
The 'general chat'/'general discussion' scene is a niche in itself, and a extremely saturated one at that. Like any product though there are plenty of other products just like it, or at least in today's world. Which boils down to the successor being either the most aesthetic one, or the one that does the job and works 100%. In the case of forums though, you almost have to be great in both aspects, in regards to being visually pleasing as well as 100% working, interactive, and growing. Not sure what to say honestly as I've never ran a general forum before but I'm sure it'd be one hell of a process, with a great outcome if you're able to make one blow up.
Ah General Chat and Off-Topic Forums. While they can be a good place to discuss stuff, the admin of the forum still needs to have the drive to keep the forum running, otherwise it won't do so well.
I think the problem with general discussion forums is that general discussion basically can be done at any forum. So maybe someone will ask, why should he go to a general discussion forum to talk about something he can talk about at the usual place he's at (e.g. video game forum)?
I personally like general discussion forums although I tend to get bored over time. It's fun because we can discuss many things at once. Although without other events or fun things or friends around, I quickly get tired of it. I'm visiting other forums too, such as a manga forum or promotion forum like FP which have general discussion area and I can already talk about many things there.
So I feel the key is to let members do something different or something fun at the forum. Of course, discovering this different, unique, and fun feature is everybody's homework and not easy to achieve at all.
My forum is a general discussion forum, with many topics, we have been running for 18 months now as a hobby. We are only a small forum, and I can relate to, and have learned a little reading the above posts.
The comment about working hard at it 100% is dead right, and yes the market is saturated with general discussion forums. Attracting new members is a real challenge, and it seems to come in bursts which increases our activity of course, but then it fades, and I find myself pushing a wheel barrow full of bricks up a really steep slope. :lol:
We don't have the same options and enhancements as you do here, and frankly I would love to transfer my site over to Free Forums, as I think we would do a lot better, however our hosts will not release our data. 😱
