How difficult or easy is it to revive a forum that has been closed down for 10 years?

[Niyi Briggs]

There are forums that I know that have been closed for more than 10 years. The owner wants to revive it. Is it possible to ever revive such a forum. If it is, how would the owner go about reviving the forum without incentives?

 

[Page]

Would take time to upgrade the forum or maybe move to another without losing the database. It can take time and would not be easy since 10 years passed, so that means databases would be new and PHP versions won't support the old.

 

[Niyi Briggs]

I have actually seen @Jordan revive his forum which has not been active for more than 10 years. I think that is the first time of seeing that.

 

[Nomad]

I do not think it is difficult to revive a forum if you have the database and website files. However, getting activities on your forum can be really difficult.

 

[Ravenfreak]

I thought about reviving a forum that I had started almost a decade ago, but I don't think it's worth it. The community was focused around a game called Might No. 9, and the game was a failure. Also not to mention that there were supposed to be 3DS and PSVita ports of the game that never were released. I just don't see the point in bringing the community back.

 

[Page]

I thought about reviving a forum that I had started almost a decade ago, but I don't think it's worth it. The community was focused around a game called Might No. 9, and the game was a failure. Also not to mention that there were supposed to be 3DS and PSVita ports of the game that never were released. I just don't see the point in bringing the community back.

Just as easy to make a new forum then trying to get old database back

 

[Gizmo]

It would be hard to get some old members back as they would of moved onto other things, changed email address etc.

 

[Uncrowned Guard]

A lot of factors come into play here. As @Ravenfreak mentioned, the topic of the community and what brought it together is a major factor that may benefit, but often hurts the goal. There is of course the software and if it is aged well or can be transferred to a more modern system.

Although the core of the impact will be how the community was when it ended. Was there a large group of dedicated members that will likely return in excitement or was it full of casual users who likely moved on.

 

[Katrina]

How would they reach out to former members? Who here has the same email address after 10 years? I think the struggle would, at first, realizing that you couldn't rely on the former members to suddenly reappear. You would have to have patience to regrow the site and a lot of people give up after the first year.

 

[Deleted member 4320]

TIme consuming but not difficult I wouldn't have thought.