How to restart an old and dead forum?

[simonweb]

I have an old blog with a decent sized community attached to it (about 4000 members). But the website and community have been dead for about three years, new registrations have been closed and the blog hasn't had any activity since 2015.

But I am now interested in trying to restart the community (the blog will remain closed). So I am just wondering: what is the best way to restart an old and dead forum?

 

[mav3n]

I wouldn't really worry about trying to revive a dead forum. For one, forums are not popular anymore and they are on their way out. Number two, it's been three years since it has had activity. That is too long to attempt to get people to come back. You might have better luck at just starting from scratch again.

 

[simonweb]

it's been three years since it has had activity. That is too long to attempt to get people to come back. You might have better luck at just starting from scratch again.

Yeah, this is my main concern as well, that it's too late to try and revive the community. But surely, it must be harder to start a brand new community instead of building upon and improving an old community? No?

 

[Page]

it's been three years since it has had activity. That is too long to attempt to get people to come back. You might have better luck at just starting from scratch again.

Yeah, this is my main concern as well, that it's too late to try and revive the community. But surely, it must be harder to start a brand new community instead of building upon and improving an old community? No?

Is there an sane that never give up and never say never? Give it an try and you might be shocked to see that it might get active again. you never know. True with the forum there been made up it's easy then started from scratched

 

[Corzhens]

Hmm, this looks like a lot of work. My take on reviving a dead website is the same as creating a new one. However, you have the advantage of having old members that you can contact probably via email. But maybe it is better to kickoff with some support of people close to you so there will be instant activity on the boards before you contact the old members. Of course, you also have to launch a campaign to gather new members of the revived community. Good luck.

 

[Tecca]

The bad thing is you're going to have a lot of redundant emails, and if you try sending out a newsletter about the revival, you may have people marking the email as junk/spam. Which in turn is bad for the IP address you're on, unless you're using a third-party system to send the emails (of which, many providers want you to use a clean list that will have less than 5-10% bounced emails).

I think it may be best to start fresh, but do indeed go for sending out a single email to those that may be interested. Give them plenty of details in the email, and most of all: give them a reason why they should come back.

A lot of forums have loyalists that really only left once the inevitable happened to the site; those are good people to keep in touch with, if you can. They may be good assets for your new forum venture.

For one, forums are not popular anymore and they are on their way out.

I disagree that forums are on their way out (overall), but I do agree to an extent. Social media is still and will continue to be strong. The problem with traditional forums is that they try to stick to the old formula, rather than going just that way: a social media site. If forum software would adapt the way that social media has, many more forum-focused sites could very well thrive.

Another problem with a standard forum is that they are generally about standard topics that have been done over and over again. You will notice, though, that forums out there that provide value to its users are still kicking and continuing to grow. A lot of forum admins don't know how to provide that value though.

 

[Ash]

I'm not going to lie, it is quite a difficult job especially since your forum has been closed for a few years now. The best thing to try and do would be to try and send a mass mail to your members to see if anyone returns. Post around, hire a few people to make the forum look active and then advertise it as much as possible