I'm at a loss here. I have no idea what else to do with my forum. I figure it would be time to rely on my members to post but members don't log on and that's discouraging. I don't think leaving my forum alone would be a good idea. I send out a newsletter but that doesn't get people to come back.
Well, let's start with this: How long have you had your forum? If it hasn't even been a year yet, leaving your members only to post probably isn't a good idea at this point. You should still post as much as possible with new discussions to try to keep your members interested.
Forums are hard work, until you have a large base of users creating threads along you, it will be up to staff to keep the conversations rolling along. Once the userbase picks up things will be easier.
I ran a gaming forum for 8 months and up until the day I sold it I was creating the majority of the threads. When I sold it the new staff didn't do much for it, and it died within a month. 60,000+ posts down the drain when I sold that place. There were always members to reply, but no one wanted to start the discussion.
Just keep at it and with enough work things will turn around.
YOU need to be ACTIVE. Memebrs won't build your site, they can only contribute to what there for them. It's the admins/staff responsibility to keep content fresh.
Admins & Moderators, DON'T just sit back, and moderate the forum, they have to pretty much bend over backwards, and be one on one with the members, in EVERY SINGLE topic, and post.
Pretty much what everyone else has told you. Plus you have to keep in mind that when most people join they don't always know you and the rest of the staff, they don't always know the other members, don't know the community or the forum that well so most of the time new members want to stick a few toes in first and get their footing before they even think about creating their own threads. Members usually need motivation to post.
See those big forums out there? Yeah, those admins didn't just set up a phpBB board on a free host and then go play poker with Bill Gates for a few weeks. They worked their [Censored]es off to get there ~wink~
Just about every admin gets discouraged at some point, but it's the GOOD admins that don't let that get to them, it makes them try even harder and promote more.
