Which is simpler, in your opinion: reviving a dead forum (all posts were made 3+ years ago, but there are 200,000 of them), or starting a completely new community from scratch?
I see a few pros and cons.
Pros (Reviving):
- The forum begins with credibility.
- The forum may start with SEO.
Cons (Reviving):
- The forum can feel like a ghost town.
- Hosting is more expensive.
In my opinion, there are several factors, but from a coding/design point of you, I would consider how much time was spent getting your forum to where it last was.
Is it easy to start from scratch and how long would it take you to reach the point where you left off, build member base or attract a new audience, how a "modern" install would change your compatibility with everything related to SEO and current coding structure.
Lots to think about really and where well established forums are concerned, it can be easy to transfer data, but lots of coding modifications can cause MANY HEADACHES! where upgrading is concerned (been through it all myself several times).
What ever you decide, I'm sure it will be the right approach!
I personally rather go with reviving, perhaps give the forum a face lift, send out a mass E-mail, start a contest with some good prizes, start promoting and getting new staff that is willing to be active.
Recently, I contemplated reviving my old site Chatting Time, even though some of the posts on there date back to 2012. However, I was glad I decided to start over from scratch, because between CT and my current forum, I've matured a lot in three and a half years (which is roughly how old CT would have been had I held on to it). So really, for me it was better to start over from scratch, as this shows the more mature side of me... not the immature side of me that was around sites like CT and this forum three years ago.
It all depends on which option would be the most beneficial for the admin/community.
For example, if you have a reputation for constantly starting and stopping forums, especially over a short amount of time, then the idea of you starting over again, will be met with exasperated eye rolls, and even less activity from the few members you left and you'd probably benefit from reviving your forum instead.
But, if it has been a very long time, and your forum barely made it out of the 1K milestone, and/or your forum had a bad reputation for whatever reason, then you might benefit more if you started over.
As for me personally, there is no way in hell I would start over. I have been running the same forum for more than a decade, and I have learned a lot in that time, and one thing I have learned is that people value history.
Even if it means them coming back after a few years and stumbling upon some of their old posts and being kind of embarrassed about it, and even, apologizing for their behavior back then, people still appreciate being able to look back and realize how much they've matured in that time frame. I have had people join my forum because they were very intrigued by its history, and impressed with my commitment as an admin for continuing it for as long as I had.
You can't get that if you are constantly hitting the reset button, and starting over.
I would probably revive if the content was still relevant (like general discussions) but if the content was time sensitive on the old board and no longer relevant, I'd start new. With it being several years, I can see myself starting new than reviving in most cases.
PokePark is actually a revival, and I started new. Being able to get those first set of topics up for everyone to reply is a good activity boost and I valued that more than anything else. Plus I wanted a new structure and stuff so it was just easier to restart.
I rather go with reviving a dead forum since you already have content and you might be able to bring some of the members back which will be easier than if you start from scratch.
I think it would be easier to revive a forum that was already active at one point because like you said, it kind of establishes some creditability with new potential users. Starting from scratch, you have to do something in order to establish that.
I feel that if the forum was credible, then the owner is likely to have a reputation too. I strongly believe that reviving a forum might not be worth it because there was a reason because of which the forum died in the first place. Do an analysis, and try to understand why the users left. Then use that experience to start a new forum while making sure you don't commit the same mistakes again.
In my personal mind, I would want to revive an old forum as it has already some sort of user count and has some traffic out there/publicity from the past. If it was a good enough board then it would quickly jump back into the market, yet a brand new forum has to attract new users and try and start fresh out there in the forum world.
I find it is easier to revive a community rather then start from scratch. if you revive more then likely you will have threads to help you get activity and traffic. It's much easier to push the traffic you need to an old forum then to start all over and motivate people to join and post on your new forum.
