When you're tired of trying to keep up a forum that hasn't taken off, do you close it, sell it, or wait it out until you get more energy to put into promoting it?
Sell, close, wait out the lulls of the forum?
- Thread starter Katrina
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Deleted member 49125
For me personally, I keep at it. If it's not working, I think of how I can make it work. i.e. I wanted my forum to be JUST for holistic. But if I wanted it to be successful, I had to incorporate more general boards. Either I want a defunct holistic forum or I want a moderately active general slash holistic forum lol
I opted for the latter.
Another thing that is important is one's mindset. We all have those drudgery days where we just don't want to do forums. Then that too waxes & wanes & something invigorates us to post again. However, if one thinks about their forum & it's more work than anything, when the spice is gone out of it, that's when they would need to rethink of closing it down.
Fortunately, even though I've had burn-out days, it was short-lived. I just kept going, knowing it will pass. 🙂
I opted for the latter.
Another thing that is important is one's mindset. We all have those drudgery days where we just don't want to do forums. Then that too waxes & wanes & something invigorates us to post again. However, if one thinks about their forum & it's more work than anything, when the spice is gone out of it, that's when they would need to rethink of closing it down.
Fortunately, even though I've had burn-out days, it was short-lived. I just kept going, knowing it will pass. 🙂
I've been going through those days on Crafter Craze where I just don't know if it's in my heart to keep it going. I was going to change the color of the site from oranges to purples, because truthfully, I hate orange. I only chose that theme because it was bright and fun. But looking at it just makes me go blah.
I just closed mine. It had no worth, so selling it was out of the question. Sometimes you just have to cut your losses.
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Deleted member 49125
It's hard when you have a certain niche, that's for sure!
Sometimes a new theme, new color is all one needs to liven up a forum. 🙂
That is true! Some people sell a forum but it has to be worth it for another to put money into it.
I end up closing it down 99 percent of the time. I'd save a copy of the database though and archive it some place like my Google drive account, Dropbox account, etc.
Yuuup, agreed. Sometimes cutting your losses is the best thing. I am so glad my first kind of successful board was on ZB and didn't cost much outside of a $10 or so domain name I bought for it.
I usually will backup my database and shut down the forum once I didn't feel that I had anymore time to keep up with the forum. Then later down the road, if I feel like I have more time I would reopen my forum. Though honestly I've never really done that, the only forum I tried bringing back once was a Admin forum but it was hosted on Freeforums.org which got bought out by Tapatalk, so I never had the chance to actually get a database backup of the forum.
I too am telling myself to keep my forum going during even the hard times. I don't want to just shut it down and give it sometime to hopefully get a member/userbase.
I'm not a big forum seller.
If I can merge it, I will but only if it makes sense. I merged Blogging Collective into AAF and kept some blogging sections up. The niches align well, forums and blogs, so it made sense.
I have a weather forum that is not taking off. I plan to close it down completely and delete because merging it wouldn't make sense.
I have a few other forums I'm looking at closing and merging one as well because they're not really performing well.
I typically give a forum a good full year.
If I can merge it, I will but only if it makes sense. I merged Blogging Collective into AAF and kept some blogging sections up. The niches align well, forums and blogs, so it made sense.
I have a weather forum that is not taking off. I plan to close it down completely and delete because merging it wouldn't make sense.
I have a few other forums I'm looking at closing and merging one as well because they're not really performing well.
I typically give a forum a good full year.
I just let it die on its own. I loved Roczuz, but after the second time I had to restart the community I knew I didn't have it in me a third time of rebuilding and I didn't feel like the member backing was there. I used to have self hosted communities but I had a taste of having MyBB and the control you get with having your own software versus the limited options on self-hosted platforms so I wanted to move but also activity already had been waning so badly that I felt like doing all that effort wasn't going to pay off. Members voted to stay and so we did, until the last member stopped posting.
Same here. I'll keep running my forum until my fingers don't work anymore. I won't sell it, nor close it, but that's just me.
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