Taboo: Driving New Members Away

Ozzy47

Ozzy47

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When a new member joins your forum, you should always attempt to be very welcoming and make them feel right at home especially when the forum is new. I am sure you all agree to that as well.

However, in your opinion, what do you think drives new members away from a forum? What sort of things will keep most new users from coming back? Lets get this thread filled with good content so forum owners know what to avoid on their sites. 🙂
 
I agree with welcoming new members. Nothing like joining a forum & they don't even acknowledge you.
I know a lot of members are on so many forums so they are limited in their time. I feel having something unique, one of a kind can help keep members. Gets tedious reading the same thing on several forums.
 
I think things that drive members away are things like:

  1. Cliques, or groups of members that keep to themselves and make the site feel awkward;
  2. gigantic forum lists with no posts in them, or very few posts in them, gives the illusion of inactivity even if the forums might have a decent level of activity going on;
  3. generic skins or generic skins with just a logo swap, gives the impression the owner/administrators don't care enough to put effort into the look and feel of the forums;
  4. an absurdly strict ruleset, I've run across this a few times, where members can get themselves into trouble for absolutely nothing, and penalties for infractions are just far too harsh.

These are a few of the things I've seen that drive people away very quickly.
 
Drama can keep members away.
Flaming others and not having staff do anything about it.
On my forum some of the long time members can be cliquish and aren't eager to have newbies join in on the fun because they don't trust they'll stick around so why bother engaging.
One sided topics where a majority will gang up on the minority's opinion of something.
 
I purposely ask new members to leave my forums. If they don't, I will typically boot them from the forum.
 
Benny Hill What GIF
 
If you have a publicly available registration button/firm then that is like asking them to join.
 
ozzy47 said:
If you have a publicly available registration button/firm then that is like asking them to join.
Click to expand...
And I have a ban button I can use as well. If you join, you run the risk of being banned. It's in the TOS.
 
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