I’ve seen many forums be closed down & then later on, sometimes years later, since the owner has the database, they are able to reinstate it & reboot it.
Do you think there’s a time limit or should there be one for people reinstating an old forum?
I feel if the owner took the time to create the forum & had to close it down for one reason or another, there shouldn’t be a time limit. Life happens & why should they have to start over.
What is your opinion?
As long as you have ownership of website files and database. you can reinstate your site anytime you want, there is absolutely no problem. However, reinstating a forum is something like starting new because your visitors have already forgotten about your site and you will have to work hard to build traffic and content.
I think it's fine to close a forum down if you don't have time for it, and then once you find the time to manage it to come back and reopen it. For example, Nebulous' forum Offtopix was offline for a while and he just recently reopened it, with great success nonetheless! Not only has he got older members to return, but new members joined too. I would be thrilled if a few of the old forums I used to visit came back, such as this Teen Titans fan forum. I just know it's never going to happen unfortunately...
I don't see a problem with it. There's a potential that even if all the old members moved on and don't come back, all that content that is there could encourage new users to respond with their own takes without the owner needing to make all of that content first.
Things happen in life and you often have to make decisions you don't want to. No one should ever feel that there is a time limit as to when they need to bring their site back if they have to close it. Depending on what is going on in their life they should be allowed the time needed to be able to get through what is going on and come back when they feel ready.
