What constitutes a 'struggling forum' ?

[Murder he Wrote]

Just saw in a topic someone saying "My forum is struggling..."

So, as an Admin at what point do you make the decision your forum is failing?

 

[Fullmoon]

Inactivity, Cant get people to join, People arent sticking around, in my case the stupid thing wont load and its putting off my loyal members!

 

[Nebulous]

I am not concerned with inactivity. My forums have had inactive periods in the past and will have them in the future. Sometimes an inactive period may be a good thing because then you have inspiration to get creative and think up new ways to boost activity or draw in new members.
A forum is only struggling if you put that idea in your mind.

 

[BatM]

I believe the point of the starting of failure is when someone simply takes the EXACT idea you had in your head for how you saw your site and "Does It Better" or for some reason can get a messload of people to join at once.

Holfy is all but non-posting and no real members have joined in quite some time. I don't consider that as "Failing" yet. It has never even been "Officially Opened" I just wanted to lay some groundwork before things got underway. No one has had the ideas that I have planned for Holfy so until I'm set to go I'll keep them very quiet. Once I'm set, it's a go. If someone does it better, well my friends, Holfy would start to "Fail" from then on in.. Accept it and take one of two choices.. Scrap it or just hang in there (it's still going to be a 50/50, just work on things like SEO for a little bit, then get some fresh posts of lthe latest discussions, get a few mates to join and post, then promote here at FP :F)

 

[Vekseid]

I generally consider a community to be failing if it can't sustain over a hundred posts a day. You can start lower, of course, but anything less than that and it isn't going to keep up the volume without your direct help.

 

[Creativebot]

Honestly its not the forums fault for failing. It's always the admin. wether or not they have what it takes to make a successful forum is completely up to them. ANYONE can make a good forum....It just takes a lot of work that most people overlook and just rush out with a quick forum.

There are other scenarios too, but I still stand on my point.

 

[Violetstar]

Re:

I generally consider a community to be failing if it can't sustain over a hundred posts a day. You can start lower, of course, but anything less than that and it isn't going to keep up the volume without your direct help.

But is that 100 quality posts or nonsense? 100 posts a day is a lot to scroll through and some good topics can get lost, my forum doesn't have that many and I don't consider it to be failing, it's building slowly.

You do get periods of inactivity, I use the quiet times to begin discussions ready for my members coming back.

 

[Jonathan]

I consider a forum to be failing when groups of members are leaving due to the inactivity and when the administrator has given up advertising.