What was it like to own a forum for the first time?

[Beverly]

Before I owned a general chat forum, I would go to other forums and see what an exciting and busy place they could be. And, I was really attracted to the fun atmosphere and wanted to have one of my own. When my favorite general chat forum went out of business, I took the leap and started my own. The forum took off very fast, in large part to having a good admin (she came to my forum from the other defunct forum and did a lot to help with new discussions and recruiting.)

So many sleepless nights. And, with every new member, there was the promise of something wonderful. At least, that's what it felt like for me.

For a very long time, the experience was really amazing and we had so much fun. But, once my core group of friends left to go their own path, the excitement of owning a general chat forum left with it. I'm sure that I could recapture the exciting feeling by starting a new forum, assuming I could ever decide on a niche that I really like. But, I don't think it would ever be the same as the first time forum ownership experience. I'm so happy that I made the choice to start my forum and hope one day to either revamp or start over, when I have more time.

 

[Cosmic]

So many sleepless nights

This. 🙂

 

[Robo86]

This is my first time I will be owning a forum so I will get to have my first (and hopefully only) experience with it as I want it to be huge and open for a long time to come!

 

[C]

Wow, I can hardly remember. I first started becoming interested in forums quite a while ago. I had no clue how each software worked, but I quickly learned. I also at the time had no clue what cPanel was, or what DNS was, but I quickly learned all of that, and now I'm proud of all of my knowledge and accomplishments. I own a web hosting company, and about 20 domains, and definitely have more experience than before. But, there is still things to learn, and there always will be.

I first started a general discussion forum with Forumotion. It was called InfuzedMediaTV (Have no clue why that name was chosen, which is why it went nowhere)

Anyways, I became pretty active on the Forumotion forums, and quickly helped others with the knowledge that I was gaining. I wanted to go further. So, I bought my first domain, learned how to set it up, and still thrived for more. After playing with 3-4 different free hosts, I then started doing things with localhost, afterwards buying my first hosting plan.

But still, I wanted to keep going. I then joined FP, to run across the endless possibilities that I could create. Then, I worked on a school website, bought a domain, and presented it to the school. The school was impressed, and started advertising on the intercom, through flyers, and through a couple large banners!

But, I still wanted to keep going. Somehow, starting a web hosting company came to mind, and I'm there now. And I'm proud of it, which is why I'm working on a blog series here on FP to share my experience and knowledge with others!

 

[MwsFan]

I can't remember too much about owning my very first forum, but I do remember it being really overwhelming at first. Despite being on Forumotion, which was technically easy to administrate what with the ACP having a crappy layout like it was built in five minutes, I was still overwhelmed. I had no clue what made a good forum administrator, no clue what rules would suffice for my type of forum (general chat) and I felt like I was constantly asking for help on promotion forums like here and Forum Advertiser when it was still around. The asking for help part was embarassing at first, because when I came to sites like here and FA, loads of people had seemed to be in the business for a fair few years and knew perfectly well what they were doing. I know that was a great opportunity to consult the "pros" when I had anything come up, from how to ban a member to how to promote someone to a higher stage of power/authority, and I did go that route eventually, but I just felt like a flat-out dork. Here's where who knows how many people who knew what was going on with their forums to a "T", whereas I was this dorky newbie who had no clue what she was doing. I also didn't take criticism very well back then either. I'm used to both good and negative comments about my site now, and I try to consider what people tell me in terms of changes and stuff, but I practically took even the best intended negative feedback poorly, and yeah. I feel a lot more confident now, despite being on a free host, but back then... well, you get the picture.

 

[MisaTange]

I started up with Invisionfree, and, despite it being extremely, extremely, super user-friendly and probably the best software for your first forum (imagine if you've started with something that involves uploading things, like mybb), I was overwhelmed. Finding a skin that suited the forum was like a matching game meant to be played by 2nd graders, but compare it to running it. I was extremely discouraged because the lack of activity, and even the fact that it ended up one person roleplaying on it I was still super discouraged. There wasn't very many new members as it's more a niche forum (Naruto RP) and new members were like the angels of God coming down on me.

I quickly learned the IF (and later ZB) ACP and how to promote members and putting all of the graphics later on. The problem is that I gave up easily and that I thought activity = people posting all the time (which is a pretty wrong measure - Imagine if you've started a RP forum and members post everyday, but only on the general chat sections, is it really active).

 

[Lord Saru]

Like most of the people here, my first forum was also with forumotion. It was an offshoot I had done after my group at Orkut became a total hit. The first few months were amazing because a lot of new people started to come in and the best part was the all the posts were high quality. Everyday, I would wake up to see my forum grow and grow untill one final day, I had to take it off the internet because of my real life events.

Since then, I started some three other forums, but the first one is always nostalgic.

 

[Forces of Steel]

Well, I made my first Web site since almost twenty years ago, so owning a successful forum didn't seem all that different. The only difference is that you're to conduct yourself more professionally than you would on a typical blog or forum.