When a forum runs by itself?

I let off a deadly one and for that I apologize. No wonder everyone left so fast.

We're doing good here and I'm honestly quite glad that the forums are heading in a good direction. It is really nice seeing a lot of active members on here on a daily basis.

 

It's very, very hard for a forum to reach a point where the admin only needs to limit his daily chores to logging in, having a look around and logging out. You need a bunch of active, faithful members and staff members that can take care of things for you for that.

 

This is a rare event. Usually it takes you to run a forum as well

However, I have one forum that I sometimes tend to neglect, my Skywarn forum, and I will remember it again, go to it and see pages and pages of new topics and replies to go through the staff are active and there is usually 5-10 people on every hour. It is great when it happens

 

Once you have a few hundred or thousand posts and a good active user base the forum can run on it's own. That being said you need to keep a watch and keep track of what is happening or else you may see a drop in posts, traffic and active userbase.

 

I work hard to have members who will post new threads and not just reply to them.

 

I think a forum is never self sufficient, but what you can do is get some moderators that help you take care of your forum, so you will not need to have so much work

 

Having a good/quality staff team behind your community is one of the best things you can do for your community. Especially if they're hard-working and dedicated just like yourself. A good staff team will allow you to take breaks whenever you want and the forum will still sustain itself.

 

A forum may run by itself but not for long, but it also depends with what topics your forum basically covers, some hot topics and those that stir discussions and a little bit of argument tend to run for quite sometime, but technical topics need some push in order for them to run.

 

Yes, basically. I used to be on a help and advice forum which was pretty active; the administrators were never really that active, though they did engage occasionally. When ownership changed hands the new administration literally couldn't be bothered and did nothing with the site; because it was PR3 and generating a lot of traffic they could pretty much get away with it, but it's kind of back-fired on them now because the actual amount of users logging in and posting has died significantly (we're talking, a thousand posts per day to something like fifty).

 

I would imagine so, as long as it's a successful forum. If there is a reason for members to spend their time them and post often then it will produce the content to keep it active. Once you get to this point you can assign a few moderators, either paid or volunteering, and have a completely hands-off forum.

 

I think that a forum can run its self on its own in certain circumstances, but it is usually a slide to oblivion.

The use of a RSS feed in certain forums can do this but, there MUST be at least a minimum input, for example to take care of spammers etc.

In many cases the best person to help a forum grow is the person who started it, as he or she has the interest of the forum at heart.

 

Thank YOU Brandon. For running the forum in a fair way.

I have noticed that many forums are run by technically very experienced people, but few are also good PR folk.
You are both.

If we look at the way that VB.org is run, we can see some very good examples of technically experienced staff, who cannot seem to get over the fact that a good admin or mod actually is in many ways working FOR the members.

A staff member has the buttons, we all know this, but one who flaunts it to show that he or she is the boss for their own ego, only alienates their members. And the members leave.

One who works on behalf of their members will build loyalty and respect.
And their forums will grow with a very good support base of dedicated members.

I think that Brandon has such support.

 

It's a very useful site and I'm learning a lot; better than some of the admin forums I've been on. Keep up the good work!

 

I don't think any Forum can run by itself, You will always need some kind of Moderation and someone to Post new Threads for Discussion (unless you have a very high active members count - then wahoo you win at life and at being a Forum Admin!) lol.

 

My forum will celebrate its 1st anniversary in few days. It doesn't run on its own, I still have to promote the forum and start new threads every day.

 

For sure there is a time when members just post their own topics and replies without much pressure from the staff, but until you have a few hundred active members it is going to be hard for the forum to live on after you have stopped visiting it.

 

I'd also like to point out that for most 'active' sites, they'll still lose activity if the owner/staff aren't active. It just won't kill them outright.

I've seen plenty of big boards which have run without their owners/staff being too involved, they just eventually end losing activity on a constant basis. Even a big board isn't immune.

 

I have a few moderators & administrators, but I still work on my community everyday. The only time I chill and relax is on weekends when I spend time with my girlfriend or my daughter(when I have her) and my community still does quite fine.

 

As the owner was the driving force originally on most forums.
Then I think that he/she is still needed to provide direction and a positive influence.

 

I believe on self running because this may contribute a lot in improving the forum and i guess that forum can get good quality posts that may work out for the owner.