What kind of forum do you want to operate?

[Shawn Gossman]

Forums can come in many different shapes and sizes.

The amount of traffic and members you get really depends on how much you market your forum.

But maybe you don't want a lot of members. Or maybe you do. Or maybe you want something in between.

Which do you prefer and why?

1. Just a few members to keep a tight-knit community
2. A moderate amount of members to keep it busy and flowing with content
3. A large community where there are so many members, you don't know everyone

Take the poll below and feel free to comment!

 

[Jason]

I want as many members as I can get, but it's not possible due to the situation at the moment, assuming I was operating a forum now.

 

[AWS]

I've had 2 big boards. The biggest in its heyday got over 1000 posts a day.
I've had one small board that had 300 active members and it hit a million posts in a year. It was a tight knit community and everyone was very chatty.

I prefer the tight knit community for off topic forums. I prefer a larger audience for tech sites. Right now I am focusing on Forum² and my off topic forum. The off topic forum is a big board with over 2 million posts. Problem is it dead at present. Need to work on it to revive it.

 

[Shawn Gossman]

I've had 2 big boards. The biggest in its heyday got over 1000 posts a day.
I've had one small board that had 300 active members and it hit a million posts in a year. It was a tight knit community and everyone was very chatty.

I prefer the tight knit community for off topic forums. I prefer a larger audience for tech sites. Right now I am focusing on Forum² and my off topic forum. The off topic forum is a big board with over 2 million posts. Problem is it dead at present. Need to work on it to revive it.

Wow!

Definitely get that one going again if you can

I typically like about a moderate amount of members. I've owned a forum that is nearing a big board (10K+ members, 100K+ posts), and it was a lot of fun, but I do like the smaller forums for the community sense of it all.

I welcome a big board but for now, I'm fine with a casual growth to it.

 

[frm]

Other: All of the above, depending on the forum and niche.

I hope to have 15 forums running by the end of 2025 with at least 1 large, 2 medium, and the rest small. It will really depend on how I can allocate resources, and how much I will have to allocate, though. By 2026Q4, hopefully over 25.

Obviously, I'm not going to do this independently though. I don't think anyone could manage that.

A big board that I worked for before had 5 on staff. Of those, 1 was a full-time coder (to ensure server operations as well) and the other was a part-time coder (that managed their own XenForo git repo and were able to patch bugs before XF could) and part-time public face of the company before they hired a CEO. So, I kind of have a grasp on what I'm getting myself into by wanting to have 25~ forums.

It took a ton of custom coding to get chanForo (anonymous image board modeled around -chan bulletin boards that's built on XenForo) going, which still needs some minor tweaking (and forum building of course), and I foresee a lot of custom coding for each individual forum to offer something unique to that niche. Not to mention, the server situation is going to be crazy to balance the load and ensure everything works all the time.

I can see Facebook groups dying and a rotation back into forums. Nobody wants to be in a group when they realize the group really isn't administered by the owner and they still have to comply with Facebook rules when the group admin sets their "own".

By "forums", I also mean "applications", as I like the framework of XenForo. I can see it being applied to even a Project Management System that can be set up to have teams that set up their own projects running Gantt charts, etc., to complete daily tasks, offering competitive pricing for small businesses over places like Salesforce, etc.

 

[Mike30]

I am looking forward to serve a small community somewhere 50 to 100 active members. (kind of a club type)
I like to interact with each user, and 100 it's a lot to keep me busy.

 

[Bawse]

My goal is to operate a large community. Hopefully one day my forum will be the top in our niche.

 

[Shawn Gossman]

My goal is to operate a large community. Hopefully one day my forum will be the top in our niche.

I think you're on your way!