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Nice idea. The biggest hurdle with starting a community site is getting the initial users and maintaining a level of activity that keeps bringing back users to

Nice idea. The biggest hurdle with starting a community site is getting the initial users and maintaining a level of activity that keeps bringing back users to the site. If activity slows down a little, you will find that traffic decreases proportionally. How do you plan to solve the chicken and egg problem? After the initial launch, what's the plan to get your site in front of potential users? I am working on a somewhat related idea : a site like reddit, but which also has a chat room for each subreddit/topic + public moderation logs among other features. I launched with only the chat rooms part of it and I faced the issues mentioned above, so I'm interested in hearing about your approach. Good luck!

dchuk 8y ago
Thanks. Totally agreed that forums (and communities in general) have the cold start problem, and there's no real good solution for it. I do have some ideas though. 1) I'm interested in whipping up a simple phpBB mod that enables Link posts (like here on HN). That will help with the News posting aspect of the community. Thread here: https://hackerforums.co/the-lounge-f3/idea-extension-for-phpbb-that-allows-users-to-subm-t6.html https://hackerforums.co/the-lounge-f3/idea-extension-for-php... 2) I'm going to write up a fairly detailed thread later today that explains in more detail the Why of setting up the site, and the How I did it (literal technical details for those interested). I'll post that here and on Reddit and a few other places to hopefully get some exposure. Cool kids call that "traffic leaking" where you get valuable content in front of active communities, so might drive some traffic. 3) I'm debating setting up a contest of sorts, where members can earn a special badge/title by actively participating in the forum. So for example, start 10 threads and post 25 replies in threads and earn a special badge on your account for eternity. Silly, sure, but could be a simple fire starter. But yeah, overall, it's a challenging thing to do, and I've failed at it a few times over the years in trying to start forums. I still really love them though, so I wanted to try it again. BTW: Post your project here! :) https://hackerforums.co/show-hf-f7/ https://hackerforums.co/show-hf-f7/
matte_black 8y ago
The way to solve the chicken and egg problem is through paid posters. If you hire an initial group of people to post content and reply to new users eventually visitors who come on board will see the buzz and participate. Then you can phase out paid posters when you no longer need them. Pretty easy.
Jake232 8y ago
I agree, getting that initial user base is always tricky. After that, things kinda perpetually keep themselves going. Especially when you're likely talking about interesting topics / questions people google for. It seems in recent years that going has favored articles over forum topics in their results, but I'm sure there's still plenty of search traffic that goes to forums to bring in new users.
CM30 8y ago
Well, there are quite a few ways you can solve this issue. Namely: 1. Fake it, like on Reddit. Setup a bunch of fake users and create a ton of topics until activity really kicks in. 2. Do exchanges and deals on forum promotion and community management sites. For example, you can ask the people on Forum Promotion for exchanges, where you do five posts on their site in exchange for five posts on yours or what not. 3. Pay some sort of service for content. One or more of those could work for this site.

dchuk 8y ago

Thanks. Totally agreed that forums (and communities in general) have the cold start problem, and there's no real good solution for it. I do have some ideas though. 1) I'm interested in whipping up a simple phpBB mod that enables Link posts (like here on HN). That will help with the News posting aspect of the community. Thread here: https://hackerforums.co/the-lounge-f3/idea-extension-for-phpbb-that-allows-users-to-subm-t6.html https://hackerforums.co/the-lounge-f3/idea-extension-for-php... 2) I'm going to write up a fairly detailed thread later today that explains in more detail the Why of setting up the site, and the How I did it (literal technical details for those interested). I'll post that here and on Reddit and a few other places to hopefully get some exposure. Cool kids call that "traffic leaking" where you get valuable content in front of active communities, so might drive some traffic. 3) I'm debating setting up a contest of sorts, where members can earn a special badge/title by actively participating in the forum. So for example, start 10 threads and post 25 replies in threads and earn a special badge on your account for eternity. Silly, sure, but could be a simple fire starter. But yeah, overall, it's a challenging thing to do, and I've failed at it a few times over the years in trying to start forums. I still really love them though, so I wanted to try it again. BTW: Post your project here! :) https://hackerforums.co/show-hf-f7/ https://hackerforums.co/show-hf-f7/

matte_black 8y ago

The way to solve the chicken and egg problem is through paid posters. If you hire an initial group of people to post content and reply to new users eventually visitors who come on board will see the buzz and participate. Then you can phase out paid posters when you no longer need them. Pretty easy.

Jake232 8y ago

I agree, getting that initial user base is always tricky. After that, things kinda perpetually keep themselves going. Especially when you're likely talking about interesting topics / questions people google for. It seems in recent years that going has favored articles over forum topics in their results, but I'm sure there's still plenty of search traffic that goes to forums to bring in new users.

CM30 8y ago

Well, there are quite a few ways you can solve this issue. Namely: 1. Fake it, like on Reddit. Setup a bunch of fake users and create a ton of topics until activity really kicks in. 2. Do exchanges and deals on forum promotion and community management sites. For example, you can ask the people on Forum Promotion for exchanges, where you do five posts on their site in exchange for five posts on yours or what not. 3. Pay some sort of service for content. One or more of those could work for this site.