User Engagement ❔ Why do people think they can begin a community with only themselves?

[CharlesK]

I was reading a post in the Xenforo forum where a user was asking others to voluntarily do a post exchange (which is a nice idea, but hard to do over time).

The root of her problem is that she basically started a community - a place for multiple people to gather and discuss - with only one person.

Why do people think they can begin a forum with only themselves? Don't you need at least a small group of people?

 

[Nomad]

I think most people start alone but gradually they build a team. sadly, some people cannot build a team even though they want to. Some forum owners cannot build a team even when they try hard. That's because to build a team, you need money, you need to pay your staff, if you cannot do it. You will be alone in your community.

 

[Bluezone777]

I never saw a community ever successfully get spun up by a single person though I seen it get tried a lot and always end up in failure.. It is always a group of people coming together to start a community and then begin the process of growing over time. I never saw the merit in starting a community with a staff team comparable to an active established community as a forum shouldn't need a staff team aside from the owner until the community's growth merits additional staff to handle the growing workload.

 

[Tracy]

I was reading a post in the Xenforo forum where a user was asking others to voluntarily do a post exchange (which is a nice idea, but hard to do over time).

The root of her problem is that she basically started a community - a place for multiple people to gather and discuss - with only one person.

Why do people think they can begin a forum with only themselves? Don't you need at least a small group of people?

It depends on why the admin started their site.
There are multiple others in my niche that are out there (most are Invision). I wanted somewhere to post my content in a format that I was comfortable with. I could have set up a Wordpress blog, but presenting the content, for me, is more familiar in a forum format. If others wanted to join and participate, that's great. I'd be paying the hosting cost no matter what script I was running so why not use something I'm comfortable with?
For most people, if you are going to start a site up, you need a core group with will participate. One person (unless it is a niche not covered, and there are not that many of them now) will have a hard time getting a site off the ground by themself. Even if they can generate good content, most people now are consumers, the actual content generators are few and far between.
I see that regularly with my site. I have several articles posted that are being used by people on another site to change to a different capture based system than what they are using. I have, in each article, an area to discuss that article. But where do they ask me about it? On the other site. I finally commented that if they wanted answers to please join and post them on my site as that was what the discussion area was for and it would also help my site. I mentioned that I only logged onto the other site once or twice a week and they would get a quicker response on my site which I'm on multiple times a day. A couple of them did that... but they started conversations/direct messages instead of posting in the discussion area! 🙄

 

[Ravenfreak]

When you first open a forum, depending on the niche you don't need any other staff other than yourself IMO. Now if it's a webmaster or promotional forum, you need to have at least one other person helping you if you offer services like posting services. I do recommend getting a group of people to help add content to your forum before you open it up to the public however.

 

[CharlesK]

It depends on why the admin started their site.
There are multiple others in my niche that are out there (most are Invision). I wanted somewhere to post my content in a format that I was comfortable with. I could have set up a Wordpress blog, but presenting the content, for me, is more familiar in a forum format. If others wanted to join and participate, that's great. I'd be paying the hosting cost no matter what script I was running so why not use something I'm comfortable with?
For most people, if you are going to start a site up, you need a core group with will participate. One person (unless it is a niche not covered, and there are not that many of them now) will have a hard time getting a site off the ground by themself. Even if they can generate good content, most people now are consumers, the actual content generators are few and far between.
I see that regularly with my site. I have several articles posted that are being used by people on another site to change to a different capture based system than what they are using. I have, in each article, an area to discuss that article. But where do they ask me about it? On the other site. I finally commented that if they wanted answers to please join and post them on my site as that was what the discussion area was for and it would also help my site. I mentioned that I only logged onto the other site once or twice a week and they would get a quicker response on my site which I'm on multiple times a day. A couple of them did that... but they started conversations/direct messages instead of posting in the discussion area! 🙄

You are more like a content creator than a community builder (this is not a critique, only an observation). When you're a content creator, then yes, it makes sense to only start as one.

But if your goal is to build a community, you ultimately need other people.

 

[Tracy]

You are more like a content creator than a community builder (this is not a critique, only an observation). When you're a content creator, then yes, it makes sense to only start as one.

But if your goal is to build a community, you ultimately need other people.

You can have both. Create good enough content and frequently people will decide to join to comment on said content - whether to give pointers or to point out issues.
That's the issue with some admins... they are "stuck" in an old paradigm of thought on how it "should" work, and not looking at alternative processes. They look at how forums have been built up in the past... but ignore the benefits of those alternative methods of gaining participation. You can use the same process used in growing social media accounts (Instagram, YouTube, etc) in the realm of a forum. Offer content that people want to consume and possibly comment on and it grows.
The days of much activity by a lot of varied people are long over with, especially for sites that simply consist of discussions, unless technical in nature that are of interest to others. There have been ample examples of how most content is generated by a very small percentage of persons and consumed by a larger number.
Now certain niches are not the same. If it is one targeted at a specific geographical area, it can frequently gain traction... but you run into the same issue that there are a lot of consumers of the information on the site and very few active content generators.

 

[Shortie]

I feel that forums do have the potential to thrive when you begin them on your own, I was able to back in 2009 - 2017 when I had a general chat forum that I started by myself that became quite successful, unfortunately, it's not around anymore as I chose to close in 2017 due to the hosting costs increasing at the time.

If you have a passion for the niche your forum is, then I feel you can start on your own and build up over time but it may take a little longer.