Ever change subject of a forum years after gaining a userbase?

[Grant]

Was there ever a time where you decided to rebrand/rename your forum years after gaining a userbase there? Maybe it was a themed site that people joined, and you want to make it a forum that talks about more than just that now. Have you ever changed the theme and name of a forum that already has an established userbase? If you did, what did your members say? Were they happy? Mad? Did some leave after the change?

 

[saoussen57651]

The problem if you rename your website is that you have a very good reason to rename either the forum has changed sector of activity or a reason means every rename has his own reason to change.

 

[Shortie]

I have in the past had a forum that I have rebranded but it has never been years after it was opened and established, it was more than a month after it opened before it was ever established enough for it to matter.

I feel if you wait years to rebrand a forum, it will do more harm than good and is not always wise. Sometimes it's better to open another forum and build that from the ground up rather than rebrand.

 

[linux.poet]

The first forum that I joined tried to do this, and they hired me on their "strategic planning" team in order to do it. They were trying to change the subject of their forum from Bionicle (a lego theme) to Lego as a whole. This did not work. The forum was the most famous for Bionicle, so the newer Lego discussion spaces were ignored and Bionicle still saw the most traffic. People were diehards.

Because of this experience, I would generally advise against this unless the userbase wants to make the shift to the new subject, then you can rebrand to better serve them.

 

[Heatman]

I have never thought about changing or rebranding my forum that have gone for years with lots of users. It's definitely not going to end well by my calculation because it's going to be like changing the whole subject of the forum. I know very well that most users will find it very difficult to adjust, so I won't be the one to hurt my own forum.

 

[Ja sa bong]

If my forum stays active for 50 years, I will never change the subject/niche of my forum. I choose my forum niche based on my passion, I wouldn't be changing into what I don't know. If I rebrand my forum, I'm not going to change the niche/subject.

 

[Heatman]

I feel if you wait years to rebrand a forum, it will do more harm than good and is not always wise. Sometimes it's better to open another forum and build that from the ground up rather than rebrand.

This is exactly what I thought too. When your forum have an already established identity, waking up to rebrand and change it is definitely going to very costly. It doesn't matter how good the new rebranding plan looks like, the die hard fan of your community will never buy the idea. They have to be consulted before doing any drastic changes or they will walk out on the project.

 

[Kane]

I have never rebranded my forums. I don't think I will change the subject of my forums. However, recently, I have started rebranding my blogs. When I rebranded my blogs, I also stopped getting traffic. I think it will take some time before I start getting traffic on my rebranded blogs.