How do you ensure your forum is ready for launch?

[Martee]

With launching a forum, comes a lot of little things which you have to do to bring your little haven up to your best standards. But, I'm sure we have our own little ways of doing this. How do you personally do it?

Myself, I would ensure that I have a checklist of things that I have to tick off and say I have done before I would launch my community. It would go something like this:

• A nice theme
• Working correctly (Bug testing)
• Ensuring site speed is ok
• Do some test posts in various user-groups and such to test permissions.

That would be my mini-checklist but I keep things simple. What about you?

 

[YanOri]

• A nice theme
• Working correctly (Bug testing)
• Ensuring site speed is ok
• Do some test posts in various user-groups and such to test permissions.

1 - Definitely needed
2 - Usually not needed unless you've modified script contents and / or have plugins installed
3 - Yes, ensuring you're on a host that's worth the money you'd spend and that your forum script is modified for max performance.
4 - That's necessary

My list is almost the same as yours with following additions:

1 - Making sure you've fot your categories and forums, sub-forums right ( Depending on your forum niche )
2 - Setting the forum management team properly.
3 - Check for typos or grammatical errors ( That might not be important for most of you, native English speakers )

~ Ready to launch xD

 

[shadowslight]

The way i set up my site is pretty similar to the way you both described, but I also put in some content for each category I have on the forum. Oh also, on first launch, I was the only staff member, the others came in time

 

[Southern Comfort]

Plan the forum, setting up the forum (Custom theme preferably, nice professional and sleek graphics, banner that stands out compared to other forums, a good balance of forums and subforums), adding content to each and every forum, have a small group of people come in and start posting before opening. Really, if I were to open a forum now, I would try and have at least a thousand quality posts before opening. It usually works out for me.

Activity draws in a bigger crowd instead of just opening it empty.

 

[Gytix]

I say this on quite a few forums, a necessity for me is to have about 500 threads already started, be it tutorials or just general threads. New members won't make there own threads, their more likely to post in pre-exisiting ones.
Just gather up a bunch of mates you've accumulated over other forums, and persuade them to join up, that gives you a solid user base from the out-set (Providing your mates are as boss as mine) xD

 

[Beverly]

I say this on quite a few forums, a necessity for me is to have about 500 threads already started, be it tutorials or just general threads. New members won't make there own threads, their more likely to post in pre-exisiting ones.
Just gather up a bunch of mates you've accumulated over other forums, and persuade them to join up, that gives you a solid user base from the out-set (Providing your mates are as boss as mine) xD

This was one of the things that me and my admin focused on the first week before we opened the forum. She ran around the forum posting non-stop and I followed her around answering the best I could and posting my own discussions. By the second week, Grand Opening, we had several hundred threads and responses and the forum didn't look so deserted. It was a nice way to welcome in the new members.

 

[Kalaborative]

I review everything on my forum and make sure it is set to go , I make sure there are no errors in grammar or spelling, Then I make sure the forums themselves are neat and well-thought of and everything has its place. I also have staff before launching usually so I get that too before I officially launch the site!