Is it easier to revive a dead forum or start a new one?

[Cedric]

Does anyone have experience in reviving a dead, previously closed or inactive forum ? By that I mean for months to years where there's no soul ever online. Do you think it's easier to revive such forum or would you rather start with a new fresh forum, considering the old forum has a lot of content and members?

 

[Shortie]

If the forum in question has a lot of members and content I feel the best thing would be to try and revive that forum. There are so many ways that you can revive a forum like that and get it active again without the need to completely restart the forum in question. Things such as post exchanges and even investing in the forum and getting paid posters in can help to revive the forum if you are able to invest in hiring paid posters. I would only ever give up on a forum that had died off and restart if any way to revive the activity didn't work.

 

[SpookyZalost]

The answer is that it really depends. I've had experience reviving forums before and the hardest part is coming up with new content so that when people visit they won't think it's still dead. That's most likely why many create new forums and keep the old one around as an archive of sorts.

so I guess the real question is, do you feel you're up to the work involved?

 

[Cory]

A lot of content on a dead forum could be outdated depending on the niche of the forum. But, if a forum has interesting content that is not highly outdated, it could be worth reviving. I don't recall ever reviving a dead forum myself, as I have been pretty committed to the forums that I've owned that have grown large. I mean, you have tons of content for users to read and reply to, so it's not necessarily a bad thing to revive instead of starting from scratch, taking in different factors.

 

[Xilia]

It kinda depends. If it's a roleplay board, are you doing a 'hard reset' (get rid of all members, posts, etc.) or a "soft reset" (members and characters stay roughly the same just do something like a timeskip or soft reset on the timeline to try to start 'brand new' on the established plot/setting/whatever). It also depends on the reasons WHY something was closed. Was it closed because admins lost their steam (very easy to do)? Was it closed because of a toxic group of people? It all depends.

 

[Heatman]

A dead forum is dead for a reason. It's going to be very difficult for you to bring it back to life compared to how easy it's going to be pushing a new project to gain popularity. People will be much interested in seeing what you have in store for them with your new forum, so it gives you a better edge.

 

[Ravenfreak]

I think it depends on the niche of the forum. If it's a general discussion forum, I think it'd be much easier to revive than other niches. If the content is already there, then reviving the forum and bringing it up to modern day standards shouldn't be too difficult, depending on how big the community is.

 

[ClicketyKat]

What caused the forum to die? If it's a lack of interest from the members, then you'd need to get an entire new set of members. Getting members for an existing forum is probably easier than having them see an empty forum.

 

[Reverie]

I think it is best usually to revive a forum... now back in the day I may have said start anew, but now having that member base as well as having threads and what not, it's also cool to look back on old posts!

If the forum didn't have more than 50 members, I would maybe start over just to build a new community that can be more tight-knit and have more current content. I would invite members to join if they'd like though!

 

[Jason]

I don't think it matters. All that matters is getting people in so to get things rolling again. However, though, a person might want a different name for a forum, so they may want to start fresh. However, though, some might want to keep an old one cause the domain name is valuable or maybe the brand name has a huge following.