The right idea for a forum, at the wrong time

[Beverly]

When I started my forum, I had so much spare free time and plenty of money from other sources. So I wasn't worried about time. But within a few months, I ran out of free time and had to start work, so I had next to no time to manage my forum the way I wanted. Now I'm wishing I had just postponed opening a forum as it's had to take a back burner position since. I still like the idea of my forum but don't think it was the right time in my life to start one. Has something like this ever happened to you?

 

[Shortie]

Yes this has happened to me. I always run my forums as a hobby myself so anything that involves life away from my forums always has to come first including working and making money and this happens all too often. I find now that I still get on my forums however not as much as I would have liked to, to help keep fresh and new content coming in on a daily basis which does affect my forum dramatically when I am not as active as I could be.

 

[Robmaniac]

Not really now, it did before and I do feel empathy for you in that aspect, once you've laid the groundwork, especially on my e-fed site, the community run it essentially, I just do admin stuff and it is running well

 

[kfander]

I sometimes forget just how difficult it is to get a forum going. Rarely is anyone going to start a thread in an empty forum or even participate in a thread that only one or two people have participated in. Plus, unless you have chosen a tight niche, the chances are that there are more established forums where large numbers of people are talking about the same stuff.

The length of time and the amount of effort that has to be put into getting a forum off the ground can be deceiving, even to those who have gone through it before. Women probably experience something similar in pregnancies, in that they forget how bad it was.

I've started forums late at night, when I had some spare time, thinking that I'd be able to get it going, and there have been times when that just didn't happen. On the other hand, I started a support forum for a particular disorder that my nephew, whom I was raising, had, in late 2000 or early 2001. That forum just took off. My nephew is in his twenties now, working and living several states away from me, yet that forum is still going strong. Although I am still a co-administrator, I gave the administration over to someone else, but I check in with it every now and then. It has become sort of like a grown child. You no longer have to feed and clothe him, or make sure that he gets up for school, but you're still pleased to know that he'd doing well.

 

[cyberpuppet]

I have found even time of year has to be considered. I had one idea, got the framework in place, started promoting and post exchanges so was getting a trickle of users in and ... it was Christmas. I did not not the time do the promotion or post enough on post exchanges to get others posting on mine, the people on post exchanges were all equally as busy and even the small number of organic members dropped off. By the first week of January it was the online version of a tumbleweed down the main street. It seemed to take twice as much energy to restart and to be honest I lost interest (a fault of mine sometimes)

 

[xTinx]

The analogy is kind of off for me. There's no write or wrong timing for ideas. I just think that perhaps the way you implemented that idea was too hasty and it's what caused some of the not so pleasant results. Don't worry. The great thing about ideas is that you can always use them to your advantage anytime you're ready. Plan, persevere and prove them wrong. That's just it.

 

[Deka]

It really takes a lot of time and effort and even money to start a forum. You won't be reaping profit from the forum right from the start. You would have to invest some time first and make sure that it's active. Next, you would have to ban spammers or those members who don't follow the rules. Lastly, you would need to spend money to make the forum happen as well. Others even utilise money for the graphics and the staff that they hire. So in essence, if you're not really in it, your forum won't survive. You, as the administrator, need to be always there for the forum especially if it doesn't have its own community yet.

Just like in real life, the right idea at a wrong time happens. The good thing is, with your forum, or even my forum, it can wait in the background. Only until you have settled your real life issues. You can also have someone handle the forum for you in the meantime. And if the time comes that you're ready for the forum, you can just go back instead of restarting from scratch.