General Things we find hard to believe

[Cedric]

We encounter countless challenges, triumphs, and, occasionally, things that leave us utterly perplexed. In this discussion, let's talk about stuff we find hard to believe and share those jaw-dropping moments.

I found a hot pepper related forum:

The Hot Pepper

Hot pepper and hot sauce questions and community

thehotpepper.com

I admire that though. 1.7 million posts and by the looks of it, quite active. That's amazing. I didn't know there's so much about peppers you can talk about, lol.

 

[Arantor]

Some like it spicy, I guess.

 

[vong]

Some like it spicy, I guess.

I like it spicy.

 

[Cory]

People that have so many posts on one particular forum are always an eye-opener for me. Like Arantor on the SMF board and Dawn on Fun Joint. And here I thought my 20K- posts were a lot on the ZetaBoards Support board, little did I know!

 

[Ravenfreak]

People will talk about anything lol, there are a few different types of peppers and each have their own level on the Scoville heat unit scale. There's a Youtuber called The L.A. Beast that I watch who has attempted to eat the hottest peppers in record time, it's amusing. I like spicy foods but I think some of these peppers are too hot for my tastes. I've talked about my fascination for water towers in another thread, yet I never really went out of my way to see if there's a community that talks about them. (I'm sure there's a subreddit though.)

 

[Arantor]

The reality is that virtually any topic under the sun will have fans, the only questions are whether there’s enough fans to make a forum interesting (three fans of a thing, rather limits the amounts of conversations you’re likely to have) and then the challenge is how you find the people to join.

Chances are very few of the members searched Google for ”hot pepper forum” but might have found their way there looking for information on how hot a specific pepper was.

 

[TwitchisMental]

I guess I have another forum to join hahahaha. I love spicy things.

 

[Kennysplash]

How the owner managed to achieve this much activity is worth studying. If I witnessed the start of the forum I would think it would be dead in no time, because it’s not a popular niche

 

[Cedric]

How the owner managed to achieve this much activity is worth studying. If I witnessed the start of the forum I would think it would be dead in no time, because it’s not a popular niche

Well it's 20 years old, it did have the good old days. If you'd start that today, I'd share your opinion.

 

[Husk]

Where do you guys find this stuff? I want to find a forum for some of my niche interests but I have no idea where to even look. A part of me wants to start one but meh. I like being able to dip if I don't like the community.

 

[Cedric]

Where do you guys find this stuff? I want to find a forum for some of my niche interests but I have no idea where to even look. A part of me wants to start one but meh. I like being able to dip if I don't like the community.

What niche interest do you have?

 

[Husk]

I'm really into VivziePop/Vivienne Medrano's series, Helluva Boss and Hazbin Hotel.

I'm also into mobile games, a lot of them are silly little gacha games like Twisted Wonderland (even though it's Disney, it has a relatively small fandom) and The Tale of Food. I also play more well known games like Genshin Impact. I used to have guinea pigs and I was on a couple of forums for that but now that I don't have them anymore, I kinda trickled away from that.

And there's roleplay but... I'm not interested in that community anymore.

 

[Ravenfreak]

I'm really into VivziePop/Vivienne Medrano's series, Helluva Boss and Hazbin Hotel.

I'm also into mobile games, a lot of them are silly little gacha games like Twisted Wonderland (even though it's Disney, it has a relatively small fandom) and The Tale of Food. I also play more well known games like Genshin Impact. I used to have guinea pigs and I was on a couple of forums for that but now that I don't have them anymore, I kinda trickled away from that.

And there's roleplay but... I'm not interested in that community anymore.

Honestly you'd probably find subreddits or discord servers for a lot of the fandoms you're part of these days. It's rare to see forums or message boards for big things anymore, unless they've been around for a long time. Perhaps a link to a separate community might even be on subreddits, most of the time they'll advertise Discord servers.

 

[Cory]

I used to have guinea pigs and I was on a couple of forums for that but now that I don't have them anymore

I used to have pet rats (12 total, I believe) and I think I was on a pet rat forum once, but I doubt you'd find many forums devoted to less popular pets. Maybe there's a "small pets" forum out there, but a whole forum dedicated to pet rats alone these days might be pushing it. That is indeed more likely to be found on Reddit or Discord, as Ravenfreak pointed out.

 

[Husk]

Honestly you'd probably find subreddits or discord servers for a lot of the fandoms you're part of these days. It's rare to see forums or message boards for big things anymore, unless they've been around for a long time. Perhaps a link to a separate community might even be on subreddits, most of the time they'll advertise Discord servers.

I'm on the Hellaverse subreddit but tbh that's the reason I don't want to make a forum for it. A lot of the fans (despite the shows being adult oriented) are young kids and I just have nothing to say to them and don't like interacting with them. The same thing would happen if there was a forum for it, unfortunately.

 

[MrDawn]

I admire that though. 1.7 million posts and by the looks of it, quite active. That's amazing. I didn't know there's so much about peppers you can talk about, lol.

I have discovered people can talk about food for hours. Just go hiking all day without food and you'll be amazed by how flexible food discussions can get.

 

[Shawn Gossman]

I think niching down isn't always a bad idea.

Take a general niche based on a passion, interest, or hobby you have.

Then, try to create a category within that niche that you want to be an expert at.

So, with the food or gardening niche, you could choose hot peppers. Then, you'll create content and market to THAT SPECIFIC AUDIENCE.

What makes Niching Down so special is the audience. You'll define your niche so perfectly that you'll know who exactly to target. It will be easier to research their online behavior, needs, and wants. Then, you can exploit that research with your community idea.

Niching down is a good idea. You might not grow a significant huge community but you'll probably have a very active on-topic community that will do better than a larger one with a lot of inactive people on it.

 

[zoldos]

The main thing for me was our power bill was over $350. I called them, and they said our power isn't even on (but it was). Turns out a payment we made got retuned, but due to a backlog, they didn't get a chance to cut our power off yet. We were like "holy crap!!!' It would have been a disaster if the power was turned off. What a save!!!

 

[vong]

Niching down is a good idea. You might not grow a significant huge community but you'll probably have a very active on-topic community that will do better than a larger one with a lot of inactive people on it.

And another benefit: less stress for the team.

 

[Teegold]

Well one thing I saw on Facebook recently that I still find hard to believe is a python swallowing a komodo dragon whole! I was shocked beyond words! Those creatures can swallow anything when they are determined!