i have a forum for a relatively small (but rapidly growing) niche of researchers worldwide. it's been really slow getting it going.. very low traffic. do you think people will use it? are low traffic forums useful? the address is << url snipped to comply with forum policy >>

i think another problem is that a lot of old-school scientists aren't used to posting questions to a web-based forum. they ask on newsgroups or search the literature.

Well you have a nice skin, in my experience of running forums no one will come and just start posting, add content and exclusive content would be great it gives members something to talk about.

Im sure peopel will. Just keep it up to date, and try to not lose intrest. Remember its something your trying to accompish, not work on and loose intrest. But remember we are humans we get sick of thing's lol. TOO MUCH, ill take a look at your forums. Science is a great and marvelous thing, and I love researcher's. Some smart men right there, and well right here at daniweb! (=

thanks for the replies.

i just read the forum policy, after seeing that my forum URL had been removed from my original post in this thread. so why is it that threads like this haven't been edited?

and why do so many long-time users of these forums have blatent advertisements in their signature??

This policy has just gone into effect within the past month, as a result of soooo many people posting in the Internet Marketing forums: "I'm getting no traffic to www.mysite.com - please help me" ... it just turned into a spam-fest. Therefore, I've recently enacted a no-advertisement rule within the Internet Marketing forums. Everytime I come across an old thread, I edit it out ... but since this is a new policy, it takes some time to go back and edit all of the old threads.

Once you have 10 posts (which I see you do) you can post about your site in our Site Reviews forum. If you have a webmaster-related service to offer, you can also post in the Webmaster Marketplace.

Links in signatures are still allowed.

Sorry to double post ... but I just want to add. I edited out the URLs from that thread serfurj ... You see, it just became such a problem with blatant advertising ... and I want to keep the Internet Promotion forums a place to discuss general techniques and ideas, etc. ... and we can then talk about site-specific stuff in the Site Reviews forum

okay, i understand. thanks for explaining. great job on these forums by the way.

Thanks for understanding Now to answer your questions, all forums started off with little traffic at one point or another. If the quality of the posts is impressive, you can get converts. Also, make sure that you, as the administrator, personally respond to every post as soon as you can. It gives the impression that regardless of the number of total posts there are, a person's question / thread will get answered ... which is inevitably what everyone wants anyways.

good suggestions.. thanks. i think one thing that really helps a forum get started is word of mouth. i've been trying to spread the word lately and have been getting more posts.

Yup, definitely. Most online communities get most of their traffic from either word of mouth or from repeat visitors.