Posting in every single thread is the only way to be successful when you're first starting out. With few people posting on a new site, you can't rely on other members to get the job done. Once your site grows and becomes entirely self-sustaining, then you'll find yourself focusing more and more on moderation issues that arise and less time posting, and when you get to that point, that's fine.

I see. My forum has not so big activity as there are only about 300 members with 7500 posts, so I keep repling on every post, but I am really not sure if this is good. On the other hand leaving those threads and wait untill someone replies is bad too, and the worst would propably be to make several accounts and post from them (I have done it in the past, but I think it is redicoulous)

Right now you should be replying to every post. This is fine. Once the site grows large enough, you'll have a dedicated team of regular members who will share this job with you.

Ok. Thanks for your comment

Good info ...

The only forum I own and I don't post that much is my Romanian MA forum. I have some very dedicated members who are also instructors, so I just keep the board running. When opening the forums I started all the threads (20-30 new threads each day) and replied a lot. Now, after some months, I don't have the highest post count anymore. I am not as good in MA as they are (am only a blue belt), so I just keep myself from posting too much since they do know how to handle the discussion.

But all my 5 forums I have aside that one have me as the highest posting member. I "own" a good percentage of the replies and 60-90 % of the topics. The forums are still small so I need to boost the replies with new topics constantly. But little by little new members join and they find that they do have what to talk about. Then, I can relax on the posting a bit and just read their replies and post when I truly have to.. There are days the topics are going without me, so I just look at them. When I feel a day is less active, then I can reply to some of the threads I ignored on the active days and reboost the posting.

The answer to anyone who says - how many members should I have in 3 months? is not a number it is the fact that it depends on how many people are interested in your subject. For example this forum has over 70,000 members in a few years but if it was about a more specific subject for example PDAs then there would only be a fraction of the amount of members. So in conclusion you should just make sure that your forum has steady growth.

That's not necessarily true. At first glance, you might think that a more general site has a larger pool of potential members. However, a lot of times, people are more inclined to join niche forums. For example, a hardcore PHP programmer might be a lot more inclined to join a PHP-geared niche forum than a general programming site or a general IT site with just one section devoted to PHP. I think it's more of a give 'n' take between a lot of one thing or a little of everything. In the end, it all balances out when you factor in everything about the community as a whole.

I have one thing to add to what dani said. It's true that people will most likely join a forum they're interested in. But it also makes sense that niche website owners will initially have to do more work finding interested users. An owner of a non-niche forum could ask all his friends to post and they'd probably have some idea and relate to what they're posting about.

I have a question about the posting bit. What if they haven't posted anything that really warrants a reply? I mean what if they've posted a statement or an ad or something like that? I don't really know how to respond to statements.

If you don't know how, then learn I promise, it's a lesson that will serve you well. If someone posts a statement or a non-question, reply with a comment of your own ... "That's interesting, but what about ..." ... Get conversation flowing. Think about how you would respond to a friend who just told you that statement. It will make you come off as much more approachable on the site. Additionally, people posting statements puts good factual info on the site instead of just questions, so it should be encouraged as much as possible. The only way to encourage it is to make people feel comfortable posting it ... and the only way to do that is to comment on it!