Member Avatar for Hellfire1190

Hey everyone im new here and I have always wanted to create a sucessful forum, but do not know where to exactly start. I have try countless times but have never suceeded. (Members becom active for first few days then never come back) I have been using free IPB but am looking for something new. So here is what I am asking.

What forum program to use?
How to start off my forum?
How do I keep it going?

:sad: I really want to have a growing and sucessful comunity and am hoping your guys could help. Thanks in advance.

-Hellfire

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by michaelbenson

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A short, practical diagnosis for : the “active for a few days, then gone” pattern usually means the forum lacks a clear member value and simple first actions that build social bonds. Several replies here point at tools and promotion, but the healthier fix is design and onboarding — start very narrow, invite a small set of committed people, and show every newcomer one clear, fast win. (cmxhub.com)

Concrete 90-day playbook (actionable and measurable): pick a single, narrow purpose; design 4–6 categories that match real problems; recruit 10–30 founding members (friends, influencers, expert volunteers); create 30–100 high-quality starter topics (questions, how‑tos, case studies — not anonymous “fake” accounts); draft a two-paragraph Code of Conduct and a short FAQ; run one live event (AMA or workshop) in month one to create early relationships. This staged pre-launch approach is standard practice in community playbooks. (feverbee.com)

Retention and moderation basics: automate a short welcome message and a 1–2 step onboarding checklist so the first visit has a clear mission; assign a small moderation rota with clear escalation rules; identify and reward early helpful members (badges, titles, early privileges). Avoid astroturfing long-term — seeding with real, curated people and real questions creates sustainable culture. Track simple KPIs weekly: new signups, DAU/MAU (stickiness), topics created, and 7‑day retention to judge whether onboarding is working. (userguiding.com)

Platform choice: think exportability and growth path, not just price. Managed vs self-hosted is a business decision; choose software that supports search, moderation tools, email digests and data export so migrations aren’t a crisis later. Starting on a platform with an active dev/community (examples exist) reduces technical friction — but content, onboarding, and consistent moderation determine success more than the software itself. was right to caution about long timelines; ’s instinct to seed content is useful if done transparently; ’s warning about free hosts is worth considering when scale is a goal. (discourse.org)

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Member Avatar for Hellfire1190

Oh and i forgot to mention it was Invision Free

Member Avatar for kennethtan

First, you need some add on features for your forum. Example, referral system and offer some cash for forumers. Furthermore, you need some active and trusted moderators to moderate all the boards. Keep on posting something usefull and i am sure forumers will come back to your site.

Good luck

Member Avatar for Rioshu

Oh man, how on this site do you even make a forum?

Member Avatar for Hellfire1190

what do you mean?

Member Avatar for Rioshu

You can make a forum on this site.
I wanna make a forums so thar friends can join it.
How?

Member Avatar for suprtraffics

You could try
xsorbit2 . com or xsorbit4 . com
it offers free forums but you don't get much to control..except for adding/deleting topics unless you pay...but if you want to get a start, buy a domain name and redirect there.

Or you could get a cpanel hosting, and use fantastico phpbb or other forum scrips provided.

Member Avatar for vphost

Hello,

If you have the budget, I would suggest that you use vB right off the bat. This will save you time later from converting your site if it grows too large.
First, I would suggest that you come up with a niche, something that is rare or better unique.
Unique doesn't have to be what you could be doing, as long as you have the necessary resource and the patience to get it going, you should be doing fine.

A forum does not go 100,000 posts over night, you should expect it to run at least 2-3 years before you can see it as "self-running", I would say you will need to dedicate a lot of time posting on it, getting members, promoting on other forum (please do not mistake this for spamming).

I hope this helps somewhat

Member Avatar for roryt

You could try webwiz forums
It is a really great forum that loads very quickly and is very easy to use as an member of admin and as a normal user.

In your post you did not say what your forum would be about, but I think the key thing about making a forum is to make one on a subject that you know plenty about and you won't get bored of. Also try not to go off this subject in your forum make sure everything is relevent to it.

More people will come back to your forum if your forum has plenty of content, so for starters make some fake users and post with them. Start some converstions going and make sure you answer any questions that are asked.

Good Luck!! :cool:

Member Avatar for michaelbenson

Oh and i forgot to mention it was Invision Free

Personally i have used InvisionFree many times, and the actual success rate of generating a popular, and active forum is extremely low, infact i would say that out of the thousands and thousands of boards which IF hosts 1 or 2 are actually considered Big Board (www.big-board.com) worthy.

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