plax
09-05-2015, 07:08 PM
I've been in the bird forum biz long enough to realize a few things. One of them is that, from startup, it's incredibly difficult to acquire an active member base that's capable of attaining a point of critical mass - by this I mean a member count that's large enough to perpetuate itself. And that goal becomes especially difficult when there are preexisting forum sites on the Internet which serve virtually the same interest group. In other words, if your message board is not one of the very first to cover its general topic, it is likely going to have a struggle of a time accumulating active members beyond a certain point. After all, it is the activity and the diversity among a board's general topic that attracts users and generates interest enough among them to continue returning to the board. So the problem is that those boards sharing the same general topic with your board -and which as well predated your board's inception- already have most of the forum-inclined members and thus most of the discussion activity. And that's not something that is likely to change for as long as those older boards exist.
I certainly need to mention that there's something to be said for small community boards that maintain a somewhat pleasant atmosphere and a friendly attitude. They can often press forward with no apparent need to thrive. But they're inevitably going to experience ups and downs along the way. The ups may be pleasurable and encouraging for members; while the downs may be tantamount to paralysis. Despite that such cycling may be somewhat erratic, it is often marginally predictable. It typically involves members who join and remain active for multiple months and then abruptly seem to vanish. There can be a number of reasons for this, which I won't go into extensively here.
Interestingly, members who are fond of and frequent a particular message board, and who thus care about its success, may voice their opinions from time to time on the causality affecting message board community dynamics. They may offer suggestions in the direction of potential changes and improvements that they hope might increase overall member engagement. Some such suggestions may well prove invaluable (given enough time)... while others tend to end up in the trial & error bin. I have encountered no perfect recipe for making a hugely successful message board out of one that has preexisting counterpart competitors. Most forum-inclined users are apt to remain loyal members of the active, larger forum communities. And that's simply a fact of social dynamics.
While functional and structural improvements can help a board become more interesting to new and existing members alike, other members may find such changes undesirable... or even, in some cases, daunting. So any gains may be countered by the creation of discouragements. As such, it becomes another trial and error venture. When it comes to an online community, there are few things that everyone will embrace!
Then, of course, there will always be member clashes. It is these incidents that may well be the most detrimental factor for a struggling message board. And it all comes about because people often tend to hold dissimilar views and values on various topics. I am convinced that this tendency is simply a hard-coded fact of life. Whenever someone's views and values are challenged by the words and/or behaviors of another, some resentments may ensue. The scenario can easily escalate and may become quite ugly. When this happens within a message board community, the latent borders around various groups of close friends may intensify and a choosing of sides may ensue among the involved members. Public and/or private discussions concerning such a disagreement tend to feed the hostility. The worst-case scenario is that opposing groups on each side of an issue may become angry or otherwise discouraged enough to reduce or entirely forgo their involvement among the particular message board community. Obviously, when this occurs it becomes a great setback for such a community. Many a forum site has emerged only to fade into obscurity, due in large part to this sort of dynamic. And the dynamic can be virtually impossible to combat since each person's personal values are among his or her most important anchors in life. In other words, there's not much chance of changing the way most folks think.
I decided to post about this if for no other reason than to highlight the fluctuating activity that we see on Precisely Parrots from time to time. There are of course a number of other factors affecting forum activity levels. Things like... time of year, varying family situations, scheduling status, and other personal circumstances all factor in. Ultimately, I think it's all worth considering.
I certainly need to mention that there's something to be said for small community boards that maintain a somewhat pleasant atmosphere and a friendly attitude. They can often press forward with no apparent need to thrive. But they're inevitably going to experience ups and downs along the way. The ups may be pleasurable and encouraging for members; while the downs may be tantamount to paralysis. Despite that such cycling may be somewhat erratic, it is often marginally predictable. It typically involves members who join and remain active for multiple months and then abruptly seem to vanish. There can be a number of reasons for this, which I won't go into extensively here.
Interestingly, members who are fond of and frequent a particular message board, and who thus care about its success, may voice their opinions from time to time on the causality affecting message board community dynamics. They may offer suggestions in the direction of potential changes and improvements that they hope might increase overall member engagement. Some such suggestions may well prove invaluable (given enough time)... while others tend to end up in the trial & error bin. I have encountered no perfect recipe for making a hugely successful message board out of one that has preexisting counterpart competitors. Most forum-inclined users are apt to remain loyal members of the active, larger forum communities. And that's simply a fact of social dynamics.
While functional and structural improvements can help a board become more interesting to new and existing members alike, other members may find such changes undesirable... or even, in some cases, daunting. So any gains may be countered by the creation of discouragements. As such, it becomes another trial and error venture. When it comes to an online community, there are few things that everyone will embrace!
Then, of course, there will always be member clashes. It is these incidents that may well be the most detrimental factor for a struggling message board. And it all comes about because people often tend to hold dissimilar views and values on various topics. I am convinced that this tendency is simply a hard-coded fact of life. Whenever someone's views and values are challenged by the words and/or behaviors of another, some resentments may ensue. The scenario can easily escalate and may become quite ugly. When this happens within a message board community, the latent borders around various groups of close friends may intensify and a choosing of sides may ensue among the involved members. Public and/or private discussions concerning such a disagreement tend to feed the hostility. The worst-case scenario is that opposing groups on each side of an issue may become angry or otherwise discouraged enough to reduce or entirely forgo their involvement among the particular message board community. Obviously, when this occurs it becomes a great setback for such a community. Many a forum site has emerged only to fade into obscurity, due in large part to this sort of dynamic. And the dynamic can be virtually impossible to combat since each person's personal values are among his or her most important anchors in life. In other words, there's not much chance of changing the way most folks think.
I decided to post about this if for no other reason than to highlight the fluctuating activity that we see on Precisely Parrots from time to time. There are of course a number of other factors affecting forum activity levels. Things like... time of year, varying family situations, scheduling status, and other personal circumstances all factor in. Ultimately, I think it's all worth considering.