1 blog post generated more traffic than 10k forum threads

[alexpratt]

Great article we just uploaded to iGB Affiliate on whether a forum is really worth it based on a guy that shut down a very active forum Do you Really Want to Create a Forum? | iGBAffiliate

Interesting summary of why he dropped it

• 20% of forum users made 5 posts or less lifetime
• People that read his blog, are not interested in his forums
• 1 blog post generated more traffic than 10k forum threads
• He calls his community “High Maintenance”
• Constantly dealing with spam, bots as well as social problems between members
• Most of the posts were not useful content
• Closing the forum saved server costs, time and money
• Entitlement issues with long standing members with high post counts
• The “Entitled Ones” didn't like the forum being closed, so they started their own and pm spammed as many members as they could to switch. So much for loyalty to the owner Steve

[parttimepoker]

One of the happiest days of my life was when I didn't have to manage (or rather, participate in managing along with other people) a community anymore.

[Michael Martinez]

You should invest time and resources in a forum because you want a community. If you're doing it for business reasons and you're not providing user/customer support in the forum, I can see how the return on investment will be very, very hard to find.

Facebook and Twitter are probably killing old style forums anyway. Even in the science fiction verticals I see that most of the old forums that once had very active communities have died off. I'm not ready to let go of my own forums yet but unless something wonderful happens the writing is probably on the wall.

[Laurence]

Yeah forums generally only work for honing skills, although close friends of mine earned well over $1.5 million within a year in poker's hay day with it. Some people are just made to be a forum junkie, hire moderators left and right and know exactly how to get it to where they want it to be. I'm pretty amazed they're doing it again too, this time making over $25k a month in the forex niche.