draconis

Posting Thesis

There are few things more important to a forum then posting. If only two people post once a week each anyone else will come see the forum and not want to wait two or three weeks to get a reply and leave. Many others will post one thing forget their pass word and check on the post to see responses. Yet another group of people will post a few things and feel that they are not responded to fast enough or plentiful enough and will move on. But in the end posts get people to stay or leave even more then content. They might check it out because of the content but in the end they want to feel like a part of something.

So let’s take a look at the types of posts.

1) Interest ~ Interest posts can often go in any direction. Imagine someone posting an article about the US having fewer paperboys today then in 1950’s but leaving just the article. It could spin off to the economy, paper vs. electronic media, conservation, child labor etc. These types of posts often have a life of their own and it is a 50/50 if they even get a hit at all.

2) Hook ~ The second largest responded to type of post. It can be a simple article about “love, mental or chemical” Then left with a question for the forum readers which do you think it is? Mostly this is an art form of knowing what the audience is, wants and will reply to. Almost anyone (regular poster) will give a response or two and check to see what others have to say.

3) Bait ~ Much like a hook this is used more as a set up. It throws a question out expecting a reply. The original poster already has a reply to who ever he has baited knowing he can beat him/her in any argument.

4) Help ~ Many forums are set up simply to help people on relationships, love, medical etc. Many get the help me threads because of this. They often are the fourth most posted to. Mostly from others that can either relate to the post or give advice.

5) Fun ~ Nothing makes a forum explode like fun threads. Fun threads can be responded to every day and sometimes every time a person goes to a forum. They feel like they have never wasted their time there. These get the most amount of posts on any forum. People that uses these have the highest post count. The down side is it takes away from the in depth of thinking through a post. Some people run up a tab just on non-serious posts. Though it might attract more people, have a higher post count and have more regulars nothing matches it for losing the seriousness of a thread.

Some examples might be:

A)
Mood thread ~ Each day post your current mood. As time goes on people will look and a post that is regularly loved changes to confused might generate questions and responses.

B)
Word association game. Also known as WAG

Here are the rules.

1) I'll start off with a word. "Cookie" you say any word that you relate to it.

2) The word can be anything you can relate to it. ie cookie can become milk, cake crisp , dough, chocolate, etc.

3) You can not double post or post to yourself.

4) Have fun.


Cookie

You can see were this one can get going, how it can be abused to get high post counts, and why some people love word games. Like I said above no one likes to come to a forum that isn’t happening. There is something about this exact thread that is always moving and people that “play” have a great time.

C)

Person Above You

This game is simple. Just state something about the person who last posted.

^
He is funny, wacked etc.

This can turn a bunch of ways. Mostly it pokes fun at someone and becomes a polite insult contest. Often it works on forums where everyone knows each other. Someone is bound to take it to seriously though and get offended or be plain rude. It is fun and does in the right settings get people to regularly post.

6) Poll ~ Simple you either ask a simple question i.e. What is the best tasting fruit? Or you have an actual poll they can cast a vote a, b, c or d and it tells them the tally so far that people have voted on. Under it has a place people can actually say why they voted the way they did, though often people vote and go.

Now of course many are wonder about me and forums. I know to much about forums. I have set up twelve myself. I am the Admin on two forums and a moderator on another. I post about two hundred times a day on different forums about a wide selection of stuff. I know what makes forums work and what makes many tank. I know what they do to make money to pay for the domain site, the redirect or how they use free forum generators and what they have to deal with.

One thing I always try to do is be polite. I might totally disagree with someone’s point of view but it is no reason to get bent out of shape about. I take very few things said on a forum personally and I think in politic threads I have been called every bad name you can think of and then some.

Forums live and die by the people that post. If you want to see a forum survive give an intelligent post everyday.

draconis