I always feel a pressure to have a website as well as forums, but usually struggle to maintain it. Nerdface is no different, I'd set up a portal thinking it was a relatively easy way to go and comparatively it is, but I still couldn't keep on top of keeping the content fresh, consistent, and up-to-date on top of trying to breathe activity in to the forums..
Do you think forums can survive on their own, or do you feel a website is needed? If a website is needed, should this take priority over focusing on forum activity, or will the activity follow naturally from an active and regularly updated website?
Nerdface
I haven't failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.
I learned long ago you cannot maintain both, unless you have the staff to do so but a single person can't keep a forum and website going.
To the question, you can have a forum without a website, mine is nearly 12 years and really doesn't have a dedicated website.
Latest Tech, video game and anime news: https://gaminglatest.com/
I learned long ago you cannot maintain both, unless you have the staff to do so but a single person can't keep a forum and website going.
I would have to agree with you on this.. It may have been possible in the past when forums were more popular and you could almost leave them to their own thing whilst your moderation team took care of a few bad apples, but now forums require a lot of effort to keep the activity going.
Nerdface
I haven't failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.
Honestly I don't see the point of a website, after all you want people looking at content on your forum.
Latest Tech, video game and anime news: https://gaminglatest.com/
Getting people to sign up and be consistently active on my forums would be a start.. 😶
I'm going through one of 'those' phases. I'll snap out of it.
Nerdface
I haven't failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.
I've tried adding a website to rmmv but it proved too much work, and a lot of people didn't like the new redirect to the home page. As such, I ended up shutting it down after only a few months. I found that having just one or the other is beneficial unless it's something like Xyphien LLC. The website is built around me personally, and offers services on it. That means I don't have to update it that much, and can still focus on the forums more than anything else.
Christianity Haven only has a forum, no website, no blog. I've seen the recent developments of forums having an entry page with a blog or other various components that offers members more resources and I admit it's enticing to copy that. My question would be, has the forum grown because of the blog/website/etc... Or is the forum hurting because sometimes people who are reading the blog don't even see that there is a forum elsewhere on the site?
I don't think I even have enough staff to manage such an endeavor anyway. I can't even some of my staff to start threads on the forum 🙁
Unless you have a large dedicated staff team broken up into 2 branches, 1 for the forum, and 1 for the site to focus on content for both, it's hard to maintain both as DS stated. I know plenty of sites that function just fine without a forum, and plenty of forums that function just fine without a proper main website (Forum Promotion comes to mind)
Myself? I'll be adding a main page portal to Revillution in the future, but it'll remain a forum at it's core, first and foremost. 🙂
Revillution - https://www.revillution.net
Mixer - https://mixer.com/smokeydevil