This forum has gone dead.

What are some of your tips for good discussion content?

How do you seed your site and how do you bring in new members?

hmm... right now I've got a book that we're going chapter by chapter in topics to talk about - it's a book that has short chapters with discussion questions at the end, so it's perfect

http://www.praisecafe.org/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=forum;f=9

Allen, have you seen Jay Yelas\' book that he's offering for free? You'd be interested in it.

Read the 4th reply.

nice thank you

That book might work great in our men's forum, we can always use something a little more structured to discuss

Plus, have them call that number and they can still get the book for free.

Will do, thank you.. I have a friend that runs a men's site too www.menshelp.org , he'll be interested too I'm sure

What do you do for conversation stimulation?

Well, we have some games that keep some people coming back every day. One of them is the "One Word Game." I started a thread with one word and asked them to reply with one word that relates to the word posted above it. For example:

Peanut
Jimmy Carter (Proper names are okay)
President
War
Iraq
etc.

Each one is a reply from a different user.

Another game is the continuous story we write together. It's a fictional story and anything goes as long as a 9 year old would be allowed to read it.

Word Association games are fun and lasting. One that I really like is the same principle as a regular word association, but the difference here is that there is a theme (e.g., movies, actors/actresses, bands/singer, books, etc.) and the first letter of any reply MUST match the last letter of the previous replied post. Example:

Movie-Word Association Game

Poster 1: Charles Angels (ends with letter "S")

Poster 2: Superman (started with letter "S" and ends with letter "N")

Poster 3: Never Been Kissed (started with letter "N")

Now poster #4's reply will start with the letter "D" and so forth.

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It's also hard to predict which threads and/or forums will receive the most activity. Some catch, some don't; some lapse, some roll 27/7. I think there is a correlation between age and forum activity or longivity of a particular thread. Probably having strictly a community board will maintain more activity consistently than say like a gaming site which members' split their free time between gaming and the forums...More than likely the gaming will score most of their time.

those are pretty good ideas, thank you

The number one way to improve traffic and the signal : noise ratio is to be an involved admin - read and post something daily. If it's not important to you, then it won't be to others, at least for long.

on that note, I'm back

LOL - way to prove your point Allen.

I think I'm still lost in the mix.

Well, I'd like to hear of more forum word games. Does anyone else have some they have had success with?

Found this list in an older thread:

Maybe there are more?