How about starting a webmaster forum

[pankaj]

I am thinking of starting a webmaster forum.
Please give your views on this.

Will it help me, will it be useful, etc.
What will be the problems I will be facing and all.


MODS : Is this correct section for discussing about webmaster topics

[GeeOne]

Good idea IMO, there is big vacuum after DP.

But community building is really tough

G!

[pankaj]

Good idea IMO, there is big vacuum after DP.

But community building is really tough

G!

Mind explaining a little "there is big vacuum after DP."

Do you mean that there is not reliable forum except DP

[sparckyz]

I read someone say in a post somewhere a while ago that not to even think about starting a forum unless you have at least 10 people you know well to be your members and help run it. otherwise it would just be like all the other dead forums out there.

If i had 10 people who i trusted and wanted to start a forum with me then i'd have a forum, but i dont so its not worth it.

[DotComBum]

The problem would be getting members cause there are already tons of webmaster forums out there, if you have a big budget to advertise your forum then maybe you have a chance to make it popular and successful.


DCB

[Kovich]

Starting a community is no easy task.

You need to find people who will help you get it up and running, people who will remain even if activity drops - people who will keep posting and pushing the forum to succeed. You also need to give visitors a reason to come to your forum rather than one of the hundreds already in existence. In other words, you need a special feature that makes your forum better than the others.

It would also be an expensive endeavor because you'll need to do a lot of advertising to get it noticed within the webmaster community.
However, once the activity starts to pick up things should move along quickly from there. You just need to keep it going.

Maybe you'd be better off with a niche forum. For example, "A Community for Pet Webmasters" or "A Community for Gaming Webmasters."

[sam]

Its a good idea if you know how yours is going to be better than everyone else webmaster forums there are heaps around. Like what have you got to offer people that come to your site what will they learn there that they wont at other webmaster forums. Also you need to get members straight from the start which means you need a lot of friends to help you in the initial start up of the forum. I think that one of the main reasons Net Builders survived in the beginning of its life was because Will was very very motived but he also knew a lot of people in this business that he invited here and they knew a lot of people that they invited here. So from day one well I came on day four but it was active from the start so that made guests want to stay and start posting. But also keeping those new members there is just as hard as getting them to sign up because if they don't think your forum is still interesting they will slowly stop posting and leave which means all your hard work will be for nothing. I owned a forum for a little while and I was motivated to make it succeed but I wasn't motivated enough and so the forum basically died so I sold it to someone else and he was motivated to make it succeed but its even more dead than what it was when I had it.
Sorry to make it sound so negative but unless you have something really special that will make your forum be apart of the 1% of forums that succeed I wouldn't bother.
Just my 5 cents.

[Will.Spencer]

When I was trying to convince myself not to start NetBuilders, the note I sent to my 10 friends was titled "I am self-destructive and I need to be anesthetized."

Forums are a lot of work. I've invested thousands hours and thousands of dollars into NetBuilders. You really have to be in love with your topic and with your community. You have to want to give and give and give and then give some more.

I don't recommend that anyone start a forum unless their financial needs are taken care of by some other means.

[pankaj]

Thank you guys for all your suggestions.

[jakki]

its not easy to start or running a active community,
and if you chose webmaster niche then its going to --% hope untill you are not have lot of $$s.

you can check yourself that there are lot of webmaster forum and all is useful for spammers or linkbuilders only.