Theoretically, 4-ch's simple post system should make it the biggest English-speaking forum in the world. (lol)
So, what makes a forum popular? Let's look at the most popular forums in the world for hints:
#1: 2channel. Popular because it stayed up while other anonymous forums went down; consolidated a bunch of different forums such as Ayashii World. The Live TV forums also probably contributed. There may be other factors which I don't know.
#2: Go-Gaia. Attracted little kids because of its avatar system. But that's not the userbase we want, is it?
#3: IGN+VaultNet. I don't know why this is popular, I don't know much about the history of this BBS.
#4,5: FaceTheJury and Nexopia. These are popular because you can just spam any damn message you want, it's like AIM. Maybe 4-ch should open a bunch of gimmick boards like 2ch has.
#6: Partyflock. Popular because it created a large number of forums to plan parties in different areas of the Netherlands.
#7: Off Topic. I don't know why this is popular, I don't know much about the history of this BBS.
#8: PaintBallNation. Popular because it created a large number of paintball forums and became the number one place to go for paintball.
#9: Something Awful. Popular because the $10 registration fee keeps out little kids, and because of its dedicated moderation team. Not popular because of some inherent superiority; go back to archive.org and see SA in 2002 if you don't beleive me on that.
#10: Fok.nl. I don't know why this is popular, I don't know much about the history of this BBS.
>>2 Now's your chance! Go for the kill!
>>3-1000 Discuss theories of attracting people!
If a forum needs to "launch", it's not being made for the right reasons.
You're not who we're confused by. What we're wondering is what sort of nutheads are starting a forum that they are willing to pay for special posts to get off the ground. As No. 122 implied, a forum is supposed to be an organic thing centered around a group of interested people, not a revenue generator like a commercial website.
I know some people have high hopes for their purposeless new anime forums and beg people to come post, but that's their problem, and in the natural order of things their forums should just wither and die. They shouldn't get a "community transplant" to stay afloat.
By the way, nice job advertising on Million Dollar Homepage and so forth, that's how I found your site. (Although I'm just really bored and I am not interested in buying your services, so maybe you targeted the wrong market with those ads.)
That reminds me, I kind of like the aesthetics of the million dollar homepage, but most of the content on it is pure shit, for obvious reasons. I think it would be cool to do a similar thing for free, to let it be more interesting and creative. However, there are some obvious problems with the idea, such as how to allocate pixels to people.
(http://www.milliondollarhomepage.com/ for those of you who don't know of it.)
Wow, what a brilliant idea. That guy really is going to make a million bucks. Wish I'd have thought of that; hell, I'd be happy with just $10k.
I am Japanese.
Please enjoy the site that I have managed.
I am American.
Please enjoy the sage that I have managed.
Re >>114-115
I used to hear stories about people making multiple accounts on their own forums and talking to themselves in order to make it seem lively and get others interested. I always dismissed those stories as apocryphal, but I guess not only were they true, the craft has now been commercialized.
Really makes you wonder. Like, wouldn't people see through that sort of thing? I could see it happen on a totally anonymous forum, but with registration, you must have to be a good liar indeed. And of course the forum's credibility would go to nil if the real users found out.
> the forum's credibility
lol
>>131 Here:
Nevermind. Found it.
Even in an anonymous forum, things like writing styles can be dead giveaways. I guess if you have the time, it doesn't matter though.
Why do you claim that it is much harder to post with several accounts on a registration-only forum than to post with several names, or anonymously, on an anonymous board?
BTW: Anyone else find it funny that http://www.rentpixelads.com/ is advertizing on http://www.milliondollarhomepage.com/ ?
>>135
No... that's their business model. They rent out ads on the MDH and hope to recoup the investment they made buying the MDH's pixels.
Yeah, but it's still kind of funny to advertise on the page of someone who is at least in part competition.
>>137
Actually, it's not competition at all. MDH is the only one that people are actually visiting; the other "pixel" sites can only place ads there and pray people click on them.
I put an ad for 4-ch on rentpixelads, i hope someone sees it ('-`)
Ahh, I didn't quite get that from the advertising. Good luck with the 4-ch ad.
Since 2-ch style boards are so different from more conventionally designed webboards, it will take time to catch on, IMO. First you're likely to get people who find it new, and different. After a while, it won't seem so weird anymore, and traffic will increase much more often.
>>134
Most registration-based boards I've been to tend to be smaller, more familial places, where everyone sort of knows everyone else. But even when that's not true (e.g., Slashdot), you still have registration dates and post counts -- which tend to be a dead giveaway, unless you're willing to wait a long time between making your multiple accounts -- and there is the additional hassle factor of registering and such.
It's funny how we no longer respect our elders in the same way we used to, but have gone back to doing exactly that online.
Just look at the reactions you get on slashdot if your UID is > 10000 or the way something awful treats its newest users.
>>141
You could build a sociology textbook out of those two sentences.
>>142
Nominating you for second edition.
You could build a sociology textbook out of most anything. As long as it's not too profound.
Well, getting back to theories of attracting people...
a short flash movie based on the grandpa/junior threads in DQN?
>>146
They need to be more developed characters first.
Maybe we should have a short flash movie based on something that is actually funny
go go gadget ass gadget gadgeter
Now we know how a gimmick site became popular.
Welcome to spam.txt!
A lot of people I tried to show a Kareha board to found its floating-post system confusing. They wanted to just see one thread on a page and have a tabular thread index. When I instructed them to just bookmark subback.html (this was Kareha 3.x), they were pleased, but now complained that this view was not the default.
So >>1 mentions a "simple post system", but it seems that to many people, the interface is complicated and bizarre. This isn't a complaint though; I like it how it is. Just an observation.
>>146
Haha, I was thinking along the lines of the same thing. So, I went and made an intro (of sorts) when I was messing around and bored one day. But soon, in true DQN fashion, I became bored of even doing that and quit. What you see here is the results of my work:
http://img214.imageshack.us/my.php?image=grandpathread3hu.swf
ImageShack kinda screwed up what I intended for borders, and looking back on this, I see that if I had a plan for the project and had consulted DQN, it might've been a lot better.
I have a lot of spare time on my hands... but maybe not quite THAT much spare time.
Aha, so YOU'RE the responsible party!
Get yer ass back to work - 'Grandpa&Junior Saga' must continue!
>>158
wtf is this wmv shit?
"Anonymous does not forgive" repulses newcomers? Hardly. That was one of the in-jokes that I found hysterical immediately upon reading for the first time.
I'm a newcomer to these boards. I don't get some of the jokes, but I have figured out a lot of them. Even some of the AA doesn't require that you have years of background, as there can be a self-contained punchline that requires no knowledge of 4-ch history.
>>160
Hey, welcome aboard. (〃＾∇＾)ノ
http://world4ch.org is now a redirect to http://4chan.org now
Dead for good?
It looks like they're doing some sort of update. Probably temporary downtime.
>>162
No, I'm still getting world4ch.org
what makes a forum popular ?
buzz, atmosphere, luck, advertising
buzz as in you gotta create a buzz, and find a way to keep it
so that people go like "did you see that on <insert bbs-name> ? you gotta check it out"
atmosphere --> probably the hardest one, since everything has an effect on this, be it type of boards you are running, your posters, the way admins/mods handle things, etc
But it's the most important one too imo
luck as in you gotta have some luck with the initial batch of users you attract, as they will be for a large part responsible for the atmosphere and such of your bbs (regardless of the initial planning you had in mind, you'll always have to see how things work out)
luckily you'll some say in what kind of users you attract, ofcourse depending on the way you advertise your bbs
Are you kidding? Advertise a BBS? Why would anyone do that, unless they were just cynically running it for profit -- in which case I wouldn't want to go there.
Are you kidding? Advertise a BBS? Why would anyone do that, unless they were just cynically running it for profit -- in which case I wouldn't want to go there.
>>166
Advertise meaning more people going there, so the boards would be more active.
>>167
You need exposure to draw in posters; otherwise, why not just save the cash you'd spend in hosting and simply open an IRC channel?
today there was this guy adveritising the USA Network forums... on the street
i was like "LOL" and I went there... it was the worst internet forum ever
In order for a board to be popular/infamous it needs content aka VIP/DQN Quality, damn good quality.
pure Drama != quality.
pure Comedy == quality to most, others look for useful information as quality.
It takes a lot of things, you need some legendary trolls, some of the longest winded wordsmiths, and somewhat importantly: reaction, for at times, it can beget and continue the trend of quality, though as a warning, it does posess the chance to also hinder further quality.
A point that has been touched upon before though is this, there is no possible English equivalent to 2ch, the most popular forums are utter garbage. Is this odd? Not so if you consider the type of people that make up what is the mass of this day's internet, let alone those who make up the mass of the western world itself, the people are very different in mind and so, the cultures are extremely different.
In my opinion, it would be best to be utterly elitist and selective, this board does a decent job of that, but it hindered by the fact those who work to make this place exclusive really do not actually contribute all that much or as consistently or perhaps even as feverishly as they should. Oh and by elitist I'm not talking slashdot or somethingshittyforum style elitism based on who is the best established retard, there is a distinct social difference between those type of forums with their registrants and post counts and these anonymous boards, overall, the one presented by these has both a better production and potential of quality in style and feel, one that again should be exercised to a greater extend by those who frequent here.
Saying that "oh we want anyone to post here, ever your mom" is a very bad concept and I absolutely shudder to think if there was a futullaby board consisting of the type of people who frequent a place like gaia, though, on another thought, such a thing could open up for some legendary trolling capabilities, but again the problem is: could trolling utter retards possibly be as good as trolling somewhat quality literate people? I personally do not think this is this case and is why I saw that being selective is for the best in the sake of post quality, for as the old addage goes "quality>quantity"