Personal Forums

[Morrus]

I'm just fishing for opinions here...

As you know, part of my post-donation plan is to ensure that EN World remains financially stable in the years to come. Donations are all well and good, but they are not a viable long-term business plan (even so, I'll still hold a yearly fundraiser, but it won't be an "emergency" fundraiser like last year!)

Anyway, as part of the long-term plan, I'm playing with revenue-generating ideas. I have a few, but there are two which I wanted to discuss.

The first, you can see in another thread - that's the move towards making community supporter accounts a little more attractive by including personal ad banners in the package. I may well think of more little things to add as time goes on.

The second idea is the reason for this thread - I have been chatting with the mods, and we all figure it would be cool to "sell" hosted forums here at EN World to anyone who wants one. Eric, for example, thought it would be cool to have a private forum for his gaming group. There are probably a million other uses you can think of for a hosted forum.

Looking at the vBulletin options, it seems that it is fairly easy to set up forums, either public or private; I could sell them via RPGNow in the same way that I sell ad space and community supporter accounts at present, probably on a yearly "rental" basis".

So here are our (very vague!) thoughts at present:

• The "owner" of the forum would be given moderator-ship of that forum; he/she could appoint other mods if necessary.
• Public/Private? Options to have it password protected or open to anyone.
• We were figuring that people could use the forums for anything they wanted (even covering forbidden topics here at EN World), but if the forum was outside EN World's usual messageboard guidelines, it would have to be a private forum, not a public one. Of course, illegal stuff wouldn't be allowed.
• Sub-forums: Allowed? Extra charge? Do you want a single forum or a "suite" of forums (like, for example, the Creature Catalog or T13K have here at present).
• Themes: Customisable? With/without EN World ad banners?
• Terms/Conditions: Any suggested rules, guidelines? There are some things we don't want the forums used for (for example, a private forum used by a small clique to coordinate trolls on the main boards would be just mean)

Anyway, those are just some of the thoughts at present. We also realise that you can get your own free boards elsewhere fairly easily, but I don't htink that's too much of a problem - these hosted forums would be for a very niche selection of people who saw it as useful/desirable to have their forum here rather than at, say, EZBoard.

Those are our thoughts. What are your thoughts? Can you imagine being interested in something like that? Have you any observations on how it could be handled? Bear in mind that we're just "brainstorming" here right now. Consider it a useless intellectual excercise.

 

[Eosin the Red]

I can think of tons of uses for "private" forums on ENworld - but I also think that sprawl would be troublesome. I can see several publishers who would find it benificial to have their own fori here to discuss recent releases and such. Most of that type of coverage will want thier fori to be upfront with all the rest to get good "front page time" so to speak on main forum page.

Overall I like the idea and would probably be interested myself (of course, I have a forum already so that might make me odd.)

 

[Morrus]

Most of that type of coverage will want thier fori to be upfront with all the rest to get good "front page time" so to speak on main forum page.

I won't be considering that as an option; this is (possibly) a useful feature to offer, but it's not an advertising offer - there are other ways to advertise one's messageboard. Any hosted forums would be off the main page in a sub-category.

 

[Morrus]

Of course, the other vBulletin function which someone with a hosted forum might find useful is the syndication function. Any forum can be easily syndicated, so if people want the "latest forum threads" of their own personal forum on their website (like I have on the front page of EN World), it's as easy as pasting in a bit of code.

 

[Buttercup]

I would so love this!

I would use it for my gaming group, to post the rumors, myths and images that I now currently email them. It might also be a useful way for PCs to interact between sessions.

Regarding a suite of forums, I would definately want that if I were running an online game, but my particular case, it probably wouldn't be necessary. I think it would be cool if you could offer it, though. Perhaps you could charge a certain base rate for a single forum, and a certain additional amount for each child forum?

I see Eosin's concern about sprawl, but since it is possible to bookmark a specific forum, these private ones wouldn't need to be all that visible to be useable.

It's an excellent idea! How much would you charge?

 

[Morrus]

It's an excellent idea! How much would you charge?

I have absolutely no idea! How much would you pay?

 

[Buttercup]

Hmm. Originally I said I'd pay $50 per year. However, you might consider rolling this option into a "Super Community Supporter" account. You could then charge more. Say, $75.

You have to consider how much this service would cost elsewhere. You can get an ad-free EZ Board for less than 50 bucks, last time I checked. Of course, I don't think you can host files for that amount. And you have the hassle of dealing with the EZ Board folks, who aren't always customer service oriented.

Might you consider having a menu of paid services, such as the standard CS account, galleries, a forum, ad banners and so forth? Or would that be a pain in the neck to administer?

 

[Umbran]

The question that needs to be asked is: How many of these suckers can you support before it starts degrading overall forum performance? If, in order to feed our ever-inreasing bandwidth and database processing needs, you sell something that increases those needs, you may wind up shooting yourself in the foot.

 

[Morrus]

I can't see that being a problem, Umbran. I don't imagine personal forums will create vast amounts of *new* traffic. And, if it starts to mount up, I can simply stop accepting new forums.

Buttercup - yup, I can't *compete* with EZBoard. This really is for people who would prefer to have their forum here rather than elsewhere. Besides, vBulletin is way nicer than EZBoard.

 

[alsih2o]

"Funky stuff from history" forum....Yeah, I like the sound of that.