making other forums/messageboard things

[cynderthekitsune]

i've been having ideas for these kinda things before; i've attempted making a forum, though it's kinda hefty and i've completely abandoned it.

i've been suuper inspired by this forum though! it's generally pretty chill, plus it's got fun themes and all that!

https://cynderthekitsune.nekoweb.org/blogs/idea
this link, this blog i've made.

i've wondered if anyone else would like to make something like that, or something.
this whole topic can be just in general for making forums yourself, but this is mine.

the idea came to my head especially since lots of indie web spaces can be pretty dangerous for me and other people too. not good for talking about here!

[Monoki]

I made this one a while back. I kinda have no idea the purpose but initially it was for one of my projects:
https://cosmickits.boards.net/

[nobo]

I built a vaporwave themed imageboard a while back. you can check it out: at https://board.goeshard.org

It's pretty cool but it's very rarely used. I think it's neat if you look at it as a web artifcat and not expecting it to be an active place where anyone is currently posting. I used to really want it to become a popular posting spot but over time I realized how very fortunate I am that it's not.

When I made the board, my primary interest was the software. The community building aspect was secondary, and if I had any piece of advice for someone that seriously wants to run a forum, you should be thinking about building a community more than about software. Otherwise there really isn't any point and you will just end up with a pretty portfolio site with pretty colors that no one ever reads or posts on. :)

Another really big thing you have to cope with, is what are you going to do when the users you get are not the users you wanted? This could be anything, you can interpret this in the worst way or the mildest way. Either way, when you have dreams of a community site, you're imagining it a certain way. And unless that community is around you already, the reality is most likely going to defer from the fantasy.

And that is the best case scenario. The more likely scenario is that you will struggle to rope people into actually using it, the people who do use it will lose interest over time. That's the most likely outcome.