http://forums.devioustyrant.com/

This is a forum I started in February last year. I was fleeing from gamingforums and the rules of that site and created a forum where rules didn't matter. There were no rules and for about a year it worked. The people who joined were mature enough to behave without us needing staff to police a set of silly rules.

Anyway, I got sidetracked and I handed over control to someone else, a good friend of mine and rabid anti-feminist. He sought to take the forums in a different direction, and thinking he may have found a niche in forum-land I did not object. DT became a 'men's forum', for men, by men, of men, and no sausage packers in sight. It was designed to cover men's issues from health to relationships and others, the idea being that there are thousands of women's forums, but no men's forums.

The idea didn't work and DT crashed and burned. At this time I have a site which has perhaps 50 visitors a day but very little content/activity. It needs ressurection and I would like some ideas on how to do it. As I have just invested in a 3rd VB licence I would prefer these ideas to be free ones.

Like I say, be brutal. If you think it's shit, tell me it's shit. But try and end the 'Alan, your forum is cack' with a suggestion to make it less cack.

Grassy arse,

AzH

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I don't think it looks that bad to be honest with you. I would like to see your Welcome Guest header more customized so guests will know what your site is about and what they can expect once they join. The bad language I could do without, it could be possibly offensive to some, maybe that is why they dont join?

As a guest looking at your site, it just looks very basic and default as in no modifications, unless these are things that show up once registered? I would make them visable to everyone, just limit the access they have. I would add articles, games, contests or whatever you think will attract more members and keep them coming back for more.

I hope this has helped you some

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Well, where would you like for the forums to go? It sounds like you don't want to go with the Men's theme...so I guess you want to go back to general discussion?

What kind of memberbase do you have right now (gender, age, maturity level, their interests, etc.)?

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Yeah, back to a general site. We have thrown out the men's site idea. It didn;t work. The memberbase we have is small, yet mostly male, late teens twenties thirties, reasonably mature. We don't have many kids running around.

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This may be unrelated, but I would strongly recommend offering a lighter skin. Dark skins are ok, because some people prefer them...but many people do not. A lot of people like to browse and post while at work, but they won't be able to get away with this in a forum that is as dark as yours...because it only takes a quick glance by a boss or coworker to realize that you surely cannot be doing any work on a black website Aside from that, some people just dont like to browse dark websites for extended periods of time...I really do think that you're missing out on a lot of new members and posts by having such a dark skin.

You don't have a budget...it's never easy to jumpstart forums without a budget, but there are some things you could do. Install some fun mods, ie: Arcade, Gallery, Points System...These things are perfect for general discussion forums, because the people in general discussion forums are looking for whatever...They're basically just killing time. An arcade might detract from discussion some, yes, but it will definitely get your members to come back and stay longer. Hold tournaments...Guys are competitive, they'll love the idea of competing with other members in arcade tournaments.

Aside from that...make sure that you are in there posting actively and starting new threads. If you are already doing this, keep it up. Once you have done things to improve your forums,then go promote them elsewhere...The best free way, imo, would be signature links and link exchanges...but I would wait to do this until you have already got a new, lighter skin in there and some more mods for the members to play with.

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man... it is very hard to memorize the domain name....

get another domain name and point to it.... easy to remember one...

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Yeah, because TWO words, Devious Tyrant, is really hard to memorise.

Admin Fusion

Devious Tyrant

Henry Forum

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your "azh forum" is much easier to remember... that is why more traffic i beleive???

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Thanks to everyone for their feedback thus far. I will look at a lighter default skin to make the place more appealling on the eye and also at adding some 'fun mods' like the arcade and gallery. I tend to not spend as much time there as a I should as AzHforum and my other new project - and a very personal project too - take up most of my time. I think we'll aim for a new year new start.

Thanks, and if anyone has any other suggestions please post them.

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