I am relaunching the forums which are a component of a larger content site. The old forum software sucked (I could be even more colorful but Ryan already warned me via PM against doing something stupid tonight) and the previous forums died. I now have installed myBB and am pretty psyched with it, though am not nearly ready for a "grand re-opening". I need to add many more threads and get some posts "prepped" to get activity going before I advertise it.

However, what I am looking for is advice on courting people who were turned off from a previous experience on bad forum software (DON'T EVER USE ASPBB).

Has anyone done this before? Maybe done a complete redesign or switch of software? Is it even worth the effort to court previous users or should I just go forward with the new forums forums from scratch?

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The original version of The Basement was on probaords (vomits) It never took off, and closed after 3 months. I found IF, and just worked my ass off to improve, and make it look much better then the old forum. The shinny new forum convinced most of the members to give it a second shot, and we've been rocking IF ever since. I just made it well known all the enhancements IF had over proboards, and all the new options and features there are. Of course I never went into detail of the many downfalls of IF, only mentioning which ways it was better then the previous option.

Overall, convince them it's a better forum, and they should come back. They origionally joined for a reason, and something turned them off from posting. Let them know that reason is now fixed, and they should hopefully be interested again

*on a side note, I'm aware of how terrible IF is, and I'm fixing that

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Is the new topic totally unrelated from the old? That could have a big impact on how your users handle the switch...did you ask for their input beforehand?

I think that it could really go either way and that depends on what kind of members you've got and how big of a shift this is...If the members were not interested in changing in the first place, you're not going to see many of them follow you after the move...if they were pumped up about it, then it could definitely be a success....what you don't want to do is play around with your members and make them think that their opinion doesn't count, that you're just doing whatever the heck you want.

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Same topic. New software. The old software was awful and as such there was no activity for quite some time. There are no active users to upset - it really is a fresh start. So my intent is to send out emails to the old members and try to highlight the changes and I guess see where it goes from there.

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If its the same topic then try and get them back if the topic has changed then theres no point but as you have said it was a screw up with the software, in other words it wasnt your fault, you just need to hang tight and get back on track and maybe the members will feel that it wasnt your fault adn re-join.

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If you have their emails, then set up the new site, open it to the public, and send out a newsletter pointing out the changes.

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I would like at this just as I would opening up a brand new forum with no memberbase...If the forum was inactive, then you're not going to have many people waiting around for it to come back...You should treat the members that you have just as you would a free, targeted mailing list...other than that, I'd treat it as a new forum.

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Get a bunch of friends to kick the activity up. Offer some things to make your members know that you're serious about the forums this time, such as a template change for the better, a big contest, and a huge spike in activity. Anyway, what is the board going to be about?

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This is exactly how I am treating it. I nuked the old board entirely (was ASP software) and placed the forum on a subdomain hosted on a Linux server allowing me to run myBB (didn't want to shell out for another vB license and liking the software so far). Old memberbase email addys were kept.

The forums are a subcomponent of my larger gardening site. The site itself gets plenty of traffic and a site redesign is in the works which will (hopefully) better funnel traffic through the site through the use of fewer words and more iconic navigation clues (bounce rate on the home page is too big for my comfort).

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