I'd like to hear if anybody has any unique ways of building community spirit in your forums. When I talk about community spirit, I mean that special "togetherness" feel where everybody knows everybody.

I've heard of people holding random interviews with their members, and then posting them with permission of course...picture threads, introduction/welcoming threads of course...etc.

Any special techniques? and have you ever found that in doing this, some people ended up feeling isolated?

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The random interview idea is a good one. I know of another forum that does this but they interview people that aren't specifically members. I'm interested in what others think as well. Right now I haven't tried much (yet) in the form of using these kind of techniques.

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Mark Blair
NowParenting - "Parenting Discussion Community"
HostHideout - "Where Professionals Discuss Web Hosting"

I have never heard of that. I have sent e-mails to members with 0 post and asked them if there anything to make there "stay" better. I do like this one, I might try it at the first of the year.

demojames

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Now you really gave me some food for the thought ... thank you

I do think that community feeling is the most important aspect in our forums. There are already hundreds of forums for almost all "important" topics, so we cannot claim to have reinvented the wheel ;D

But still, making people feel nice in the community, sharing their thoughs and having fun while also learning is indeed crucial.

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