[pct-l] PCT Forums

[John Abela]

Mike,

As one of the originally developers of phpBB, and thus as somebody who has
dealt with forums of mass proportion (million+ members), can I make a
suggestion...

Start small and add forums as you need them.

Very few people are going to join a website that has 50+ forums with "0
posts" listed in 99% of the forums.

Start with 5 categories *max* and build up from there - over the course of a
year or two.

Substantial growth of forums comes with being able to pull in members who
can focus on a very small hand full of topics very well.

Most "forum people" are not going to bounce through 20+ different forum
categories.

Your goal has to be to bring people in from the likes of pct-l and even
harder: whiteblaze and backpackinglight.

Your ambitions might be good, but going on 11 years of working with some of
the largest forums in the world have taught me a few lessons, and the
biggest lesson I could teach is "stay narrowly focused" until you get your
feet under you (ie: 5,000+ *active* members)

Best of luck,
John


On Sun, Jan 9, 2011 at 8:34 PM, Alphabetsoup <alphabetsoupmmm at gmail.com>wrote:

> I'm relatively new to the hiking community. I will be embarking on my first
> long
> distance hike sometime around the KO, either a week before, or a week
> after.
>
> Personally, I find this list to be a great resource. One of the things I
> like best about it
> is that it is more of an ongoing conversation, not just a list of random
> posts. It does take
> some getting used to but when your looking for something specific, its in
> the archives,
> easily found through a google search.
>
> There seem to be many many thousands of miles of PCT experience here.
> thanks to all of you for your input, your stories, your suggestions and the
> humorous posts
> that bring on a smile!
>
> Without the thousands of e-mails I have read over the past few
> months, I would not be ready to hike the PCT.
>
> Paul A ~ (one of 4 is it? )
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sun, Jan 9, 2011 at 6:50 PM, Mike <fox15rider at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Ok so I think this mailing list thing is very hard to follow. well its
> not
> > that its that hard its just a pain to follow a post and continue reading
> > everyones respones. I have been researching hiking the PCT and have not
> > found any good forums..   Well I took matters into my own hands and made
> a
> > Trail forum site.  Its www.trailforums.us   Yes I know there is already
> > trailforums.com and other they just dont have things broken down into
> > categories that well..  So I figured I would throw up a site for people
> to
> > use..  if you have suggestions let me know.  The site will always be
> free!
> >
> > ~Thumper
> > www.mspct.com
> > _______________________________________________
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> >
>
>
>
> --
> *Alphabetsoup*
> *~Soon to be PCT Thru-Hiker April 2011~*
> * www.postholer.com/alphabetsoup*
> *
> *
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