Why start a forum?

[Robert Gerrish]

Roughly an hour after we launched the 'beta' stage of this forum I received this question via email from Greg Pritchard one of Flying Solo's esteemed contributors:

"Out of interest...what is the underlying purpose in creating a forum for your audience? That is, what need do you see is being filled with this? And, how does this forum fit in to the article commenting functionality?"

This was my response to Greg:

Great questions. The forum has been on our radar for ages and indeed had been in testing for a while too. It's purpose is in answer to what we learned in our survey and what we observe on the main site - our audience want to communicate directly with each other in meaningful dialogue and not be constrained. Our present commenting system, while excellent as a commenting system does not allow freedom. As you can see in many of the commenting threads, people are trying to make it behave like a forum, but it simply cannot. How the forum and comments sit alongside each other is something we will be observing with great interest!

So now you know. We'll be opening the doors to all mid-next week...all being well!

[gregpritchard.virtualcio]

....and now that it's up, I'm glad you did. I'm hooked.

Excellent work Rob, Peter & Sam.

[Burgo]

There are many Industry related forums available but nothing for the Soloist.
Thanks Robert.

I belong to the Carpet Cleaners forum and have been for around ten years.
This forum provides so much information and feedback it has become an essential part of our business.
We have many people join us from around the world giving insight to what is happening what new products have come on to the market so that our customers here in Australia benefit from the lastest tecnology.

With this forum we have members from many different walks of life. What an experience, and what a great place to Network.

Although I have actively retired from hands on work, the joy and satisfaction I get from being able to help others is beyond any amount of money you can earn.

Everytime you post you are actually helping someone else, you never know that one of your throw away lines may just strike a cord with another member, that is looking for an answer to an issue.

So enjoy this forum because I know Im going to learn heeps from it.

[jonbergan]

I don't know whether this idea would just add unwanted complexity to an already fabulous forum, however have you considered having a custom module for vBulletin developed that would allow your commenting system and your forum to integrate on some level?

I think it would be great if the comments in articles could link back to forum topics and visa versa. It would really bring everything together and would further enhance the Flying Solo as a product to its community.

I obviously haven't put too much thought into this and of course user friendliness and overall usability would play critical factors in implementing such a feature, however I think at some stage it would be a very nice little add-on.

Thoughts?

Rgds,
JB

[Robert Gerrish]

Thanks again Jon, this is something we'd love to achieve. Our strategy for the next little while is to observe how people use the two areas, see what we can do to cross-pollenate and from that work out the best solution.

It's thanks to people like you that we're confident we'll get to a good solution!

We'll be announcing the forum to all from this Wed/Thurs and that should be interesting!

Robert

[KarenC]

I hope we all remember to check out Flying Solo and not just the forums which can be so addictive. I've made sure both are bookmarked. Robert said that 'many of us tried to make Flying Solo act like a forum' ... we still need to make comments on Flying Solo. Is that a dilemma that the team is trying to work through? So, I think the suggestion of the comments and forum working together is a good one. Cheers.

[Robert Gerrish]

Hi Karen, Our plan for now is to watch how the comments and forum sit alongside each other and then work out some brilliant way to bring them together (or not)!

In other words we're in R&D for the time being.

[ozwebfx]

Good luck with the forum.

Having run a couple of forums before I know how hard it can be to keep a smooth running forum & it can sometimes be a very thankless task. People sometimes forget that there are real people involved in running a web site & not 24 hour 7 day a week robots.

[Hire My Mum]

Hi Robert

I have been a long time avid Flying Solo reader and occasional commenter. Just want to say glad you have waded deeper into the realms of social networking, and that you have launched your forums, I can take this off my ideas list!

I love John's suggestion, maybe a friendsfeed mod will be useful, but I am sure you will get to all that. It is a huge roller coaster now. And suddenly you will wonder where all your time went.

Well done. Glad to see it here.
Cheers
Leigh

[Renee Barber]

Originally Posted by Burgo

With this forum we have members from many different walks of life. What an experience, and what a great place to Network.

Although I have actively retired from hands on work, the joy and satisfaction I get from being able to help others is beyond any amount of money you can earn.

Everytime you post you are actually helping someone else, you never know that one of your throw away lines may just strike a cord with another member, that is looking for an answer to an issue.

So enjoy this forum because I know Im going to learn heeps from it.

Burgo, I was going to start a new thread, but I didn't want to embarrass you too much! As far as I can tell, you're the forum's only 'Power Member'. At 303 posts, you're going to be hard to beat! *grin*