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Private forum only, or private + open forum?

by krull
4 replies
What would you do for a membership website? I'm not certain how to go about this. I would like to have an open, free forum for everyone + a private forum, but a private forum only seems a bit better to me. Do you think it will push more traffic to your site by having an open forum? The bad part about that though is you'll have people acting up, bashing others and possibly bashing you and your website.

I know that you're supposed to do the best job you can and offer the best product you can and that will definitely cut down on people complaining, but sometimes there's just no saving yourself from having to deal with snobs who like to make trouble no matter what.

Thoughts?
#forum #open #private
  • Profile picture of the author jennypitts
    I think that limiting yourself to Private Only, may be limiting your traffic. Especially since I am assuming that you will have a membership FEE.

    Sure, there are some risks to having a free for all forum, but then again, everything in life AND business is a risk. If you are going to withhold from aiming BIG just for fear of people misusing and attacking each other, you are limiting your chances and abilities for success.

    I would simply have BOTH the free and upgrade to private options. Good Luck!
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    • Profile picture of the author howinfo
      I would say that having an open forum would lead people to the private forum. I think that the open forum should be already established and busy forum in order to get people to join the privet one.

      I am assuming the you are talking about something similar to the warrior forum.
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  • Profile picture of the author ContentArticleWriter
    I too, would do the open forum and have the private forum be an optional thing. If the site has a high volume of traffic it definitely will drive some people to WANT to sign up for the private forum.
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    • Profile picture of the author krull
      I decided to go with a free+closed option in the past already, but I just wanted to hear an opinion. Looks like we all agree
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