Forums - Useful or Outdated?

[Morrigan]

I own an IPB license so I like to always have a forum that I own. I've not had an active forum for over a year because I hadn't had the heart to work on a forum. It wasn't until I had the heart to start working on my websites again before I decided to use my license again and with that I went into thinking about how to focus/use it. After a while I decided on a webcomic and the forum would be moderately tied to that. I mean it was going to sit on the same domain at least. As for the focus of the forum it's more general/community at the moment but I'll move where the community does, as it grows.

I find that forums are a good medium but if you don't want to take the time to maintain one then that's when you need to share a forum (As previously suggested). Sharing a forum would get you a little more activity and probably more exposure as well.

I don't know. While there are valid points I own an IPB license in which they are integrating some of the favorite social features that people like. On my forum I have Facebook connect and when the new version (3.1) is released I will be setting up a Twitter Connect so that Twitter and facebook can be updated from the site and thehy can update the site.

I don't know. I think it depends on how much effort your willing to put on getting the members there and staying there. For all small forums it is a trial to work at it.

[raerae]

For my former webcomic forum my forum was pretty active. The main draw of that one, though, was the rp set up for the world of the comic. The rest of the forum was rather slow.

It is rather had to build an active community in forums, but if one manages it, it is rather rewarding.

[Christo]

Every popular webcomic in which the creator makes significant profit that I can think of has a thriving and active community either through livejournal, a complex comments system or as in most cases a forum.

I think dinosaur comics might be an exception.

My problem that I run into is that I'm just interested in creating webcomics. I post occasionally on a few boards, but I certainly don't want to moderate one. It's sort of an odd connection, right? Draw a Venn diagram of people who want to create and people who want to moderate, and I think the crossover will be fairly small. Hmm... XKCD should do that actually.

[Rob]

I actually really enjoy the social interaction with the fans. If you find the right fan to moderate the boards for you though... often that can be even better than doing it yourself.  ;)

[Christo]

I actually really enjoy the social interaction with the fans. If you find the right fan to moderate the boards for you though... often that can be even better than doing it yourself.  ;)

True enough, I guess I'm just too busy finding fans to read my strip--much less to moderate a board.

Speaking of finding fans, I tried promoting myself on a couple of boards and one troll wrote something like, "Who the hell are you? Your comic doesn't even have a message board!" Except, you know, it had more profanity and attacks on the character of my mother. But the sentiment is an interesting one, right? Some people think--and maybe rightfully so--that you haven't made it until you have a busy message board.

[Rob]

Yes but if you had a message board and it wasn't busy enough to meet the Troll's standards he would have attacked you for your empty message board. If it had been busy enough he wold have attacked you for your art or your name or whatever because Trolls are Trolls and if they want to Troll they will find the lyrics for their song. They always do.

There is something to be said for... getting to know a forum a bit before trying to promote your comic or yourself. It's like ringing the dinner bell for Trolls if you don't.

Except here. Here we encourage people to pimp their stuff.  ;D

[Christo]

Yeah, it's pretty amazing the difference in culture from one place to another. Because my webcomic's about movies, I thought the people at Rotten Tomatoes might enjoy it. I posted on their board, and--dear Lord, my soul barely made it out of there in one piece. I'm fairly certain that those people don't even like kittens.

[klingers]

I've made the decision recently that when I've got a chance to seriously reassess how I've put my site together, and come up with a more contemporary alternative, I'm going to take my forums out into a paddock and shoot them.

In my case I was trying to recapture the "zing" that our old forums used to have back in the middle of 2003 when social networking really was in its infancy and we had a good crowd of us back at university acting as the backbone of a more far-flung community that eventually did grow into something bigger. We had a good community going.

My infant forums have effectively had their potential growth stunted by a bunch of pseudo-intellectual man-children that have even scared my "staff" away, combined with the contemporary preference for social networking over isolated webcomic forum communities. Does anyone have any tips for leveraging either social networks or say, in-line commentary systems for comic posts that might let me get a bit of feedback on comics and fostering some community?

Thanks!

[Rob]

It might seem like a good idea now. You might regret it if your readership really takes a jump. Comments lack the "zing" of a form.

Just sayin'.  :-\

[klingers]

Good point Rob :)

I've been making those mentioned changes to my site and I've actually got comments working now. I'm pretty happy with how I've got them set up.

I'll take your advice and leave the forums up as-is though. Give people the best of both worlds I guess  :-\

[Rob]

I honestly can't see what it hurts if they are up... whether they get used or not if they are there at least it's an option.

[monkeyangst]

I honestly can't see what it hurts if they are up... whether they get used or not if they are there at least it's an option.

I've thought long about this, as I myself had a comic with a completely empty forum... an unused forum seems, to me, to appear a little desperate. I found myself adding new sharing options and new ways to discuss (I started in the days of shoutboxes and ended at the dawn of Facebook), and each new way to discuss the comic just called more attention to the fact that no one wanted to discuss the comic.

I say go with whatever's working out the best. If more people are Facebooking your comic, go with Facebook. If the forums are generating some traffic, stick with them. But a ghost town is not inviting. I don't think an empty forum is helping anything.

[jeffa]

I have to agree with the "depends on your comic and audience" line of reasoning.

If your comic isn't very good, putting up comments or forums is asking for people to insult your hard work.

The same is true for social media. I've started posting links to my comics on reddit. I know my stuff sucks, but unless I keep doing it, it will ALWAYS suck. I'm trying to determine if the negativity is worth the number of new people it funnels my way. I've never had more than tens of people in one day, but after posting to reddit I had nearly 200. For me, that is huge. What I'm hoping is that if 95% hate my stuff, 5% might NOT hate it and come back.

For now I don't have comments or a forum. If I get good enough to attract a bigger audience, I'll reconsider.