Feedback please WeekHost Web Hosting Talk Forum

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Finished with a WeekHost community forum system, WeekHost Web Hosting Talk Forum where, inter alia, News, opinions, debate, web hosting, the community and the Advertising forums are included.

The design part didn't want to replace the existing editor, we, in fact, the content part is interesting. Any constructive ideas?

Feedback good OR bad is most welcome!
 
Generally I find forums for web hosting providers a good idea, if you have a good sized client base to populate and support it with. Otherwise it might come across as a ghost town and that can never be attractive.

Second, you have to ask yourself what the purpose of you launching a forum is. Is it to create a platform for your clients to ask questions, help each other, in other words serve as a support platform for clients? Or is it to create a general web hosting forum for anyone interested in web hosting?

If the objective is to serve clients in a Q&A, support way, then I think that traditional platforms such as vBulletin and Xenforo are not the correct platform for that, for many reasons that I am not going to get into right now. Look at Vanilla Forums or Discourse as alternatives.

If the objective is to launch a general web hosting forum, then keep in mind that objectivity in this business is everything. The fact that a hosting company owns, operates and moderates discussions that are supposed and could be critical, etc, is something that you'll always have to be aware of. Any company joining the community will be aware of a certain bias towards your own company will always be present. Even popular resources like LowEndBox are not liked for the reason of being owned by a large hosting group, which openly favors deals from one of their own brands. WHT used to have the same kind of PR when it used to be owned by a hosting company.

Lastly, I'd change the name to WeekHost Web Hosting Forum, instead of WeekHost Web Hosting Talk Forum. A lot more people search for "web hosting forum" keyword than "web hosting talk". As it stands now, it comes across as somewhat of a play to resemble the very known community... Plus, with "web hosting forum" you'd get better search engine positioning.

PS: As a side-note, highly reconsider running advertising forums. You are pretty much letting your own clients see special offers of other companies. Why would you do that?
 
great work, it has a huge potential to grow but i think its better you remove 10 required post for market offering at first step , but its up to you
 
WHT might take issue with you using "web hosting talk" as the forum name, even if your name is in front.

What are you going to do to "spark" activity? I think the hardest part of starting a forum is to get new users and keep people coming back to post, as there generally isn't enough content at first to encourage regular visits.
 
WHT might take issue with you using "web hosting talk" as the forum name, even if your name is in front.

What are you going to do to "spark" activity? I think the hardest part of starting a forum is to get new users and keep people coming back to post, as there generally isn't enough content at first to encourage regular visits.
Exactly, participation is key. The Internet is littered with abandoned forums, mostly because of a lack of moderation and marketing.
 
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