Maybe a responsive forum themes would help get new members, these days so many people use their tablets and phones to browse the internet, role play involves long posts and reading long posts on non responsive sites is not very pleasant.
You can get a lot of the old premium themes for phpBB 3.0.14 for free these days, Anami / Ariki / Coralis / Flato / Metro / Mobbern to name a few that.
Getting a board off the ground isn't as difficult as people here make it sound, it's just a case of sharing a link to your forum in the right places, if you actively suggest people come over to your forum people will think you are desperate for members but things like a link in your signature on other role play forums etc will do wonders as there are tons of people on them who are interested in that subject,
There is only 1 mention of your URL on Twitter - another place where you could find other people interested in Role Play, don't spam it though just casually mention it... same with Faceboook.
URL wise you could probably get away with buying a more suitable domain and just redirecting it to your current one.
All those empty forums don't look good, the fewer the forums the more busy a forum can look, if certain categories aren't used you can re add them when you have the need for them, you could also take advantage of phpBBs permissions system and just have certain forums shown to unregistered members - then use those public forums to entice people into joining,
While you may not think spelling is important, most internet browsers have a red line under spelling mistakes by default - potential members may think that if you aren't willing to take the short time it takes to correct them - they aren't going to enter personal details into that site.
Letting members make suggestions to improve your site is another way that encourages people to join a forum, it shows them that you are willing to listen to suggestions which in turn makes them feel a part of the community.
Last edited by Jodi-86 on Thu Jul 28, 2022 5:12 am, edited 1 time in total.
Yeah, I don't see why he uses such old software especially when it appears that he joined in 2016, especially when it appears to be a new install. It's a phpBB2 board, which is not the best idea to stick with.
Random American wrote: Thu Jul 28, 2022 4:49 am
It's a phpBB2 board, which is not the best idea to stick with.
3.0
But I agree. One of the reasons not to update from (if I remember rightly) previous topics of yours is that it's customised. I'm really hard pushed to spot any and let's be honest, none of the changes you might have made have attracted users. So there's little point in hanging on to them.
-:|:- Support Request Template -:|:- "Step up to red alert. Sir, are you absolutely sure? It does mean changing the bulb"
I use a lot of custom mods the tool bar being one of them, I simply do not understand why everyone keeps trying to push me to go with the new version of phpbb, as I said I simply do not want to right now.
Methen wrote: Thu Jul 28, 2022 2:24 pm
I use a lot of custom mods the tool bar being one of them, I simply do not understand why everyone keeps trying to push me to go with the new version of phpbb, as I said I simply do not want to right now.
Because it simply does not do your site any favors. It makes your site look abandoned - or at the very least, not properly maintained - especially with everything else cited.
I do updates on my tutorials all the time, I have not posed any new ones lately as I have been trying to write one on plot construction and which is not easy as there are so many things to cover and I keep coming up with new things to add.
Well I tried to install the latest version of phpbb, but at this time its not going to work the version php needed is not compatible with some of my other stuff there is suppose to be a way to get around that so you can use different versions of php for different scripts but I have to research it .
I was not updating I was just wanting to check it out I already wrote my web host I also have another free site I can test it on just cant use the php mail feature for some reason all free hosing have sites have that disabled
Methen wrote: Wed Jul 27, 2022 6:21 pm
I think this has gotten a little off topic I was simply asking about search engine submissions .....
Google and other SE's will naturally find your site. If you haven't already dons so get a Google search console account, you can do the same for Bing and I would assume other major engines.
Random American wrote: Thu Jul 28, 2022 5:47 pm
I don't know if this site offers support for those updating to a later version
Yes we do.
It’s only a pain if you don’t follow the instructions.
I'm sure if a user has an extremely customized setup with lots of custom code, that can make it a pain as well. Not saying Methan is such a case (I wouldn't know), but I do know of at least one site that states that they use 3.0.x for that very reason.
That's nothing new, if I recall correctly there was even one mod for phpBB2 that made it impossible to upgrade. If you are going to customize a phpBB forum understand the risks. Even some extensions can cause an issue, third party SEO mods are a prime example. Once you implement such a modification/extension there is significant issues with removing it.
“Results! Why, man, I have gotten a lot of results! I have found several thousand things that won’t work.”