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Closed & Invite only sites/forums?

Discussion in 'Community University' started by Xyphien, Jun 4, 2016.

  1. #1 Xyphien, Jun 4, 2016
    Has anyone ever ran a Closed and Invite only type of forum or website? I'm currently starting up one right now. We'll be hopefully upgrading to Xenforo and will have the whole site up this month. In theory, I see how this would be something worth while. 9 times out of 10 there's loads of forums out there for your need. Why join yet another one that has the same stuff in it? This is what a lot of people thing, and having it so you have to be personally invited, and chosen among others is something that I can see being highly enticing to people. Are you more likely to stay on a site that you just joined, or a site that you have to talk to people who knew someone who heard a rumor that they knew someone that could get into the site, and you got in?

    Anyway, I'd like to see if anyone has ever ran one of these types of sites, and if so how successful was it for you?

    P.S. I'll post my progress on it's success or not.
     
  2. #2 Earth Be Lost, Jun 21, 2016
    Yes, I've ran a few actually. The idea is that you really have to pick an elitist niche, so an invite only general discussion forum isn't going to do well. Not only that but you can't really measure success in the same way you would with a normal forum (e.g members, posts and threads) but on how well they interact, are active and really become a community. People don't join invite only forums to post around simple, beginner topics but rather advanced topics in that niche, for example "What's the best forum software" instead of how best to integrate different software and plugins to make the website more effective, secure and take up less resources.

    I've ran 5 forums/websites that are invite only and closed, 3 of them are still running to this day and I'd deem them to be a big success.
     
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  3. #3 Xyphien, Jun 26, 2016
    Alright, thank you for this.

    Currently, I have it up and running. However, everyone in the group I started it with is on vacation, so we won't be starting it up completely for another month. The niche we're in is gaming, so I'd like to think that type of niche matches the criteria you've stated. As I said though, we've put it on hold for about a month, so there won't be too many members joining, being active in the conversation, etc.
     
  4. #4 Fuser, Jul 11, 2016
    I'd like to join one of these one day, I never have had the chance to
     
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