Entmoot

Entmoot is so much better now. There's about one new member everyday.

But, I waw wondering, why is it so much better than the other bb's on the ring? Some of the sites have really nice front pages, but they seem to be dead. A lot of the sites have more popular forums.(no offense, but movies and video games are more popular and "fun" than Tolkien)They're also dead. I look at the only few messages they have, and they are all nonsense threads. So, why is Entmoot so much better than the rest of the bb's?

I think the role of the admin made Entmoot a lot better than the rest. When people post in other boards, the posts often get no replies. And, in the event of a reply, it is just a generic response with no reasons. When people post, I think they only do it to see how other ppl would respond, and how many respond. And, in Entmoot, whenever anyone posts, they always can count on someone to respond because several active admin reply originally to everything. That is why they go to Entmoot, because talking in other boards is like talking to yourself, but here the interesting replies are expected.

Interesting (and fairly true) observation.

In the beginning, it was basically just me and Tater posting. But through a steady (but unoffensive) advertising campaign, slowly, people began to show up here. I posted a link to Entmoot in every LotR-related thread at the JC, and I still do. I did searches on Tolkien ezboards and then posted there, and they followed my signature. Word of mouth (or type, since it's online ) got around too. Greeting people in the announcements showed them that we care about individuals and made them want to come back.

Also, although Tolkien might not interest you, it keeps this board going. A board needs a semi-unique focus to attract visitors. Without Tolkien forums, this would just be a generic message board and there'd be no way to attract visitors. There aren't too many Tolkien boards, and this was one of the first. But there are literally thousands of Star Wars boards, for example. It is impossible to get people to post Star Wars-related messages at a Star Wars board unless it's huge like at the JC. That's why after awhile, Nut's board was only getting posts in Misc, since Star Wars was done to death. Now Nut's board is effectively dead because people lost interest in that too. But since people can still discuss LotR, the board keeps going

Even if you advertised well, you still need to keep the user at your bb, and you were sucessful. I've been to so many other boards, but it's just so pointless talking there. I just end up never coming again.

Yes, but I also tried to "reach out" to my users, via ICQ, AIM etc. If they see that the members are friendly outside the board, they come back

HEY!
No cheap shots at my board, you bum!

Entmoot philosophy.

This should definitely find it's way to the archives.