To have a forum, or not to have a forum...that is the question

A forum, what is it?

A place to socialize.

A place to potentially have fun.

A way to get others to add content to your site.

An administrative nightmare and consuming waste of time.

Hmm...

On my site http://webhostingforcheap.info (only the homepage is up, but you can see the updated template with the new sections) I was considering adding a forum, but have put that on hold; and may possibly never do it.

Frankly, being that I have a lot of work to do on the site, I'm seeing a forum as possibly taking away from what I need to do elsewhere on the site.

I have the z54 forum that I am starting up, which is an integral part of the site, and am not wanting to get into trying to admin multiple forums. That forum is a community project on a local level and not an attempt at trying to draw internet traffic.

I am going to be starting up my own webmaster forum. Certainly not from the perspective of offering advice to other webmasters (I am not qualified in that area) but a simple forum offering the following:

1) Anything goes - No language filters or restrictions against talking about or even promoting adult sites. Let's face it, to own a domain you have to be 18 years old, or have it in someone else's name till you turn 18. Being that owning a domain is something that you have to be an adult to do, I think we can openly talk like adults.

2) No BS like locking down threads, handing out infractions, or warnings for casual chat in a thread. Some of the social chatter and humor that we exchange here will get one in trouble on other forums. That's way too uptight and some of those admins and mods just simply need to get out of the basement and get laid.

There was a reason I wrapped up that last sentence like that as my webmaster forum is going to be the Webmaster Dungeon (I'll be the Dungeonmaster Grin

). Someone will need a sense of humor in approaching it as the forum descriptions alone will include references to basement dwelling.

I did consider Webmaster Basement, but went with Webmaster Dungeon (even though half of webmasters can't spell dungeon right) because dungeon is a better keyword than basement.

That's just one forum, though, and the domain exists just for the forum.

I know that some of you may well have a forum on your sites, or one as a sub-domain, but do you get much benefit from one and would you recommend adding one, should a site start to draw a good amount of traffic?

The webhostingforcheap site is a PR2. I never promoted the dang thing; other than putting a link to it on two of my sites and a link on a forum or two for feedback.

Though it started out as an idea for a turnkey site, it was a response to constantly finding the same web hosting oversellers listed on all of these 'top web hosts' type sites. Some of what I am adding to it is much the same response in having to search out information as there is, not that I have found, a good centralized resource for this information.

This is basically going to be my webmaster rant site. I am going to be adding resources for registrar information, high CPU use and specialized hosting, as well as a webmasters resource section and my own blog on the site. I am not a highly knowledgeable webmaster, but when I am wanting to find something I am pedantic about it and like to share it with others when I find it. This site should provide a good outlet for that; even though, oddly, that was not my original intention with the site.

I considered a forum, but I think that is too much for now. The blog should provide a way to get feedback from others and a way for me to rant about different things which do not warrant a section of their own.

So, what is your feeling on having a forum?