How useful have you found forums?

Penumbra · Post by **Penumbra** » Sun Aug 06, 2006 5:34 am

How useful have you found having a forum for your comic? I don't think I want to get one as we don't have so many readers yet (and an empty forum would just look very very sad

) but I was wondering what others have got out of them.

Dr Legostar · Post by **Dr Legostar** » Sun Aug 06, 2006 5:39 am

i'm fairly sure forums aren't about "useful"

Penumbra · Post by **Penumbra** » Sun Aug 06, 2006 5:41 am

legostargalactica wrote:i'm fairly sure forums aren't about "useful"

Well "beneficial" then.

Dr Legostar · Post by **Dr Legostar** » Sun Aug 06, 2006 5:54 am

you're going to have to qualify that.

McDuffies · Post by **McDuffies** » Sun Aug 06, 2006 6:06 am

Having that you can get forum for free, I usually think, why not.
My LWK forum was useful because people notified me of missing pages or mistakes, and because they cheered by comics occasionally, so that lifted my confidence.
However, all of that would've probably been done through PM or E-mail if I didn't have forum.

BKR · Post by **BKR** » Sun Aug 06, 2006 8:23 am

legostargalactica wrote:you're going to have to qualify that.

Spoken like a true scientist.

mcDuffies wrote:My LWK forum was useful because people notified me of missing pages or mistakes, and because they cheered by comics occasionally, so that lifted my confidence.
However, all of that would've probably been done through PM or E-mail if I didn't have forum.

Yes, but I think contacting you by email may feel a bit too personal, so the option of doing it in a forum for some would be nice.

So yes, it can be useful for taking suggestions, or being notified on some things, but it won't really do much until the readership of the comic picks up a bit.

Faub · Post by **Faub** » Sun Aug 06, 2006 8:36 am

I get more comments on my tagboard than on my forum. Feedback is good, but its up to your fans to decide where and how they want to give it. You can urge it along by posting constantly, but there will be a (long?) period of time where you're just talking to yourself before others pick up on it. You can link relevant topics from your forum into the rants on your comic pages too.

Rickford · Post by **Rickford** » Sun Aug 06, 2006 8:47 am

Mneh, depends if you have readers that are bothered enough to sign up for things. My forum doesn't really get a terrible amount of comic discussion, but fans of the comic use it as a ground for discussing just about everything else. Saying that, when I'm late for an update, I sure as hell know about it cause of the forumites. It's okay for handing out announcements that aren't big enough to make the front page of your site as well. I dunno, I'm thinking of getting a forum hosted on here, cause it'd probably persuade my scriptwriter to get on comicgenesis once in a while. Apparently he can only handle one sign in

Then again, I update slowly, and as I've been reminded, I don't have 20 strips yet. Due to the current rules, quantity is more important than quality apparently.

Vorticus · Post by **Vorticus** » Sun Aug 06, 2006 8:52 am

Get one if you want one. Eventually it will see use.

Kris X · Post by **Kris X** » Sun Aug 06, 2006 1:29 pm

Readers who want it is the key... Otherwise, well, mine's pretty pointless.

Tim · Post by **Tim** » Sun Aug 06, 2006 2:25 pm

Kris X wrote:Readers who want it is the key... Otherwise, well, mine's pretty pointless.

I put up a poll once asking if my readers wanted one, and they said yes...and then it hardly gets any use (though, feel free to change that). I plan to provide exclusive content, but I'm afflicted with that "horribly lazy" condition that plagues webcomic people.

Johndar · Post by **Johndar** » Sun Aug 06, 2006 5:01 pm

Tim wrote: I plan to provide exclusive content, but I'm afflicted with that "horribly lazy" condition that plagues webcomic people.

God, I hate that condition.

Biev · Post by **Biev** » Sun Aug 06, 2006 6:06 pm

A forum is a big commitment. It will be your job to keep it alive, and to keep hostile people out. Personally I wouldnt put myself through the trouble, mostly cause I'm already admin elsewhere and it's enough work as it is

That and a dead forum makes the whole site look abandoned. I'm told some people pull it off, though from what I can see, the members usually know the artist. Even if you do have a little fangroup, it can be intimidating for random readers to join the clique.

Princess · Post by **Princess** » Sun Aug 06, 2006 7:27 pm

I found mine useful- it's not used very much, but enough to some feedback

Jackhass · Post by **Jackhass** » Mon Aug 07, 2006 3:40 am

It doesn't get much action really...I get far more feedback via email.

But I occassionally get a few people posting over there. I could live without it, but it's nice to have...makes ya' look like a bigshot when you have your own messageboard!

Dutch! · Post by **Dutch!** » Mon Aug 07, 2006 4:04 am

I put one up cos I thought that's what you did. But I knew nothing about webcomics until three days after I had one, so take that as you see it.

I've pretty much given up for a while now on actively posting stuff in it. I check it fairly regularly, but I don't expect to see any activity on it. Mostly a few people post when they spot a spelling mistake (or more often when I forget to put an earring on one of the girls' ears...that's happened more often than you'd think) but that's been about it lately.

It's there to be used if people want to. At the moment it's going through another trough.

Black Sparrow · Post by **Black Sparrow** » Mon Aug 07, 2006 6:37 am

My forum is dead. Deader than dead. So dead, I resorted to asking my sister to post on it to encourage other people.

The moral of the story: try waiting until you have a decent fanbase, and then pimp it to your readers as much as possible.

Killbert-Robby · Post by **Killbert-Robby** » Mon Aug 07, 2006 6:45 am

Biev wrote:A forum is a big commitment. It will be your job to keep it alive, and to keep hostile people out. Personally I wouldnt put myself through the trouble, mostly cause I'm already admin elsewhere and it's enough work as it is That and a dead forum makes the whole site look abandoned. I'm told some people pull it off, though from what I can see, the members usually know the artist. Even if you do have a little fangroup, it can be intimidating for random readers to join the clique.

Well from when I've owned boards in the past I can say the easiest thing to do is hand out moderator positions to your nearest and dearest. Takes off the work-load a bit.

Dr Legostar · Post by **Dr Legostar** » Mon Aug 07, 2006 9:19 am

BKR wrote:
legostargalactica wrote:you're going to have to qualify that.
Spoken like a true scientist.

which is good cause I am one.

TheSuburbanLetdown · Post by **TheSuburbanLetdown** » Mon Aug 07, 2006 9:46 am

Forums are useful for super-popular comics. I'm a member of one and it sees a huge ammount activity, more activity than all of comic genesis at times. The author will make special announcements and such to the forumites and we get sneak peaks at things other don't see. Plus a large number of us have met in person because if the forum, so it's pretty cool. And like Rickford said, much of the discussion is not even about the comic itself, but pretty much anything you can think of.